First few seconds at the concert when you can hear the opening of their set and you know that you are in the right place. False Heads are not just another band as many. They are coughing attention with their style and passion. They just have realised the lead single of their debut album called „Fall Around” and very soon they will release their debut album. False Heads are hard-working but they also love touring, singing together at the backstage and playing live. If they will be playing close to your home town take your friends go and see them. I do not doubt that very soon they will be playing at Brixton Academy or even The Royal Albert Hall. Here is an interview I have made with them in London before their last concert of this year. And don’t forget to follow them because next year is going to be even more than interesting.
False Heads are: Luke Griffiths (vocal and guitar), Jake Elliott (bass) and Barney Nash (vocal and drums).
Tonight is your last day of the tour. How was it?
Luke: It was very good fun.
Barney: Being off tour. We had a day off yesterday. It is just realising how crap going back to normal life is. Yeah, but it was really good fun. „A” were great. All team were great to us and ‘68 band been such great guys to hang out with. Awesome.
Luke: It has been good because we have just recorded our album. So we have been playing a lot of trucks of that. So we are just smashing out and there isn’t that so much prresure on us.
Jake: We have been a little bit worried because Barney broke his hand just before we went on tour. So the first time we have played on the first night, it was the first time when we played together for something like 6 weeks. We didn’t actually know if we were up to play but it was alright, I think.
Barney:Not shit. Not great. (laugh) Jake: But greatest came.
Also, you are from London and you are playing tonight in London. So how is it to play in your home town? Luke:It is gonna be a bit different because it is not our headline show. Last time when we played in London there was a room full of people who came to see us. So we could be a little bit more chaotic. But it is always good to play in London. The Garage is very epic venue so we are looking forward to play. It will be a lot of fun.
You are a very hard working band, you have been pretty solid on tour. But when it is over, do you have a favourite place to relax, turn yourself off?
Jake:The same as grief, I think. Time is the only thing that could stop you for being in tour mood. The first couple of days back, you just literally don’t know what to do.
Barney: You wake up and you are just lost. It is like „I can shower. I guess..? Or watch TV...”
Jake: You would be too itchy to seat down and watch some TV. I have to do something.
Barney: Even last night at eleven o’clock I was going to bed. That would be usually time when we are starting to load out or just finish the gig or having a beer. But at home, you are going to sleep and it just fucks with you.
Luke:But I think we are in a really good place right now. We have just signed a record and we are doing everything. We have been working on some new songs already. So I think it will pretty divide into kind of work on the second album before the first one is even released.
Jake:So maybe it will be one week off before coming back to writing.
Luke:We are pretty good at that. We normally get back pretty straight into writing as much as we can. So, It would be fine, it is Christmas, so…
Do you remember that moment when you realised that „I want to be a musician, This is what I want to do for a living”?
Luke: Yeah, there have been quite two. One, like listening to music which was Radiohead and Nirvana. Then I thought „This is what I want to do”. And second, when we have played at the main stage. That was the moment when I realised that „We can fucking do this, we are good enough to do this. I believed in us that we can do this.
Jake: Well, for me. I knew that I want to do it for a long time before. But the most purposeful I have ever felt in the band was when, we came back off tour, and we almost immidiately started writing new tracks. That was a weird couple of months. I think the most focused we have ever been as a collective and even the most hard-working we have ever been. There is something beautiful about that time. Like getting everything together for the album.
Barney:I would say basically the same. It has always been there. I have always been a musician so it has never been anything different than playing music in my life. So, to get to the position when we can start to make it, it is just great and some kind of progression. I only become more and more assured, as time goes on. And we are still assured.
What is the best part of being in the band?
Jake: Just this literally. Just go on tour. We are quite lucky that three of us are enjoing a touring kind of lifestyle. I think we do our best and get on the best when we are on tour. So yeah, touring.
Luke: See, I am gonna say as much as I love touring and I love it like 9/10, recording an album was my favourite. Basically kind of the rough outline of the band is to fuck around and don’t know exactly what we are doing. And Jake will kind of stop me and Barney when we are doing really silly things. And then we all just get bored.
Barney: It is so ironic. (laugh)
Luke: I know, but that coming together such as seeing process in recording studio… I kind of felt like we can do 10 albums like this. And I don’t want to fucking jinx this because it might have changed but It felt so easy. I enjoyed that so much. Because this is how I felt and what I always wanted. To fuck around, half write a song and then have people good enough in a band to make with them proper songs. It worked so well and I am proud of that.
