Birmingham has seen a number of break out bands in recent years including NME buzzbands Peace and Swim Deep. Along with JAWS, the three made up the foundations of the ‘B-Town’ music scene. Dreamy rockers JAWS have since edged themselves away from the scene but they’ll be forever grateful for the exposure the label got them. Drummer Eddy Geach said: “Whilst it was happening, it wasn’t bad because we were getting a lot of things from it. Being associated with Peace and Swim Deep is not a bad thing really and they helped us out a lot at the start.”
The three piece are currently on tour and for the first time, it’s not to promote a new song or new album, something which makes the high sales of tickets all the more impressive for singer Connor Schofield. Connor said: “We were with our booking agent last night in London and it occurred to us that, despite being off cycle at the minute – we’re not promoting a record or anything – we’ve still managed to sell over 100 tickets to each show so far. Some are sold out, some have sold over 200 tickets and to be able to do that unsigned off-cycle is quite a cool achievement.”
Be Slowly, the bands debut album was released in the summer of 2014 and was met with widespread praise for the indie rockers. The album echoed influences from The Cure with it’s dreamy, wistful sound. The album even managed to sneak into the UK album charts, something Geach never expected. He said: “We can’t really ask for any better than how it done. We were unsigned and getting into the album charts was like… even talking about it is weird for me cause we never thought it would happen, then it did happen and it was just like, flipping heck.”
The achievement was made all the more impressive due to the fact that the band themselves weren’t completely happy with how Be Slowly sounded, citing that it felt rushed and incomplete. Connor said: “Be Slowly was a bit rushed, it was a bit like ‘shit we need to release an album’. Looking at our setlist, we’re playing more songs from our first EP than we are from Be Slowly. Be Slowly well, it’s alright, but the new stuff is better.”
JAWS’ new album is completed now, with the band sitting on it whilst they sort a few things out. The band will be self-releasing the new record, which will probably be released early next year. The band premiered their first song since Be Slowly in April, the grungy and much heavier ‘Bad Company’ becoming a sign of things to come. This was then followed up by a new single from the as of yet untitled new album, ‘What We Haven’t Got Yet’ which premiered on Huw Stephens’ Radio 1 show. Both singles have shown a more brash and heavy side to JAWS’ music, as they drifted away from their wavy synth sounds. This wasn’t intentional says Schofield, who describe the transition as natural. He said: “This is the fourth year of this band and it gets to a point where if you’re not enjoying it or enjoying the songs you’re playing and you keep writing fake songs to appease other people it’s not really worth doing it all anymore. Not that we don’t love our old songs and none of them are fake songs, it’s just that this was a natural moving sound, it’s not like we went ‘oh, don’t want to sound like that anymore’ it was just honesty.”
The band joke about how during soundchecks or practice sessions, they often ended up jamming something heavy and secretly loving it. It’s a refreshing change to see a band willing to take a risk with their music; rather than playing it safe they’ve decided to be honest with themselves with the new material being a natural progression. Describing the recording process, Connor said: “It was weird cause it all just sort of happened. I hate saying that but songs do just happen. There are loads of bands that will sit in the practice room for hours and at the end they’ll be like ‘fuck sake, nothing’s happening’. For us if it’s gone over 2 hours we just say enough and go home, refresh our minds and come back to it.”
Lead guitarist Alex Hudson laughs that tracks ‘What We Haven’t Got Yet’ and ‘Gold’ from their Milkshake EP probably took a combined total of 30 minutes to write, highlighting their proficient writing. The fluidity in the band’s writing was evident when the gruelling process of deciding the track listing for the new album was happening, with over 30 songs being recorded for it compared to only 11 for Be Slowly. JAWS are keen to stress though that despite them leaning to a much heavier sound on the new album, that there are still lots of ‘vibes’ with Connor stating that if you ‘imagine ‘Swim’ from the last record, but good – you’ll have the new album’.
The general consensus from the band is that new album will be a much stronger record. All bands say this, but with JAWS, you believe them. Maybe it’s how humble and genuine they are, or maybe it’s because their brilliant debut was underwhelming to them. Either way, be sure to keep an eye on them, because JAWS are sounding bigger and heavier than ever.
Words by Jordan Gillen