Music > Interviews

Interview with The Thinking Men

06/01/14

To be a musician, talent is only a small part of what you need in your armoury to succeed. Motivation is a big factor, determination is another, and resilience will make or break many bands. In the case of The Thinking Men, they have all three, and the talent to boot. To have your own internal quality barometer, and not indulge in focusing on any external negativity is a skill that’s best learnt early on. After coming second in Future Radio's Next Big Thing competition in 2012, it took the full collective strength of the band to come back and try again in 2013 - and ultimately, through their originality, passion and musicianship, win the competition. We caught up with the 2013 winners to ask them about the journey so far.

Just to clear up a bit of business before we start; I did hear that you had an Apple Store takeover the other day. Was that the work of one, or all?Johnny: I don't really know, to be fair.Sarah: It wasn't anything to do with any of us!Johnny: No, some gracious benefactor did it [laughs] I don't know how many it was.Ronnie: Yeah, it's cool, we didn't even pay them any money or anything! 

Do you have minions?Sarah: Well apparently!Duncan: I think we must have, but they're probably not yellow [laughs].

You were Outline's Band of the Month a couple of years back now, and since then, some things have changed. Firstly, your sound has developed and I wanted to know what the catalyst for that change was?J: Well we decided we needed a drummer; the sound wasn't big enough for what we were trying to achieve, so we needed to get a drummer and that's where Matt came in. After that, Duncan saw us and decided we needed a bass player as well, so he joined. It just came out of the fact that we felt we really couldn't take it any further as we were, as a three-piece, so we needed to develop and evolve into what we are now.

And also style-wise - at the beginning you didn't have the kind of uniform you're known for now. How did that manifest?Matt: It came from a growth a growth of beards. [Laughs] A lack of shaving material and am Amish-chic look, which we've kind of kept it as… No offence to any Amish people!

No, it's a strong look! Although you know they're not allowed to paint their wagons any other colour than wagon grey…J: Yeah, we like grey; grey's a good colour.R: Wow, my favourite colour. 

It has to be a particular Amish grey though.S: Amish grey, is that a patented colour:

Yeah, it's a Farrow and Ball swatch! [Laughs] So, if we were to talk about the Next Big Thing, a certain little competition you were involved in… You were finalists in it last year, but were pipped at the post. How did it feel back then in 2012?J: What, to lose? Oh, not very nice at all, but we tried to lose as gracefully as we could! I mean, graciously!S: I was gonna say, "gracefully"? Did you pirouette across?!|J: I was maybe not as gracious as I could have been.M: It's difficult though, because you enter something and you think, 'right, we're just gonna do our best, give it a go, have a laugh.' But then you start investing in it, and giving a bit more of yourselves every time you play and you think, 'I really want to win this!' So then when you don't, you think, 'oh, what wasn't good enough? What could have been done better?' Thankfully this year we had Duncs come along on the bass - and i'd only just joined as drummer [in 2012]; I'd only been playing with the band for two, three months. Last year was just such a young part in our evolution.

So do you attribute your whole success to Duncan?!R: Yes!S: Pretty much, yeah!R: It's pretty unanimous! [Laughs]

Were you aware, in 2012's competition, that you’d come second?J: No, not until afterwards when one of the judges told me. It was after everybody left and we had a long conversation about stuff - feedback…S: Yeah, because last time they just announced the winner; there was no third, second, first. All we knew, at the time, was no, we hadn't won.J: When I look back on it though, I was happy to come second. We weren't ready, we weren't what we are now. It would have been a shame really, to win.M: I think it would've been before our time.J: Yeah, before we'd reached completion.S: I think Raevennan was the best act on the night, looking back at it, it's just that when you're involved, you feel so disappointed that you can't see it clearly. Two weeks, a month later, you can look at it objectively and go, 'OK, she deserved to win. Next year…'

You need to win something like that when you're able to capitalise on it the most, too, on all that momentum that it brings.S: We wouldn't have been able to last year. 

What gave you the confidence to enter again for 2013's competition? What made you decide to do it again?J: Well actually, we didn't decide 'til the closing day for entries. We weren't gonna do it; we thought, 'well, we've entered it once before', and that was it really. We had other plans anyway…R: We thought to lose two years in a row would probably hurt too much!J: But then someone said to our manager that he thought we should enter again, 'cause he thought we had a fighting chance this year. So we thought, 'alright, we haven't got anything to lose.' Plus we looked at it objectively and thought if we got through to the final, it was a great opportunity to play the big stage in Open again.M: It gets our name out there too, to a different crowd. I mean, band competitions can be quite crushing and you're up against other people who don't play the same kond of music you do and sometimes it can feel like a bit of an unequal playing field. But it's just a case of getting your name out there.

