5-piece band TV Pins are set to release their debut album ‘Aircutter’ on October 25th, a fusion of 70s Americana, classic British new wave, 60’s psychedelia and hook-laden power pop. TV Pins are a 5-piece band from London and the West Midlands, delivering vocal harmony drenched sounds of West coast Americana with distinctively British Avant-garde song writing.
TV Pins are James Schofield (vocals), Duncan O’Neill (guitars), Miles Nicholas (drums), Simon Hudson (bass) and Grace Bailey-Hinks (keyboards), an eclectic mix of talented musicians from London and the West Midlands. With a mutual love of nostalgic sounds and playing live, the group have already released their first single, Magpie Eyes, and announced tour dates.
For this interview, we spoke to James Schofield, Duncan O’Neill and Simon Hudson.
‘So much time, effort and love has gone into these tunes. We’re beyond thrilled that Aircutter is finally going to see the light of day and we are busting to get out there to play it live. It’s been a glorious evolution of fun and work bringing our debut album to the world.‘ TV Pins
“Brit Pop meets the West Coast,” says the press release. Is that how the band sees themselves? We wondered… it was a great line.
Duncan: There are distinctive individuals in the band, and we all have different ideas about where we want to go. But, when you are trying to catch the eye of people, to gain their attention, then the West Coast speaks to the harmonies in our music, the 3,4,5 bar harmonies. We are not necessarily trying to imitate either Brit Pop or West Coast sounds, they are just influencing that fuse into the music.
Often the marketing people do need a peg to hand the music on; otherwise, the audience can dissipate.
Simon: I guess from the song writing side, those two areas bring different things. Britpop had some banging tunes from the nineties, then West Pop has some great songs from the sixties onward. I hope we can fit those categories with our songs.
The whole songwriting thing is increasingly both easier, with AI, technology in studios, etc., and so much more difficult with so many songs out there. For example, we felt it was bloody unfair that Miley Cyrus was having problems with her hit song “Flowers,” which sounded (apparently) like something else. There are literally hundreds of thousands of songs going up every day, everything borrows from something else. How can songwriters take a new direction and borrow from the past at the same time?
Duncan: I never sit down with the desire to write a certain style; it is just what comes out. It is also what the other band members bring. I may have an idea for something—chord progression, lyrics or whatever—but it is also what the other musicians will play on it that can take it into another direction. The other guys will take the song into a new and interesting place. But, as you say, everything is derivative, and anyone can always say that something sounds like something else. I think, with this band we have the variation within our music; we are not just a Brit Pop band.
Simon: We started off with thinking about variation; we wondered if, perhaps, we had too much variation. There are different songwriters, musicians, and approaches. But people see it as a strength. One person said we had written a greatest hits album, there are all these bits, and they complement each other, it’s our superpower!
Look how eclectic some of the best bands are, Queen, for example, were always highly eclectic in what they played, even within a single album.
Duncan: I’m a fan of eclectic albums, “Diver Down” By Van Halen, a rock track followed by A Cappella, followed by jazz infused music or a Doors cover, I’ve always been a fan of those big entertainment albums. Miles, who’s not here for this chat, is a fan of Prog; there is something in Prog where you can switch from a movement of classical to quite hard rock. I like the genre of Prog pop, which is a song that can do other things.
Mentioning Queen again, our favourite Queen album here was their Prog Rock effort, Queen II.
Simon: I think all bands have a dip into Prog now and then.
Our favourite track on the album, at least from a first listen through, was “Magpie Eyes,” It was light, commercial, and felt like something Radio 2 should be playing. It has this lovely background harmony, and it was a good listen. How did that one develop?
James: That one was written by Simon, so I took the lead from him on how to sing it. He wanted a bitter, angry feel to the vocals.
Simon: The song aimed to have a poppy melody but had a bitterness behind it. I always used to like that in a song, for example, if you listen to The Beautiful South, The Beatles or Elvis Costello; they had harmonious songs with a cutting edge. And I would love Radio 2 to play “Magpie Eyes.”
We need a braver effort from our bigger radio stations, within a major radio show, we need a few new tracks thrown into a two-hour show. Some courage is required to mix the new in with the old.
Simon: Radio 2 is commercial and it’s on in the background as people drive, work in the workshop or are at home. I wanted “Magpie Eyes” to be a song that people would relate to. It’s about envy, and we all feel that sometimes, there is also that Mexican-style guitar and the vocals from James have the harmonies on it. It is exactly as I wanted it to turn out.
