Music > Interviews

Gengahr

23/06/15

North London group Gengahr uploaded their catchy, 90’s tinged ethereal tunes to BBC Introducing and have had support from Huw Stephens and 6 Music since then. They’ve signed to a label, are playing loads of festivals this summer and their debut album has just been released. They play Latitude this month and also at Norwich Arts Centre in October so you’ve got no excuse not to catch this group on the up and up.  I spoke to lead singer Felix about playing at SXSW, his falsetto vocal style and what the record industry’s really like.

Where did you get your name from?

We had a name but had to change it because someone else had it already. In a moment of frustration we realised that all the names we came up with sounded quite pretentious, so we thought we’d come up with something silly. Gengahr is our favourite Pokemon. We didn’t really think it through.

Who’s your inspiration as a songwriter and also your vocal style? How did you find your own singing voice?

I think early on Lou Reed and David Bowie were who I wanted to write like. As far as singing stuff goes, we were trying out a few songs in falsetto and I really didn’t like it, I though it sounded terrible, but the rest of the guys thought it sounded pretty cool. I’d never really tried it until then, but since then I’ve gotten a lot better at doing it so I don’t mind it anymore. I think it’s easier than singing normally when you’re touring a lot, I’ve not lost my voice, even from doing two shows at The Great Escape.

The first track I heard by you was She’s a Witch. What’s the story behind that song?

I was talking to someone on Facebook Messenger and they said something like “maybe this, maybe that” and I used that for the chorus and then built up a story around it. It’s very fictitious, there’s nothing deep that happened behind that song. Generally I just try and build narratives; even if they come from somewhere real, I embellish  and add elements that weren’t there before.

How do you go about writing songs?

It’s very different and it depends…I spend a lot of time writing lyrics but we get together as a band and go through stuff and it’s rare that a track ends up sounding anything like how it started off. The nice thing is that everyone has their jobs and responsibilities within the writing circle. It can happen quickly if it’s good, and if it doesn’t happen quickly we normally throw it away and work on something else because it’s better to keep things fresh and exciting, which hopefully comes across in the songs.

It’s pretty bonkers how you only had 3 demos but played Glastonbury and supported Wolf Alice and Superfood on tour. Has it all been a bit of a whirlwind for you guys in the past year?

I don’t think it’s been as weird for us as it appears from the outside because we’ve all been doing this for a long time now. Some of us have been in bands for ten years. It felt good this time. There hasn’t been a huge amount of pressure to put the album together; although we had put a few songs online, we held some back. We though it would be better to put some choice things out there. In this day and age when people have a short attention span, if you give them five songs they’re almost less likely to like it than if you give them one good one. We’re pretty focused, and whenever we have down time we try and use it. Like, I’ve got my guitar in my hand right now! I think you only get stressed out if you’re unprepared and we try and make sure we’re ready for every step as it comes.

What was it like playing at SXSW, the first time you played in America? What sort of response did you get?

That was amazing! It came through because of BBC Introducing. They’ve been really good to us. That was our favourite thing we’ve done so far; we’d love to go back there soon. We didn’t really know what it was going to be like…whether 10 people would turn up or 100, and we ended up playing to 800 people! We had no expectations; we played two shows and at the second show people were watching through the window! We were on a real buzz after that. 

I suppose you also don’t know which influential people might be in crowd too, at events like that?

Yeah, we’ve done quite a few of those industry type events and we always had a good turn out for them but then when we started to do our own headline shows we realised how many of those people are industry people. They don’t buy tickets so they’re not necessarily the people we want there, we want people there who wanted to listen to the music. So we’re building towards that now.

What’s surprised you most about the record industry so far?

Everyone’s your friend before you sign a record deal…but then these people quickly move onto the next thing. It was really healthy for us to sign to an indie label that we wanted to work with. We had very clear ideas on how we wanted to do things; most of the time you get what you’re given, but we were in a position where we had some options which was really nice. The sooner you can get that stuff over and done with the better, so you can start sorting out your live shows and make sure you have a record.

So your debut album’s just come out, A Dream Outside. How come you decided to call it that?

It was poignant for me. I’ve been trying to do this for so long…I’d been dreaming about playing Glastonbury for years and years before we actually got to do it, and I felt sad that as you get older your dreams become less exciting and more realistic and pragmatic, so I thought the album itself should be about dreaming above and beyond your expectations.

Where I Lie and Dizzy Ghosts remind me a bit of Pavement with the start stop nature of it and woozy guitar. Which 90’s bands or sounds have influenced this album?

Essentially we are of the 90’s; we’re 25 so we came in at the back end of all that stuff. Bands like Radiohead and other really good British guitar bands from that era are particularly important for us. And other bands like Nirvana, and Pavement and Dinosaur Jnr are some of my favourites as well, I’ve always been into the grungier stuff, especially as a teenager. So yeah I think there are those influences in there, especially in our guitars, but we like to offer a new take on it.

What’s next for Gengahr? Have you already started to think about your next album?

We’re always writing and rehearsing…now we’re pretty well rehearsed for the first album so there’s no need to practice any more…our focus is playing festivals and working on new stiff. We’ve also recorded stuff since the album and that’ll be coming out at some point. There’s loads of stuff going on.

Gengahr play at Latitude Festival this month and at Norwich Arts Centre on13th October. Tickets from ueaticketbookings.co.uk

Lizz Page