You just released your leading single of the debut album called ‘Fall Around”. How would you describe it?
Luke:„Fall Around” is really our song. I wrote everything and then Jake wrote the solo, something like 6 years ago. Well, my mom doesn’t like any heavy music but she is always humming the chorus or singing the demo. And then we brought it to the band when we finally become a full set. Barney did his bit and it become what it is. To be fair it was received very well. I would describe it as a good introduction to what False Heads is.
Jake:It is like one end of full sense spectrum. The album covers a lot. It is a good representation. We haven’t started an album campaign yet but there is a lot of different stuff in there.
So your debut album is finished. Can You say something about the atmosphere during recording?
Barney:It is a collective of work that Luke did over the last 10 years, collective of work that we have done as a collective, of a collective…. Of our last 4 years. The journey that we have had. We have picked good shit and added some stuff on top. Basically it was an evaluation of work that we have done as a band. It is very interesting how it will be received and to see how it will go after that. We think that this is a great representation and we are fucking proud of it.
Luke: And it was really nice to finally do it. We have been struggling for the last 4 years, we got stuff out of control. So we have finally had a team around us to just record our first album. The fact that it was so easy. The atmosphere in the studio was great and our producer and all us three. So really there are no negative or rock and roll stories about the album. It was just really fucking good.
Jake:We have recorded lot of the music, played some music in the evening and then went to bed.
How does your writing process look like?
Luke: Mostly I am writing vocal and lyrics, then we jam on it and whatever cames out it, comes out.
Barney: I think we are start with an idea and it can be so small but together we are solid developing that. For example, Elton John, who says that the best songs are written in half an hour. We have never wrote any song in half an hour. We take our idea, develope it and leave it for a little while, doing something else. Everything happens quite slowly but not to ridiculous extent.
Jake:I don’t know what we are going to put in a second album. But it will be brilliant.
Do you have your dream venue?
Jake: Yeah, I think The Brixton Academy. If we could headline that and we would sell it out it would be great.
Luke:I have seen Pixies quite recently in Italy. So maybe in Italy.
Barney: Royal Albert Hall. For me, it is like you only get invited if you are on certain level as a band. If we will ever play there, it would be like massive honour.
Jake: Wembley Stadium or anywhere in Hamburg
Barney: Yeah, anywhere in Hamburg
Do You have a guilty pleasure song?
Jake:Lots of them!
Barney:So many!
Luke: Mine is „Kiss Me” by Sixpence None The Richer.
Jake: Pretty much all of our playlists. Other night we have put on pop songs from the times when we were students. My song is „Sugar” by Maroon 5. (start singing). I love that song.
Luke: Oh, my guilty pleasure is listening to Jake singing like that.
Barney: Mine is „That Don’t Impress Me Much” by Shania Twain. (both start singing).
Who inspires you?
Luke: Thom Yorke and Curt Cobain. Also Elliott Smith. I don’t think that anyone, even The Beatles comes to what that guy did melodywise. I think his melody is just fucking unbelievable and I really respect that.
Jake: For me, in terms of bands - Gary Jarman from The Cribs, I really like his bass lines. And Leonard Cohen’s album just came out and I am listening that like non-stop. He is just an absolute legend.
Barney: For me, Josh Scogin from ’68. He has just been rocking in bands for years and years. Holds down a marriage, holds down touring, holds down a lot. This is who I wanna be, he is so inspiring. And his guitar skills! You can always hear it in the background. So yes, now he is just a massive inspiration for me even if we have met something like 10 days ago. Also, Josh Homme – fucking hero.
If you could choose anybody, with whom would you like to share a cup of the tea and why?
Barney: But is it 11 am …
Jake: Or early afternoon, as a quick as half an hour.
Luke: Okay, I will say a cup of tea with somebody like Eminem would be hilarious. Just to seat and see how is it like, I would go with Eminem.
Jake: Actually I would like to have it with a Queen and see how it is. Donald Trump would be hillarious. Just seat with him.
Luke: I would go with The Queen and tell her ”Fuck the Royal Family!”. I would get rid of them. You can put that in the interview.
Barney: Cup of tea… well probably with Skepta. So Skepta, I am calling you out now, tagging here, I will beat you at FIFA. Do not question that.
Do you want to add something?
Luke: Well we will just have a few more singles and than our debut album comes out. We will go to the United States and then tour in the UK. We will announce this very soon so just keep looking. So many things will happen next year.
Interview and photos: Zuzanna Majewska
Editor: Grzegorz Biały
