Getting To Know: Londons hottest new indie band Volleyball - (Interview)
This week we spoke to London’s finest indie export Volleyball who have releases their new single, ‘Escape’, which is the perfect psychedelic rabbit hole to lose yourself in. The band of Londoners who thrive in creating timeless tracks of fuzzy melodies and diverse multi-media releases are back and harnessing the sunbeams of summers past in the most glorious fashion. Continuing their mission of manifestation, the band pulls you into their waves of swirling guitar, full bass and decisive vocals which warn of the passing of time. A release that expands far beyond the track itself, this single is paired with live isolation video, remixes, alt versions and even a videogame. Together, Volleyball prove that while the present moment may pass, this track will never escape your mind.
Hey Volleyball - How are you doing? how has lockdown been for you guys?
Hiya. It’s been productive, we’ve been basking in the strangeness of the year and trying to keep the various plates spinning. It’s led us down a few tracks that we otherwise would not have ventured.
How Long have you been making music & how did you all meet?
We’ve been making music as Volleyball for about a year and a half. We met through making tracks for other bands and ended up coming together more and more in the writing process. Thom appeared in Rudi’s house one day - they have known each other for years, but reconnected through a party based coincidence and he really suited the style of writing for volleyball so jumped straight in.
Why do you make music?
We have parallel tastes and instincts for music, yet our differences in writing complement each other in a way that makes writing a really interesting process. We have worked on defining our sound as ‘Volleyball’ for a while now which is a tricky thing to do in music. For these two reasons - it has become an important part of our lives - exploring the psychy band side of music. We want to push towards exploring our philosophies on life and music, asking the question why do we make music, what is good / bad about it. There must be a reason why we feel the need to burn time and money on stoking the VB fire.
Listen to Volleyball’s Latest Single ‘Escape’
What are your biggest influences?
Enthusiasm is infectious and inspiring. Whether that be for a song that we are writing, a band we are into, a film we like, a book someone is reading. This fuel can push you on and go a long way in inspiring you. Realising where these motivations come from is really valuable.
I also heard a great thing from the drummer Benny Greb - a session drummer talking about practice routines. He said show yourself progression and it will take care of the motivation.
Then on a more straight fortward level, our influences at the minute are King Gizzard and the lizard wizard, Men I Trust, Mildlife and JW Francis. We make a playlist of what we are into [called ‘Mindflowers’] and update it every few weeks.
How Would You Describe Your Sound To Somebody Unfamiliar with you and your music?
Dream psych - a bit shoegazey, wobbly guitar and synth sounds, ethereal cruising melodies with assured punchy drums.
What Would Be Your Dream ‘I've Made It Moment?
A big crowd singing a song back at us.
We Are Huge Fans Of Your New Single ‘Escape’, What More Can You Tell Us About It?
It started as an interesting drum beat / bassline idea. We added some angular guitar and early vocal melodies were almost in the realm of everything everything. It started coming together when we pulled it more towards the other volleyball songs that we had at the time. It remains a sort of strange song in terms of conventionality but has formed an interesting corner of the VB sound. Lyrically it was inspired by a zen concept of reality being like a great river - how you have to let certain things happen and go with the flow.
Is There Any Positives You Can Take Away From The Strange Times Of 2020/2021?
[Rudi] - Personally i Learnt what life is like when you are rushing around less, what it’s like to be confined to the house for long periods. Not something I was ever familiar with. It also forced us to explore some more skills which are going to be super useful moving forward. We made a number of ‘isolation style’ live videos - playing separately in sequence to create a live performance. We have one for each of the songs we are releasing this year.
What Should We Expect From You For The Rest Of 2021?
Certainly more music....we are going to champion bandcamp over the next few months - exploring how best to get our music to the world beyond streaming services. We are also exploring a few other approaches to how we could finance some bigger releases in some alternate ways, it’s proven to be a tricky territory to navigate - potentially releasing music via alternative routes than just ‘record deal’...but something we have our eyes on.
Listen & Follow - VOLLEYBALL - on Spotify.
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