Obviously you entered in the end, and I wanted you to talk me through the semi-finals, and then ultimately the final.J: We were really nervous at the semi-finals. For us, there was a couple of really standout bands playing, that we were up against and we worried that we weren't gonna make it through. When they read our name out, we were chuffed!D: I think it was relief as well, wasn't it? Like, "we are supposed to be here!"S: Obviously we got through the semi-finals last year, and we're better now, so in the back of our heads we were thinking, 'hopefully we'll do it again.' If we didn't get through, we'd been doing something wrong. There was a massive hope, and equally there would have been massive disappointment if we didn't get through then.

And then the Final…?J: The Final, what we went out and did was, in order for us to play as well as we could, we just kind of went out with the attitude that we'd already won - not in an arrogant way, just to be really passionate about what we were about to give. It was better to think, 'we're not accepting defeat again', and go in with a battle in mind.S: I think it was tougher this year. I felt like all the acts were of a much more equal standard and it was a lot closer. There was a lot of doubt in my mind, so it was just a case of wondering who was going to come out better. Having seen them all at the semi-finals, there were some really good acts.J: I said on a BBC interview that everyone who entered this year were the best at what they did. They were top of their game. It was stiff competition… we were really nervous!

Sarah, I remember seeing you on stage and you looked visibly nervous, like I hadn't seen at any of the previous heats.S: Was this after my lead broke, 'cause I was probably panicking then! I think it was more just the expectation, having done it last time, knowing that this time we had to bring it even harder. There's a big audience in front of you and it is difficult because with a band competition, you know that 5/6 of the audience are there to see another band, and you weren't their favourite to win! It's difficult, because you're trying to win over those people, but they're loyal to their band.D: It was a long wait as well, because we were on last. We'd seen how good everyone else was and we knew we had some tough acts to follow.

It was quite an electrifying night, 'cause it was much better attended than last year and there was some good support for each band. Us judges thought we might get lynched at the end!S: When we won, I saw the bodyguard stand by the stage so nobody followed us up there and tried to attack us, or something! [Everyone laughs]

And how did it feel when you won, when Kate Roma read your name out?S: You should ask our manager that - did you see him jumping up and down all over the place?J: I felt absolutely amazing. Every musician is waiting for that moment where industry professionals, or ex-industry professionals - people who's opinions matter - tell us we're good enough to do it professionally. Until you get that, you ain't never sure whether you're going to be able to do it. That's when it stays as a hobby. As soon as I heard, "The Thinking Men have won", I heard, 'The Thinking Men are good enough to make this their career.'

Did you have an inclination you were first, after Kate read out third second places?S: Nah, there's never any certainties!M: Absolutely not, no!R: I was like, 'wow, so we didn't make the top three!' [Everyone laughs]M: You never know, do you.S: No, honestly, because I'd seen every band and thought, 'they could win, they could win' - for me, there were about four bands, including us, that I would have placed up there, so there was no thinking that we'd definitely got it.

With the relatively recent additions to the band, firstly with Matt and then later, Duncan, has the songwriting process changed at all? Are the boys included now?J: Massively; it's usually me or Ronnie that comes up with an initial idea and then it stays like that, then we bring it to the band and we write it all together, as one. I think that it's important that when you're writing a song, you put as much attention on each instrument, not just think, 'oh, the guitars sound great - everything else can just slot in.' Nah, you have to take it right to its foundations and make sure everything sounds right. So the initial idea won't stay like it for very long, once we've brought it to the band…R: Which it doesn't. It changes completely.M: Exactly, as a drummer I want to make sure I'm playing the best drums I can on this track, and work out how to make it different from the last one. I want to be different all the time. We want to have something that people aren't really doing at the moment, so that'll mean we'll play one bit over and over again to get it right, if we need to.J: It takes us longer to write a song now than it ever has done, because I think we're getting better at what we're doing.D: There's more quality control now, as well.

You're being touted around our own county a lot at the moment, but what about beyond Norfolk's parameters?R: Yeah, London, haven't we?

Ooh, London - you've gone straight for the big one.J: Yeah, we're playing in London tomorrow at The Cavendish Arms with our mate Axel Loughry - you might have heard of him before. But I dunno, I think we've attracted some attention of some other people in the industry who aren't necessarily from Norfolk. People are starting to prick their ears up now, which is what you want from a band competition.

I know you're looking for festival slots, aren't you?J: Yeah, we've got a lot of festivals on our list that we're trying to contact for next year.

So far we've been treated to a couple of singles and an E.P., but how far off are we from an album, do you think?J: Not an album, but we're planning a new E.P. with a new producer who's kind of a big deal, if I can say that!R: Hopefully we're looking to get it released in about April time.S: It'll be before the summer anyway, maybe Easter time.J: We're gonna be spending more money on it than we have before and it's going to be - hopefully - the most professional sounding record we've produced so far. People should be excited about it, 'cause we certainly are.

Emma R. Garwood 

To find out more about The Thinking Men, listen to their music and keep up to date with their gig dates, go to http://thethinkingmen.info. They play The Tilting Sky Festival’s opening night on Feb 21st at Open. For tickets, go to www.ueaticketbookings.co.uk