Interview Honour Before Glory
Camille Ainsworth talks about to Leeds indie mogul Whiskas and his new band away from ¡Forward, Russia!
Interview: Honour Before Glory
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It’s easy to underestimate how important the activities of Whiskas, aka Samuel Nicholls, have been for the Leeds music scene. From his success as part of ¡Forward, Russia!, to setting up Dance To The Radio records (Pigeon Detectives, Grammatics) not to mention the miracle feat of transforming city centre dive The Vine into a prestigious gig venue, Whiskas is arguably the person who showed Leeds that doing it yourself could not only be done with great success but it could also land you a spot in the NME Cool List - if that’s your bag (check out number 42 for 2005). What it sparked was the beginning of the thriving and high quality D.I.Y. music community that we have today.
As the D.I.Y. scene ebbs and flows with the next fashionable musical fixture we’re keen to excavate some advice from someone who’s been there. “Don’t worry about what you can’t do or control… the whole music scene has completely changed in the last four to five years. When ¡Forward, Russia! started, we were very obsessed with the mainstream, and Radio 1 and NME were the markers of what we achieved. I can’t imagine that being the same now, for me or for a band in a similar position. Although, I’m not sure if that’s just my change in situation,” reflects Whiskas. “I’m more concerned with looking after myself, and finding a way to be self-sufficiently creative and content.”
And it’s this change in situation that has brought us to this discussion, having left Dance To The Radio and The Vine and with ¡Forward, Russia! on hiatus. “I’ve had a bit of a strange one since the hiatus because it was clear it would happen for a while, so I pretty much moped around for the most of 2008.” Armed with a Masters in music production, Whiskas returns with a new musical project aptly named Honour Before Glory.
“Some ideas for it have been kicking around for years. Predominantly they were more left over ideas from the second ¡Forward, Russia! album. I sat down and started to write some songs when we were in Seattle, but that didn’t go very far. In the end, I literally kicked a lot of the songs together the week before I did the first gig. A deadline is always the best thing to help make shit happen.”
Whiskas has done solo gigs as Honour Before Glory but his music can also accommodate a full band, and therefore the songs are hard pin down into just one genre of sound. “It’s a blend of lots of things that I’m into: the US/Canadian Americana scene, the Brooklyn new wave scene and then everything they’re influenced by,” he explains. “A lot of the songs have totally different feelings, but I’ve come to really like that ethereal guitar sound and grouped vocals to bring the songs out, so I’m hoping that ties it all together”.
And for the live experience he has enlisted some familiar faces from the Leeds musical landscape, with both Fran Rodgers and Simon Fogal of I Like Trains for back up.
12 March, Brudenell Social Club, 33 Queens Road, Burley, LS6 1NY, 0113 275 2411, 8pm, free entry
Posted on Tuesday 9th February 2010
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