☟YES/NO☟: Who Needs You

Showing posts with label Who Needs You. Show all posts

Tuesday, 17 September 2013

LAZY INTERVIEW #13: THE ORWELLS

Currently, recently and of late I have been having a small love affair with The Orwells, a five-membered band which is a rising punk rock star right now. There's a lot of interest in them. That's no surprise. Having released a debut album last year, one EP at the start of summer and another, Who Needs You, at the end of summer, this string of releases is catching the attention of everyone who has a penchant for the young energy of The Orwells' raucously raunchy music.

I went to go see them live last week, which was an experience that showed me their recorded songs - as good as they are - cannot match the furious frenzy of their in-the-flesh renditions. I really do recommend that you go and see them, if you can of course. It's something that injects the soul with the spark of punk spirit that The Orwells' crashing boom bang sound creates. It was fun. And on top of that, they were extremely kind enough to take time to answer the Lazy Interview questions. What gentlemen!

Who are you? Where are you from? What do you do?
　We're The Orwells, we're from Chicago, Illinois. We play rock n' roll music.

Why did you decide to start creating music?
　It was one of the only things we weren't horrible at. And it gave us something to do on the weekends.

How would you describe your sound? What makes you and your style stand out?
　Youthful. I think it's our energy that makes us different from the rest, when we play live, having a good time comes before performing well.

Is there a perfect time and place for listening to your music?
　When you just got suspended from school.

What inspires you most when writing a song?
　Thinking of being on stage with each other playing it to a crowd of people. Finding the connection between all five of us.

What is your most memorable musical experience?
　Hearing The Stooges' 'I Wanna Be Your Dog' for the first time. That song put the band on the path we're currently still venturing down.

What are your favourite three songs at the moment?
　The Virgins - Travel Express
　Ty Seagall - She Don't Care
　Bob Dylan - She's Your Lover Now

Who do you most admire in the music world?
　The Replacements.

In your opinion, what is the future of music?
　Rock n' roll will take over this planet again. Mark my words.

What's the future of your music - what do you hope to do next?
　Keep making different sounding albums. See how far we can push the walls to our box without breaking them.

What, aside from music, is most important to you?
　Family, cheese fries, and baseball.

In some ways, the most important thing that's said here is the word "youthful" - it's what they are most known for. But that's only in some ways. However, it is definitely something that makes them stand out. Their songs are bursts of irony, vents of frustrations, slightly morbid explosions - things that, more often than not, come from young minds. Putting that kind of stuff on a record is easy enough, but to play it with even more attitude, energy and aggression onstage - as if your life depended on it almost - is something that isn't easy to replicate every time. In that sense, they're very genuine.

It all seems to be about the live performances with these guys. They would prefer to have a "good time" over "performing well", but often if you don't think about performing at all, and just enjoy yourself, things go more swimmingly than you'd imagine. Simply by trying to have a fun time, trying to connect with each other, and always thinking of that live sound, The Orwells - in their muddle of youth as we all are - become more philosophical than they perhaps expected they'd be perceived: they are about the NOW. People may gloss over a band like The Orwells with a just-another-punk-band cynicism - for me, however, they put noise to all the wordless exclamations of our generation. Plus, cheese fries - or cheesy chips as we know them here in the UK - are very important.

As for their prediction of rock 'n' roll taking over the planet again... I've never really thought about that but, in a time where dance music is dominating popular music, the switch back to guitar-based music could be closer - and more angry - than you think. Watch out world.

← #12: CORY JREAMZ #14: CUUSHE → - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
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Listen to The Orwells on Soundcloud
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Saturday, 7 September 2013

THE ORWELLS WHO NEEDS YOU EP

Wake up. Dispel the morning phantoms. Somehow acquire The Orwells' Who Needs You EP. Put your headphones on, or at least use some damn speakers that go damn loud, and bathe in the noise, grit and bouncy distortion that possesses these four songs. For me personally, it's a self-indulgent trip back to a breed of music that used to be all I liked when I was younger - it's also a brilliant continuation of a sound that, despite the inevitable detractions and purist naysayers, deserves to be nurtured and revitalised (not just kept in a Misfits/Black Flag/Ramones-shaped museum); and here it has been damn well revitalised.

