Interview: Thirteen Senses
We catch up with Tom and Brendon from Thirteen Senses.
We catch up with Tom and Brendon from Thirteen Senses to talk about the Cornish music scene, their new album 'Contact', and playing a gig on the moon!
This is your return tour and it's sold out here, good start?
Tom - Well we've been away for so long, there's a lot of potential, you know people aren't as aware of us. We weren't very active between the two albums, we were just working away recording and writing. There's always that bit where you have to reintroduce yourself. Coming back here is great as there's a strong fanbase.
Brendon - You have to remind yourself that you love it. We did three shows at the back end of last year in London like one a month and that was good, but actually coming back out and doing a gig every night is kinda when you've not done it for two years, well I'm knackered!
You spent a lot of time writing Contact, are you pleased with the outcome?
Tom - Yes really pleased. We thought it was going to be impossible, the first month after we finished touring for the first album, we went into the rehersal studio and started doing new stuff but it wasn't working so we packed up our stuff and went back to our flats and tried it the normal way starting on the chord progressions and the lyrics then we start recoding it and adding our parts. It worked and it went really smooth, it took maybe only two and a half months and we had the vast majority of the album already, we just spent a long time recording it! It was only going to be 6 weeks but it ended up being 3 or 4 months but it was worth it as we're really happy with the sound of it. We feel that it's a progression on the first record but still sounds like us.
What can your fans expect from it?
Brendon - They can expect something that they can connect a bit better with live. We didn't go and write a new album thinking ok we're going to make a great live album, but I think just touring the old album and the songs that were on it, you have the kind of energy within you and it just came out without really trying when we were recording so you can expect that. You can expect some good highs and good lows and lots of nice lovely things inbetween.
How does it compare to your earlier releases?
Tom - If you enjoyed the first album, there's definitely still enough about it for you to like it. But there's more energetic bits.
Do you have any favourite tracks on it?
Tom – I have two favourites. One is 'Talking To Sirens' which I really liked and was one of the reasons the album was delayed for a little bit till we finished on that, but I absolutely love it, love playing it. And the other one is 'Contact' just because it was one of the first ones that sort of shaped how the new album was going to sound.
Brendon – I kind of flick between things really so one minute it's one thing but the track 'Animal' is probably my favourite at the moment, but give me a couple of days and it'll be something else.
Tom – Probably something to do with your resemblance to he of Muppets fame.
Brendon – Yes I'm intending to grow and orange beard and dye my hair pink.
If you could play a gig anywhere, where would it be?
Tom – The moon, the first band on the moon.
Brendon – But you wouldn't be able to hear anything
Tom – We'd have to be in a bubble, and we'd have to wear space suits. And in space suits you wouldn't have much dexterity in your fingers.
Brendon – And you'd have to play everything at half the speed.
Tom – So, apart from that, the main stage at Glastonbury. Yeah that's top of the list.
Brendon – I'd like to play more in America, places like the Hollywood Bowl, it'd be really fun to see those.
Tom – One of the most interesting gigs we've ever done was a show in Moscow in front of 20,000 people in this massive indoor stadium. But it was an amazing atmosphere and it was our first taste of seeing a big audience like that. So things like that again!
Did you know that apparently you are the first and only Cornish band to have a UK top 20 single?
Tom – Yeah I heard that the other day! It's great!
Brendon - Do you remember the band Haven? They got close, mid twenties. So we currently hold the record. But there's a lot of good music coming out of Cornwall at the moment so hopefully it won't be too long before there's other bands breaking through that as well. We're just slightly ahead of them.
Tom - In the last 2 or 3 years the Cornish music scene has really exploded. Like Luke Toms who is supporting us tonight and on this tour is a Cornish guy from Truro and he's just been signed to Island Records and seems to be doing really well. But there's a lot of bands that there are big buzzes for in the industry which is really good, as it used to be just skater punk, everywhere.
Brendon - I think the music has always been there, but I don't know if people just thought they couldn't get the music out and that people didn't really listen to them. So it's encouraging people to perform the music they've been playing all along. It's quite good as we get to go back now and again and it just seems like music is a bigger part of what goes on down there now.
'Into The Fire' has been used as samplers on TV a lot, are you happy with that?
Tom – Yeah it's great! We moved into this new house a year ago but we'd done the usual, moved all our stuff in, gone to the chip shop, turned on the TV and it was the final of Big Brother, Chantelle was leaving and our song came on the background! It was like wow that's really good! Cos we hadn't done much about then, so it's good when it pops up in different places.
Brendon – Yes I was looking on Wikipedia or something the other day and I didn't even realise, it's all kinds of stuff it's been on. It's nice that people see it as a song that can be used for these kinds of things.
What is next for Thirteen Senses?
Tom - Well we've got the rest of this tour. We've got the single out to download on the 12th March, and out normally two weeks after that, and the album a week after that so hopefully we'll be doing all sorts of promotional stuff around that. After that we'll do as much as we can really, as many tours as possible, see some of America and more of Europe, go back to Russia, and do more of Scotland.
Are you playing any festivals?
Brendon - Nothing booked up, but we'd like to do as much as we can. When they start picking bands up at our level. Maybe you can join our campaign to get us to T In The Park? It's not like they've said no, but it would help their decision!
Sarah Howcutt
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