One of the finest indie bands of the last decade, Turin Brakes are still going strong after 18 years and multiple world tours.
Ahead of coming to Australia for Bluesfest, Turin Brakes will be performing at the 100 Club in London. “Doing the festival gigs as opposed to the intimate gigs are very different. The intimate gigs, you can be more subtle in your movements than bigger festivals where you have to combat the outdoors with wind and sunlight,” says Olly Knights, the band’s founder and vocalist.
“We’ve learnt to perform in a different way over the years and have two different versions of the band depending on the gig. It’s a different feeling as well as physical so we have to play like we show up more.”
Touring their latest album, Lost Property, the reaction has been unexpected. “[It’s been] amazing in the UK especially. We’ve been around for 18 years, so we don’t have that new band magic where everyone is excited for the debut album. People get over that when you’ve released seven of the damn things,” says Knights.
“Amazingly it’s been supported strongly by commercial radio in the UK, which was a surprise. We didn’t think that was going to happen, but it did and it has got us back in touch with a side of the fanbase that forgot we were still putting out records. They reconnected with the band, so suddenly we have loads of sold out gigs. It’s been one of the best years we’ve ever had.”
Adapting to new crowds comes easily to Turin Brakes. “We get on the stage together and are very lucky there’s a lot of chemistry. We read the crowd and you feel the unique identity of the audience every single night,” says Knights. “We’ve done hundreds of thousands of gigs and they’re all are slightly different. Never the same feeling and it has to do with the chemistry of the crowd, so I’m sure Australia has its own identity that we’ll adapt to.”
Sharing the stage at Bluesfest with Santana, Patti Smith and Jimmy Buffet, Knights is very much looking forward to seeing some of his heroes as well as getting some solid R&R. “Santana again, as when I was a kid he blew my brains out. It’ll be a complete cycle from when I was 13 years old. But we’re looking forward to relaxing by the coast and playing a festival in a landscape that’s very different to what we’re used to. We’re used to cold fields, so we’ll be a bunch of guys on holiday who are playing gigs too.”
Turin Brakes records have been featured in a plethora of places but there are songs that resonate most for the band. “The ones that deep down I know are the most honest and truthful songs, which you can tell when recording a demo to your iPhone. You can change the sound and production but you can’t change the element of truth in that song and that’s what people recognise after it’s been mastered,” says Knights.
The early beginnings of the band were very humble. “We didn’t choose the music industry, the music had chosen us. We were making music for friends and ourselves. We loved doing it on a homemade level that was raw and honest.
“It got bigger than we expected. One day our friend was playing our record in his car while someone from the label was hitching a ride and enquired about the band,” says Knights. “Then we had loads of record labels trying to sign us and we genuinely had no intention of doing this as a career. Here we are 18 years later and still doing fine.”
The rest of the year is set to be a big one. “We just finished writing the next album. We’ll head to our studio in Wales – it’s a lovely place far away from London – where we escape and really concentrate on the record. We usually fly through it once we know what we’re going to do, then we’ll play loads of festivals and release it in early 2018, if everything goes to plan.”
By Giddy Heine