“Last Rites” is also lyrically dark, with the main protagonist lying and dying as his family waits to get his money. This is a punk technique as well, with bands like The Bombpops often writing these dark lyrics that lie underneath a power pop punk melody.
Duncan: Yes, and bands like The House Martins will write very upbeat songs with some darker political messages beneath, “Happy Hour” was full of social comment. They were more than just pop songs. Sometimes you hear a song on the radio and on first listening, you maybe don’t get the lyrics. Then you listen again later, and you pick up the real message lying there.
About upbeat, we liked the bouncy keyboards and power chords on “Bye Bye Reseda.” Clearly the band is multi-instrumental; who holds the control on developing something like that, the songwriter, or the keyboardist?
Duncan: That was a song written by Miles, who is our drummer, and he is also a film composer. He writes on keyboards, and he will have something like that down with a demo, then he’ll ask the keyboard player to play it. Although tracks do evolve, the starting point will be Miles coming to us with a worked-out, high-quality demo of what he has in mind. With the new tracks we have been on, it has been more in studio and working out things, but that album track was from Miles’ pen.
Simon: I don’t like it all worked out. I like a scratchy idea and then the band will pull it out. Not only are there the different styles of songwriting, but we are also very different types of musicians. When it comes to the creation process, we build and blend, pull and push.
The band has been busy touring and creating for some time, and two tracks from the album are currently released as singles and are out there on Spotify. How much of the album has already been heard on the live set?
Simon: I am completely devoted to playing live as a musician, that’s what I live for. But for this album, we have developed the songs, playing the 11 or 12 songs. We have another selection of songs that we are just starting to feed into the live set. We are currently off the live scene while we do promotional work for the album, but we are then back on tour in October and November. Anyone who will see us will be getting the new album and a few new songs.
Duncan: We recorded that album two years ago, or at least started to record it around then. It has just taken time to get it right. We have a fantastic mixer and we put the album around for six months to gain interest from within the industry, booking agencies and whatever. And those people behind us felt this was now the time to release. People have heard it and now we want it to reach a wider audience.
Simon: Just a day ago, Duncan called me to tell me he had just heard the album and say how brilliant it was! It can still sound refreshing. We can still enjoy it all again.
The whole way we listen to music has changed so much over the years, and there are so many charts that even for us it becomes confusing. For example, if an artist has many listens for one song on Spotify, does that make them successful, or is it just a popular song? If an artist is number one on the Apple Country Chart for two days, does that really make them a number one selling artist? It becomes difficult to quantify. How does the band consider success in the music business today? Is it all Tic-Toc?
James: It’s tempting to just look at the numbers, but then when you look at various social accounts, you realise it doesn’t mean that much. It is more like when you do a gig and you look at who is turning up, and you see more new faces, as well as how people will start to know the lyrics. I would say it is more about the live shows today.
Duncan: As we engage with all the social media, you are told it is all about building profiles. But success for us is all about moving forward and attracting more people to the gigs and listening to our music.
Simon: Another variable for me would be, as a live band, to get a support slot with someone we would love to see ourselves. Suddenly you are playing to all the people who have come to see that band, all the ones there early anyway, and they are checking you out. Social networking is very important with this, and that is why a live booking agent is very important too. If I were a manager now, I would tell a new band they need a PR manager and a live booking agent. Record companies don’t exist as they did in the past; it has all changed. I will judge this in a year’s time when we have done a few more gigs and the album has been out a while.
The music business, as Gene Simmons noted, failed to protect itself from the digital age; record companies failed to see what was happening and didn’t protect artists. The consequences were severe as suddenly consumers got an expectation they were entitled to music for free—you don’t expect to walk into a restaurant and have the food for free? Musicians have a right to earn a living for their work.
Duncan: It is a different world. You still get decent pay on the physical sales, and vinyl is returning a bit. But the young band coming through will regard the record industry as promotional for their live gigs. It has changed.
And the last album was listened to from beginning to end, and did they enjoy it?
James: It was “Vertigo” by an artist called Eden. It’s a good album full of personal songs, I don’t listen to many albums, but that one captured my attention.
Simon: Everything Everything’s first album. I love them and I do a lot of driving, so I really wanted to take in every track. It is complex, layered and it has an R and B feel to it. It made me want to listen to more albums!
Duncan: It was a wonderful first album by a band called TV Pins; really good!
And our review will be up just before the album release on October 25.
And there we ended our talk! As a finishing point, to keep us improving the magazine, we really do need your support, and if you can go to the “support us” button and buy us a coffee or follow us; it helps us feel appreciated and keep improving the magazine.
You can stream music by TV PINS here
By Mark C. Chambers
and
Lorraine Foley
