Having squeezed me into their very busy schedule, I had a catch up with the Cowley Quartet, Stornoway, about life as a band and their latest album Bonxie. Following the success of their debut demo I Saw You Blink,’ Stornoway were the first ever band to perform on Later with Jools Holland, without a label assigned to their name. The band then signed with independent record label, ‘4AD’ and released their debut album Beachcomber’s Windmill. The album went down a storm and reached 14 in the UK album chart.
The band then spent the rest of 2012 recording their second album Tales from Terra Firma. The album reached 20 in the album chart. The album was beautifully constructed and received positive reviews – notably 5 stars from the Guardian newspaper. Stornoway quickly returned with the surprise announcement of a mini album, You Don’t Know Anything, which would contain outtakes from their previous album. The piece received praise from the likes of Q Magazine, Rolling Stone and The Guardian Newspaper.
I spoke with the band’s drummer, Rob Steadman, and keyboard player Jon Ouin. The two met through Rob’s older brother Oli Steadman who had auditioned to become their bass player.
THE INDIEPENDENT: So where does the album name come from?
RS: With each album, we’ve gone through a many month-long process of collecting potential album titles. As usual, this time round we had quite a few weird ones in there (at one point Jon suggested “12 Snowballs in Hell”). “Bonxie” was added at some stage and immediately became the main contender – we all like its simplicity and the way it sounds – it has also proved to be a great word when it came for me to create the artwork – the X is a satisfying shape! It is the colloquial name given to an aggressive sea bird called the Great Skua. It’s character could be seen as similar to ours with this release.
THE INDIEPENDENT: How did you want the new album to develop the band’s music? I see for the new album you have, for the first time, brought in an external producer. What’s it like having this extra pair of ears? Do you think his influence has furthered the album?
RS: We had talked for some time after the last album about how we wanted to simplify things a bit – return to a more clean cut core setup of guitar, keyboards, bass, and drums. The last album was full of weird and wonderful instruments like glass harmonicas and a lot of brass and strings. This one has it’s extra bits too but they are simpler parts which have resulted in a simpler and more direct sound. We did decide that we wanted to work with a producer, to have someone push us out of our comfort zone and make us try a new direction. Gil Norton came onboard and was a joy to work with. From the start his goal was to build on the demos we had given him, and to help us realise what we wanted from the songs. On a personal note: I’ve never heard my drums sound so good!
THE INDIEPENDENT: Where and when do you write your songs?
JO: For this album Brian moved to the Gower peninsula in Wales and wrote a lot of the songs in his camper van. For my bits and pieces, I write in my bedroom in Oxford using my multitrack – I prefer to write music when I’m grumpy. Sometimes at night I will warble tunelessly onto my phone and hope it will make some kind of sense the next day. We all come together in the rehearsal studio to weak bits and work on arrangements as a band.
THE INDIEPENDENT: You’ve written some really great stuff, out of everything you’ve made which song are you most pleased with?
RS: Our new song ‘Get Low’ seems to be a firm favourite with audiences so far so it’s always a great one to play live. I think we’re all very pleased with ‘Man On Wire’ as we wanted to achieve an expansive and epic sound and feel that we did.
THE INDIEPENDENT: Now on your third album, you must have adopted quite a solid fan base. What’s the weirdest present a fan has given you? Have people ever shown you tattoos etc.
RS: We are always amazed by the support we get from our fans – especially those who took part in our Pledge campaign and helped fund the album. After our gigs there are usually a lot of people wanting to say hi and get something signed, and that part of the night is usually the most enjoyable I’d say! I do have a memory of seeing a tattoo on someone’s shoulder of lyrics from Fuel Up.
THE INDIEPENDENT: Brian Having Recently moved to rural Wales, and Rob having moved to New York, has it become more difficult for the band to work together?
RS: Brian made the move to Wales a while back in order to begin writing this album, and at that point in the process the focus is writing – and not touring or recording so it didn’t get in the way of anything. Similarly, I moved to New York a couple of days after we finished the studio recording for this album in order to produce the artwork. So although we live in different places our main focus is the band – and, in this modern world anything is possible!
THE INDIEPENDENT: Where do you see the band going in the future? What’s next?
