A lot has happened this year for The Slow Show. Since I reviewed their Manchester show back in Febuary they’ve released an EP, had some seriously impressive airplay and gained a large national fan base. As they are about to embark on a European tour, I got together with singer/guitarist Rob Goodwin and keyboardist Fred Kindt talk about what’s been happening.
Things have really changed for you guys since I last saw you play The Ruby Lounge in Febuary. Can you tell Manchester’s Finest what you’ve been up to since then?
Things started speeding up with the release of our second EP ‘Brother’ in May. The EP received a lot of local and national airplay including the great Steve Lamacq and Lauren Laverne and we’ve made live performances on some great shows such as Radio 2’s Dermot O’Leary show and Radio 4’s Loose Ends.
We’re reaching a much wider audience now which helped us sell out gigs in some really interesting places. We particularly enjoy playing in churches. Just recently we played at the Union Chapel in London and the Waterbeach Baptist Chapel in Cambridge.
How has this affected you as a band?
The band is spending a lot more time together now and has become a really tight group enabling us to fine tune our sound. I suppose the reaction to ‘Brother’ has encouraged us to carry on writing and has made us much more confident. We’re also so excited about what’s to come. New ideas come from from all angles within the band as everyone is actively involved in the writing process.
We’re also so excited about what’s to come. New ideas come from from all angles within the band as everyone is actively involved in the writing process.
You’ve obviously made an impact and are about to embark on an impressive European tour, how did you go about choosing which venues to play?
Reactions from fans have come from as far as Australia and Indonesia but mainly Europe, and interaction online means we can see where and who likes our music. We’d love to play all these places soon but for this tour Germany and Switzerland will feature prominently as our fans there have been greatly supportive and inviting over to perform.
Dates in Belgium and France may also follow. We’re planning another tour in spring next year which will most probably include a lot more countries.
You work with a number of musicians who are not in the band, how will this all work on tour?
The brass band sound is quite an important part of our music so we’ve made sure we can take our cornet player on tour. On a lot of the UK gigs we use a bigger brass section. Our backing vocalist Hannah who only joined us earlier this year has gradually become such an integral part of our sound that she is now involved in the creative side too so she is a fixed part of the band and will also come on tour with us.
With such a busy schedule, are you having time to write new music?
We have a short break from gigs now before we start the tour on 22 October and have already started work on our debut album. We write pretty much all the time. Even when the band are not together we often work on new ideas separately. We regularly book a week in a studio by a loch in Scotland to bounce our ideas of each other and turn them in to new songs. It’s a beautiful place with no distractions where we can lock ourselves away and write for hours.We’ve written the first part of our album there and it really seems to be working. I think the isolation really helps us, we’ve been very productive there.
We regularly book a week in a studio by a loch in Scotland to bounce our ideas of each other and turn them in to new songs. It’s a beautiful place with no distractions where we can lock ourselves away and write for hours.
Aside from your forthcoming tour, what can we expect from The Slow Show in the future?
Work on our debut album will probably keep us very busy for the next 6 months. Release is planned for next spring accompanied by an other UK and European tour. We’ll also be very active in next summer’s festival season with some great slots already being planned.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9-x462f7UDY
As part of their forthcoming tour, The Slow Show are booked to play Roadhouse, Manchester on the 13th December. You can buy tickets here. To find out more about The Slow Show visit their webpage.
Interview by Anne Louise kershaw. You can find me on Twitter here.
