Music > Interviews
Hope & Social
Norwich Arts Centre
20/09/17
In October the truly amazing, unique and rather spectacular, Hope & Social arrive in Norwich at the Arts Centre with the wind in their hair. Outline’s Steve Plunkett caught up with them just as they headed down the road on their tandems and tricycles for their Feel Again tour.
One year on from releasing your seventh album Feel, how does it feel to be back on the road once again (not that you are ever off it)?
Tired... mainly. But hey, that’s what you get for pursuing your childhood dream into adulthood, parenthood whilst trying holding down a mortgage, hold onto our partners and hold our heads together. The pressures of adult life aside, it’s just great to get the tunes out, make the noise together, and get to see people’s smiling faces at shows. Gigging is the payoff for all the drudgery of being a self-managed band. To get to play the music you’ve made to people who have their own connection to it is the biggest joy. Also, being onstage is just about the only time I feel physically okay.
You made the decision to release Feel on blue vinyl (and how very beautiful is too). Was there any particular reason for doing this?
Ego? Mainly, we thought “Mmmmmm, pretty blue vinyl!! We’d always wanted to release an album on vinyl, but it’s got to make artistic and financial sense to do so. When we made Feel, it seemed like a good opportunity to do it properly. We felt it sounds different enough to really go for a luxurious release; a CD, Ltd. Edition Blue Vinyl with gatefold artwork, Pay-What-You-Want digital and a suite of videos, one for each song on the album. Also, we made the vinyl release a conditional pre-order. Once we hit our goal, we could go ahead in the knowledge that even before we’d hit the “please press our album to vinyl” button, we’d already sold enough to pay for the pressing outright.
Your live gigs are normally extremely joyous occasions that are full of light, never any shade, just BIG bucket loads of full on positive energy, fun and laughter normally resulting in many happy smiling faces on the night and extremely sore throats the next day. How does it make you feel to see the audience get off on what you are doing and just how important are your crowd to your live shows?
Getting to connect with people at shows is one of the things that makes this the best job in the world for me. We consider ourselves incredibly fortunate that we’re able to make the music we want to make, however we want to make it, and get to tour as an eight piece and still get to take home some pennies to buy nappies and Aldi prosecco for a Friday night. There just aren’t that many bands (originals bands, of our age, and who haven’t had a biggish radio hit) that get to do what we do. How important are our audience? Quite simply, without our fans, we cease to exist. We’re deeply grateful for that.
What is the best thing about touring and doing live gigs?
Quite rarely, we’ll get to do a stop-over, in a nice hotel, and everyone can stay that night, and the show the next day is nearby, and check-out isn’t until 12, and there’s breakfast included, and no-one’s got any work to do that day, and we drink ‘til four and laugh until our faces hurt, and you wake without a hangover.
And the worst things?
See above, but *with* the hangover!
You are a band for the people. Every time I have been to one of your shows, it’s just great to speak to people that have really made an effort to come along to a show. Many seem to travel many, many miles to see you, don’t they? How do you make your magic?
Well, I feel it’d be a tad presumptuous to say I feel we make magic. That said, whatever it is that fuels that connection between us & our music and the people who connect with us, I hope it’s to do with people seeing a bunch of people unselfconsciously making music. I hope it’s that people can see that we don’t seek to be aloof, or to be rock stars, but that we’re personable, that we’re open, and that we’re human. Flawed, greying, and human.
When you played at The Portland Arms in Cambridge in January I brought a guy along (Dave) that me and my mate Gary recruited at a Courteeners gig a few months previously! That for me kind of sums up the spirit of the band and what you are all about. He believed my pitch about H&S, he came he saw and you conquered, and you blew him away. You just seem to get into people’s soul, once they have experienced you don’t you? How do you do it?
Two pints of snakebite and a Tunnocks Tea Cake.
2018 will mean that it’s ten years since you changed your name to Hope & Social (they were previously called Four Day Hombre), do you have any special plans to celebrate?
Oh me my… a day off? We’re just working on the plans for 2018 but it’s sure to include tours, festivals, an event of our own, and a new record. Possibly something smaller. An EP perhaps. Oh, and two pints of snakebite and a Tunnocks Tea Cake.