RS: We’re looking forward to getting out on the road and playing these new songs to people, and then excited for a summer of festivals.
THE INDIEPENDENT: Are you doing any solo projects at the moment? Do you ever plan to give solo work a go.
JO: Well Oli and Rob are already at it, in that they have a great side project called Count Drachma which features Maskandi music sung in Zulu – they’ve been performing under this guise for quite a while now.
THE INDIEPENDENT: So who are you listening to at the moment? Who do you think we should have our eye on?
JO: I’m listening to Nils Frahm’s new album (‘solo’) right now and it’s beautiful. I like unusual keyboard instruments so maybe this is a bit predictable of me! It reminds me of the Jon Hopkins record from a couple of years ago, but more meditative. I’m also loving the new East India Youth record which I got yesterday, but you probably know about him already.
THE INDIEPENDENT: What are your 5 favourite albums of All time??
JO: Ridiculously hard question!! Today I’ll say: Brian Eno ‘Another Green World’, U. Srinivas ‘Mandolin Magic’, Elliot Smith ‘From a Basement on A Hill’, Flaming Lips ‘Soft Bulletin’, Love ‘Forever Changes’…
THE INDIEPENDENT: What’s the best gig you’ve ever done?
RS: We’ll all have different answers to this I’m sure but one that has always stuck in my head is our gig at Somerset House in 2011. It was an incredible place to play, and it was a sold out show to 2000 people so it was very energetic. We had a group called The North Sea Radio Orchestra accompanying us.
THE INDIEPENDENT: So obviously with a new album out you’ll be doing some festivals this summer. Are you excited – what’s your favourite festival?
RS: Definitely very excited for this summer. We’ll be playing at Cambridge Folk Festival and Towersey Festival to name two. Glastonbury is my favourite festival, always.
THE INDIEPENDENT: How did Oxford as a place influence your recordings?
JO: On the last record there were couple of location recordings in Oxford which we chose to get a natural acoustic. We did ‘Farewell Appalachia’ and ‘The Ones’ in a church in town because we liked how the vocals sounded in there, and another track ‘The Great Procrastinator’ was played in the local community centre. This time we recorded everything in a studio in the Cotswolds, so poor old Oxford didn’t get a look in! In terms of extraneous sounds, we’ve gone further afield in that the we’ve included field recordings of birds, and in one example, a bit more metropolitan, with the sounds of the street from Rob’s balcony in New York…
THE INDIEPENDENT: Why did you decide to crowd fund? Was it a success and would you do it again? Are you looking forward to the intimate gigs (and bird watching which I’m going on)
RS: Having left 4AD we wanted to try a new approach to fund the album, we found a great home in PledgeMusic and they have been stellar in helping us produce it. We reached 513% of our funding goal at last count. We’ve done some of the house concerts already and they are great to do – we’ve always enjoyed the more intimate ones.
THE INDIEPENDENT: What are your major influences? Have they changed as your music has?
JO: If I can speak for Brian, I think he draws a lot melodically from soul singers like Sam Cooke and Gorkys – that’s been a bit of a constant since we started. As for the second part of your question, I think there are always small stylistic elements within songs which are emblematic of something that we’re individually into (and perhaps we think they’re more obvious than they really are!)…and those aspects change like the weather – it kind of depends what song we’re working on at any given time.
THE INDIEPENDENT: Despite the upbeat lyrics, beachcombers windowsill seems to tell a sad story of love lost and mourned over. The lyrics and title of tales from terra firma seem more business as usual with the smaller delights and losses of life. Is that fair and what would you say bonxie is about?
RS: I think that’s a fair assessment. ‘Bonxie’ I think talks more about us as a band, and where we are in our lives, but also about us as humans and our connection to the natural world.
THE INDIEPENDENT: What’s your Most fun improvised instrument? E.g. you used a saw at one point
RS: Yes, I was playing the saw for a while there on tour (I secretly want to bring it back!) We all occasionally pick up new instruments, the latest addition has been a rain stick which we use in our acoustic version of Lost Youth.
JO: No saws allowed Rob, we’ve spoken about this before. Put it back in the tool box.
Words by Matt King