The Orwells - Grant Brinner (bass), Henry Brinner (drums), Dominic Corso (guitar), Matt O'Keefe (guitar) and Mario Cuomo (vocals - no relation to Rivers Cuomo from Weezer, just a cool surname) - released their debut album Remember When last year and first EP, Other Voices, in June this year. This one, Who Needs You, is out 9th September on National Anthem records. There's gotta be a second album coming out pretty soon - that's just me speculating; I don't know really. What I do know, or what I believe - FEEL even - is that this EP will certainly tide over fans of the band and fans of thrash-pop-punk-lo-fi-rock stuff. Or perhaps it will just make you hungry for more. Yes, it's that tasty.

It begins with title-track 'Who Needs You', (which I wrote about, along with its video, in more detail last month) a loud and anthemic party-piece that is or could be a protest song for all us lost millennials: it's filled with pacifist leanings - "You better toss your bullets / You better hide your guns / You better help the children / Let them have some fun" - and bolshy self-disinheritance, i.e. "Listen up forefathers / I'm not your son". To be honest, this song stands out as different from the other three - it's like their "coming out" song. A more polished sound that, perhaps, will make its way onto their next release, or a one-off anthem: who can say?

Next up is one of two "Rip-offs" on the album, 'Open Your Eyes' - apparently a song done in the style of The Misfits. I think this "rip-off" thing is quite a neat idea - rather than just covering a song, they've paid a more meaningful homage to a band that has influenced many punk bands before. What's the saying? Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery? That doesn't even work in this case. Forget that. In any case, 'Open Your Eyes' resembles The Misfits mostly in vocal style. It opens with a gutsy snare roll and some thrashing distorted guitar and goes on to be exceedingly proficient in the low-end of the spectrum, the bass guitar and kick drum rumbling and thumping inescapably as Cuomo gives some gravelly rockabilly drawl to lyrics like "I wanna be your, be your, be your man" in this pogo-stickin' love song.

Then there's some heavy lo-fi goodness in 'Salvation Is A Parking Lot' - a Black Lips "rip-off" that has its similarities in the slap-dash fuzz of the general sound and the multi-voiced refraining chants of the chorus. This one is a glorious mess of noise complete with truncated guitar solo in the middle. A hot 'n' sweaty sound. The EP finishes with a live rendition of 'Halloween All Year', a dark subversion of doo-wop '50s prom-night rhythms complete with horror-tinged lyrics, such as, "There's a body on the ceiling looking for me / Get a knife from the kitchen and follow me" and "Take a drink from the vial / And laugh with me". They sound very good live. Cuomo is particularly impassioned, spluttering/laughing in the second half whilst belting out the lyrics. A suitable end to a punch-in-the-face of an EP.

So much energy. I love it. It's great. What else can I say? Jeez. Just listen to it. It's intense, fun, playful, noisy, bouncy, ballsy, raw... All of that. It's good shtuff. Get it.

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Like The Orwells on Facebook
Listen to The Orwells on Soundcloud
Visit The Orwells official site
Follow The Orwells on Twitter
Check The Orwells on Tumblr
Watch The Orwells on YouTube

Wednesday, 7 August 2013

THE ORWELLS WHO NEEDS YOU [VIDEO]

I know I don't often post about bands so much - I am not sure why that is. Before I began writing this post I was wondering, "Why is that?" and I thought that perhaps bands are more likely to have management, PR, etc. than people sitting in their bedrooms (horrible stereotype but there you go) making electronic music. So people who make electronic music are more numerous. Thus they're easier to find. Thus I post about them a little bit more and GOD what a horrid and pretentious word "thus" is. I'm sorry about that. Anyway, I might be wrong, ok? So don't worry.

Here we have The Orwells with a nice chirpy song called 'Who Needs You'. I first heard about The Orwells, a band from Chicago, when Palma Violets were talking on the radio about touring with them in America. They played one of their songs and I liked it. Fast forward to now, and I am finally getting around to writing about them. I still have "The Orwells" scrawled on a scrappy piece of paper somewhere as a crappy reminder.

It's a bouncy, rhythmically distorted number that has more in common with English stuff like The Libertines, for example - just listen to those staccato chords at the end of each chorus cycle: positively brimming with the pogo-bop of pop-punk. The drums are thick and create a dancefloor stomper, and the instruments don't overwhelm the vocals, instead being given their own, voice-free chance to shine. Speaking of the vocals, in fact, they're unique in their rich and raspy yelling, something that you wouldn't necessarily expect with this kind of music - something more high-pitched and affected would be more the kind of thing. For me anyway. However, it works perfectly. In fact, I love the vocals in this song. I think they are what give it their kinda indefinable edge - you can detect urgency and energy with them. The music backs them up very nicely.

The Who Needs You EP will by out 9th September (UK; 10th US). More juddering sounds to keep the onset of Autumn at bay, I hope!