How have the last nine plus years been for the band?
I was in a van and a room and a van and a room and a room and a room.
What are the plans for the future?
To keep going. To keep making music, playing shows, making events, getting people involved. Maybe a new home, a move from our Crypt-of-a Church studio to something we can own? Two pints of snakebite… etc.
You appear to be great traditionalists at heart? There is a real honesty and integrity in your music and many a reference to old fashioned values. How would you describe the band and your values?
We’re a band, a proper band. An independent band (actually, I prefer the term interdependent - there are so many relationships we have that help us survive). We want to make music that moves people, and play shows that bring a tear to the eye, and a grin to the face.
One of my most favourite H&S songs is Ripples Rock My Boat from April. Do you still believe (if you ever did) in the power of a kiss and that one big hit?
I’ve got some pretty powerful kisses me! And as for the [coughs] “big hit” thing, I still believe in the song that lyric is referencing.
How much and in what ways has the music industry changed since you first came into it?
There’s not the time or space here to cover that. When Simon, Ed and I released our first record MySpace didn’t exist. There have been monumental changes to the music industries in that time. One thing I will say is that some of my enthusiasm for the possibilities afforded to independent musicians through social media has been somewhat quashed… in the main by the industrialised, London centric bits of the music industries. Big capitalism does wilful harm to the majority of musicians, and to the breadth of music that gets heard on mainstream media.
What does the future look like for the industry?
No-one knows. And if they’re telling you they know the future… they’re wrong, or outright lying.
What advice would you give to someone that’s looking to get on in the business?
Do the things you love, then find ways of making that pay an increasing portion of your income.
You only ask for pay what you want contributions for your music? Does this work for you? Don’t people take advantage of this? You have a minimum charge of just £1.68 for Feel on your website. Please explain.
The short story is, we’d rather that you had our music than not. The challenge for the vast majority of artists is to be heard. If we can remove the price barrier to you owning our music, then that’s a hurdle crossed. And y’know what, you might come to a show, or buy a T-Shirt, or make us a cake. And it costs us zero for you to download our music. And people are good, and they want us to have their money, so they pay us.
I think that you have only ever played in our fine City once before in your career (at the university supporting Embrace when you were Four Day Hombre? Do you have any memories of that gig at all?
Oh gosh, not a single one. I can bet we had ace food though. And drank hard afterwards.
What is the fascination with twine in your lyrics? It seems to have had several mentions in more than one of your songs now.
Have you *used* Baler Twine? It’s ace. Si’s a rural lad at heart, so twine featured strongly in his upbringing. Plus, it’s a good rhymer. Me, I’m more of a gaffer-tape and No-More-Nails kinda guy, but that doesn’t scan so well lyrically.
What would you say to someone that hasn’t maybe heard of you or been to one of your shows before?
Got any change for a bus home, luv?
Why should they come to the Norwich Arts Centre on the 10th of October?
If, like me, you’re dismayed at the general state of the world. Exasperated by Trump. Dismayed by Kim Jong-un. Bemused at Brexit… come forget all about it for two glorious hours of nonsense with people who’ll feel like friends by the end. Or…10th October is the 114th anniversary of Emmeline Pankhurst’s founding of the Women's Social and Political Union. Let’s celebrate! You choose.
What can we expect from the show? Will it be another Hope & Social event to remember?
Some new tunes we hope. A singalong. Some form of competitive musicianship and some dancing… if you can call it dancing.
I think that you will love the NAC, it’s just like a slightly bigger version of the Crypt (their recording studio) Do we need to bring anything? Maybe a cake, an instrument, my old kazoo or two or just ourselves and our voices?
Just your best dancing shoes and a smile. All descendants of Emmeline Pankhurst get discount entry.
I know that the band like a good curry, there is a great one not far at all from the venue (Bengal Spice). Will you be partaking pre-gig?
Thanks for the tip. YES!
Hope & Social play Norwich Arts Centre on 10th October. Tickets available from norwichartscentre.co.uk.