Following an outstanding set on the Second Stage at Barn on the Farm, UK alternative indie outfit, Eliza and the Bear are set for plenty more festival slots this Summer.
We caught up with members James Kellegher and Martin Dukelow just after they stepped off stage at Barn on the Farm.
You guys have literally just finished your set – how do you feel it went?
James: Great! We didn’t know what to expect ’cause we’ve never been to this festival before, but we’ve heard a lot of great acts like Ed Sheeran and Ben Howard have rolled through the barn, as it were! But yeah, blew all expectations, it was amazing. People were definitely up for a good time.
Martin: Yeah, great crowd. Someone had like a supersoaker and he wanted to squirt me so I leant down a bit ’cause the stage was quite high. And anyway, it had vodka in it! Rock ‘n’ Roll!
Going back to the basics of the band – how did it all kick off for you guys?
James: We’ve all been in bands from quite a young age. Me and Callie were in a band together when we were 16/17. And then Martin, Paul and Chris were in a band together. We all live quite close together as well. But both bands got a bit too serious – we were touring a lot and no one really cared about us and whatever, so we have those bands up. So Callie and I got together and started writing songs. We didn’t want to do anything else, we just wanted to write music ’cause we were bored. We got the others involved and the not playing shows idea went a bit wrong! The initial idea was to do a London show once a year or something and not put any pressure on it, but here we are doing quite well so…
What about the name!? You must get asked where Eliza is a lot… !
James: Yeah, we get that a lot! I mean, I think if we could go back we’d alter the name slightly! But, when we were looking for a name, we had no plans for anything, and Callie found a book of poems in San Francisco, and said like lets just adopt this name. And at the time, the name didn’t matter, we liked it so it was fine. But obviously now, we’re playing a bit more hectic shows and it confuses people!
Martin: I quite like it though – people don’t expect it! It brings a little bit of mystery about us!
You guys have quite an upbeat, full sounding vibe – do you find that comes across well at festivals?
James: Yeah, I think that’s one thing that we get a lot. We sound like a festival band and people always say they’d love to see us at a festival in the sunshine or something. We get a lot of downtime in the Winter! Nah, it definitely works at festivals, and then obviously at any live show people are energetic. At the moment we’re only really playing singles and one new track in the set, but when we start to do a headline tour and we’ve got the album out, there’ll be a couple of more mellow tracks ’cause obviously you can’t have 15 upbeat tracks, they kind of get annoying after a while. So there’s a couple of tracks we’ve written that aren’t exactly in that vein, so when we start playing the headline tours and longer shows, they’ll start to come out and people can hear those.
When you set out to write songs, granted it might vary from the upbeat ones to those mellow ones you mentioned, is there any common process involved?
James: Yeah, we kind of fell into a formula where Martin and Callie will have a chord structure or an idea. Ww think a lot about vibe as well. When we start a song we always have an idea of what it’s gonna do or sound like or what the influences are. So we sit down and listen to a couple of tracks and decide some cool ideas or vibes, and take that and then we just sit and jam it in the rehearsal studio.
Martin: Yeah, usually just create most of the music first.
James: I do most of the lyrics and some of the melodies, but Martin and Callie and the other boys will help definitely. And at first, when we started, I didn’t quite feel comfortable with it, but now I need it. It’s like a crutch. Like, if I write something and Martin goes “that’s great but change this”, then that’s what I need to do. So we’ve definitely fallen into a process.
Martin: Yeah, I think it just happened by constantly writing.
James: We’ve been writing 5 days a week for the last 7 months so it’s pretty intense and we’ve found a formula that we’re working with at the moment.
You released ‘Brother’s Boat‘ earlier this year. What’s the plan off the back of that?
James: We released that in the middle of a tour, so we toured that out and did a video. We’re gearing up for our next single which will be in a little EP package, so there’ll be two singles in that and a b-side and an acoustic version of one of our older songs. So that will kind of push along a bit further, and then we’re kind of looking at an album by the end of the year.
That’s always the big step!
James: It is! Like, that’s basically what we’ve been writing for. The goal is the end of the year, record an album. We’re basically booked and ready to go.
Other than Barn on the Farm which you just played, where can people see you over the Summer?
James: We are at Truck festival on the 18th of July, Y Not festival in August, Leopallooza which was one of our favourite festivals last year. We requested to come back! Belladrum, Strawberry Fields. There are more!
Martin: Yeah there are, ’cause we’ve been quite focused on the headline tour for September really.
Thank you so much for chatting to us guys!
James: Thank you so much for having us!
http://www.barnonthefarm.co.uk