27/10/15
Slaves, man. They’ve made it. This time last year they were just about to hold their first ever sold out headlining show, at The Owl Sanctuary here in Norwich. After a year of hitting the big time, releasing their debut album and playing every festival going, they’re back for a sold out show at the LCR. I spoke to lead singer Isaac about mantarays, Skepta and musical soulmates.
So I interviewed Laurie this time last year, and you were just about to play your first ever sold out show at The Owl Sanctuary, one of our smallest venues. Now you’re just about to play a sold out show at UEA, Norwich’s largest venue. How’s life changed in the last year?
Life has changed in that we’re away from home a lot and are very busy. It’s become more of a constant thing, this music thing. But I don’t feel that life hasn’t changed too much…I guess more people are coming to the shows now and the gigs are bigger and it’s more serious but it’s much the same; we’re still doing what we were doing this time last year.
Have you noticed your audience changing? For example, your audience at the Owl was very different to your R1 Big Weekend audience.
Yeah, it varies from gig to gig. But I think the nice thing about our shows is that it’s all different people coming together, there isn’t a typical Slaves fan. They’re all sizes and shapes and styles and ages. It’s pretty cool, and it’s only become more so.
What’s been the most exciting thing you’ve done in the last year?
I’m not sure actually, there have been so many! I guess doing all the major festivals; we played Glastonbury, which was a dream come true, and we’re starting to get on to the next album now which is very exciting.
Have you been writing songs over the last year ready for the new album?
We’ve always got stuff in the pipeline and together we’re always creative. But we booked some time off recently so we’ve been in the studio writing together. It’s been very productive and we’ve written a lot already. I feel like this album’s going to be very different to the last one. There’re some of the same themes like social documentation and some silly songs, but we’re experimenting with different instruments now. We touched on that on the last album with tracks like 9,9 but we’ve used synths this time and stuff. It’s still just us two playing but we’re trying out some new things.
So you’ll have to bring more stuff with you on tour and swap instruments about when you play live?
Yeah yeah! It will be fun, I’m well up for that. As much as I love standing up behind the drums, I’m not able to run around so I’m looking forward to doing some different stuff.
I see you’ve been doing some DJ sets recently. What are your top tracks that you play?
Oooooh. Limp Bizkit’s Rollin’. It’s just a tune isn’t it? What else? I wish I had my playlist up…definitely Limp Bizkit. If you wanna get a little club of people moshing, put that one on.
What do you listen to on your tour bus?
We’re both into different music, old and new, probably a lot less loud aggressive music than people might think. We like a lot of acoustic music…it’s like refreshing your palate before a gig, it’s nice to listen to some nice calming tones.
I know you played loads of festivals this summer; did you manage to catch anyone else’s set?
To be honest, our schedule’s so packed that we didn’t get a chance to see anyone. You just roll in, do a load of press and shoot off cos you’ve got another one halfway up the country. That’s the downfall; you get all these amazing opportunities to go to all these festivals but then you’re too busy to see bands you want to see. We just mooch about…when I’m at a festival I have loose plans to see bands but it never really happens. I just like wandering about seeing what I come across.
Who’s your mantaray friend?
He’s a boy called Ollie Walton, a very close friend of mine from Tunbridge Wells. He started off doing our merch, and then we wrote that silly song and actually he starred in our music video and they let us keep the costume and we decided to start doing it live. Every time we played the song live he’d come out in his costume. But then it all got a bit old and we started having visions of him still doing it as a 50 year old so we decided to knock it on the head!
How was the R1 Big Weekend in Norwich for you, with Skepta’s cameo for Shutdown?
It was mad. We had planned to do it, but had had only one practice. I looked at the side of the stage as the song started and our tour manager shook his head like “no, he’s not here” so I thought he hadn’t turned up and I’d have to do all the verses on my own. But apparently he was running late, heard us starting the song, jumped off the buggy that was giving him a lift to the stage, sprinted on stage, grabbed his mic and got on with it. It was amazing; both Laurie and I are big grime fans and I used to rap along with Skepta’s beats on my phone with my friends when I was at school so it was a real moment for me. I’ll remember that all my life.
Now that you’re starting your new album has it made you stop and think about who you are as a band and what message you’re trying to get across through your music?
Yeah I think so; we don’t want to churn out the same record again and again. I think you’ve always got to be looking for new ideas and inspirations. It definitely feels different, doing the second album compared to the first one. But me and Laurie are quite lucky in that when we’re in a room together it just flows out, so we write very easily together. We’re musical soulmates.
How have you and Laurie been getting on? You must’ve spent more time together than ever before recently.
Yeah, we’re always gonna be close. We’ve got a brotherly relationship. We get on each other’s nerves but we love each other very much. We never argue; if we’ve got a dispute it’ll be done and dealt with in a matter of seconds; if you’re working that closely with someone you can’t have things like that hanging over you because otherwise it’ll affect the whole tour party and the show.
You guys spent years grafting away playing small venues but now you’re much better known and are playing big shows. Do you still enjoy it the same as you used to?
Yeah we love it. We live for the live shows!
You’re both still pretty young. What do you see yourselves doing in 10 years time when you’ll be in your early 30’s?
I dunno. We’ve both said the second it stops being fun we’ll stop doing it; we started the band cos it was exactly what we wanted to do, we didn’t expect it to go anywhere. It just so happened that it started going well for us - we take each day as a blessing, as clichéd as that sounds. We feel very blessed to be in this position, and we worked hard to get here but there’s an aspect of luck; the right person at the right time sees you and you’re away. It’s wicked!
What’s your favourite song to play live?
That’s a hard one. I’ve always enjoyed playing Beauty Quest cos it’s fast and loud and goes on for quite a while. It’s quite hard work though; I finish the song and I’m like, dead.
What can we expect from your sold out show at UEA?
We’ll be playing some songs from the album that we haven’t played live before. They’re kind of tricky but we’re going to practice beforehand. It will be classic “us” but with a few added extras.
Slaves play the LCR on 18th November