Hyphen - 2000 trees Interview

Hello, I'm hyphen, and this is George. And perhaps she rolls in the band. That's like, that's like a Pokemon sound, you know. Who's that Pokemon? George. I'm George and I play drums. Um, Ambition, I play guitar. I'm hyphen I shake ass. He does. No, we saw you on the forest stage, we were saying you've never really done trees unless you've played the forest stage. It is. What would you say is special about it? This is the start of festival season for you guys. How deep am I getting here? Can I just go forward for it. I think that er you feel like you're part of nature, and I think art is very deep within our nature, like human. And the way they express themselves and to do the thing that's like very human in a place that's very like nature, I mean it's so apparent that you're in nature, it makes it very like I like a spiritual, I don't know, it's, it's wonderful, it's great. Yeah, it's really really nice. The the sloping down situation is great. It typically dangerous for the moss. It makes it a great amphitheatre and it makes it dangerous for the mosque. It has that vibes, right? Apparently it's about 3500 all the way to the back if it's full, so and you can see the stage from all of them, it's incredible. Well, the cool thing is, is that when you're, when you typically for me. He dips out into the crowd, and I have no, I can't I have no idea where he is, there's no, no indication, I have no idea what's going on. But it was lovely cos here I could see it everywhere he went. We're keeping good eyes on him, making sure he's safe and you know. Staying safe out there, you know, he's usually in a safe crowd, you're among your people. And er but I'm, I'm curious to know, this this is the first time we're meeting and we've seen you many times, but when did this start for you, when you were like, I need to start this band, we need to do this. So I guess I was making music for a few years before. This started and then I made 3 pounds pints kind of as like, you know that, it's like almost like a trope of like people make their best songs as a joke, uh, and I sort of made 3 pounds pints as a like ha ha banter, and then I was like, oh shit, I actually really enjoyed making this. I enjoyed like can I swear? So the first line of 3 pound pints is the morning commute feels like getting punched to the penis by a mallet, and then asking the man with the mallet if he'd like to do it again after the weekend. And when I said it in the studio, it kind of just came out, and my, our producer Jordan, who we love Jordan, JRJ Music, shout out, he's such a wonderful part of this. And he was, he just like laughed in the studio, and I was like, I've, no one's ever laughed at a lyric. And I'm like sort of obsessed with stand-up comedy as well, as just like the quippiness. Of it, the wittiness of it. And so like, it felt like that, and then just kind of built from there, and then we were doing live shows, and we're like, oh how do we build on this, how do we build on this? And we went on tour with the legendary Bob Dylan, and Vish got in, and he was very much like, he brought this like rockiness to it, and we were drumming. Am I talking too much? Is this too much detail. So then EJ, who we love EJ as well, he was a drummer at the time, amazing drummer, and he, he's like. Now wanting to do different things and it was all very like good vibes and he was like teaching now and so then then George came in and George has brought like, the marching powder to our set if you will, do you know what I mean, it's like, there's like a, he's like a rock guy, I feel, is that fair to say? And and like, and it's like brought. Uh, yeah man, I don't know, it's really special. And now, now it's a cool mix of stuff, but having live guitar, live drums, really, but yeah, you know, who, who, who, who, who needs anything more than that, but it is more, um, uh, bands these days are doing that to keep it sustainable while still making it there's definitely a back to it, yeah, of course, like you've gotta be, I think this is in all areas of music as a business because the costs are so high, you have to be so efficient about that. Things you have to be like, how do I get the biggest punch with the least, like, cos you've gotta be consistent, you gotta keep going, you've gotta, like, sustain yourself. And so yeah, you're always thinking about efficiency, and then we've come across this arrangement, and like the punch you can get from it and the way the crowds react, you're like, OK, we're we've obviously stumbled upon something quite, uh, like something good here, so yeah, I don't, I don't know. The thing about, you know, I, it's so funny. I'm sorry, I'm rambling loads, but I, uh, when I wear in ears, like you're meant to wear in ears so you can hear things properly and you can perform, like, to the track as faithfully as you can, but I just immediately get gassed by the crowd noises. Just take it out, it's like I just need to hear maximum crowd, and we're trying to find a way that I can balance both. Yeah, yeah, exactly. No, but I, I, I feel validated. The people at the ear thing were like, you have very twisty ears, so. Now I've got custom ones. It's hard for singers, yeah, if you're if you're not opening your mouth all the time, it is different. I'm curious to know though, you've mentioned like there's there's some track that you're playing along to. How important is technology and, and even you guys when you were first learning music, like first recording and and songwriting, but what about when, when you're writing hyphen songs now? Oh, I mean, oh, you go, you go, you go for the musical side effects, you'll know better than me. Um, I think so much of it is. Having that like, you know, having all the synths, all the extra like tech sounding stuff, it, it just helps to have a different sound, but I think the main thing we aim for is that can this still work live, there still needs to be live instrumentation and there's, there's just so much of the live stuff that adds to those tracks, and you could, you could do it without the tracks, but it just sounds better with them, but it's just meant to supplement. But it's not even with the track. Did it help you like learn. Music when you were able to record yourself and listen to yourself back, most, most people when they're songwriting, you don't know what it's really like till you listen to it back, or as I, as I keep learning, when someone else listens to it and you know they've heard it, and you're like, oh I know now, like you said, when someone laughed and your producer laughed in the studio, oh now I know I've got something. You need to, I was saying to these guys earlier that like, I write like so many draughts of verses, like I'm, and you kind of wanna like do it. It, get the feedback on it, is it, is it like working, and that like, not to be like tech bro about it, but like fail fast, do you know what I mean? Absolutely fail fast, I love that, yeah. Unfortunately also some of the worst people in the world speak like that, like all the tech bros, like we need to fail fast, we need to fail fast to start new businesses. You can, you can use the same things that work for good or evil, right? And it works and move move fast and break things. Yeah, yeah, yeah, it is used by a lot of the worst people in the world, but it, it can be used by some people who should do more of that and can do a lot of good. I, I agree, and like, ultimately like, I think that's when the magic happens, when you keep like whittling away, whittling away, like really er trying to find the core of something and yeah, I think that's when you get the most magic. Good man. Is there anything else you want to promote before we do a finishing final quickfire questions, you're going on tour? For the rest of this summer. Anything else you wanna give a shout out to? So we're lots of festivals, shout out to Kid Capeci, we're going to on tour with them in October and November. They've been so friendly already. Good, good, which I really appreciate. That's another thing which, like, I've really enjoyed over the past year is like, we've toured with like Native James, Mud Rat, Jen and the DeGenerates, we've met loads of great bands, Jewels, they opened for us in last year in at Moth Club, then we've got Delilah Bond, these are all people we're talking to. And like, I think there is a bit of a scene emerge, I mean there's already a scene, right, but like there's a bubbling up of uh things that kind of reminds me of Grime in like early it's early thing where it starts to like enter the cultural consciousness in a broader way, and what I love about that is it's happening, but all the people who are involved in it are being so friendly to each other and it's like. Great vibes, like Nathan James is playing today and he's just like he's gonna just, he's gonna have everyone's gonna love him. He's amazing seen him a couple of times, man, he's he's, oh Christ, he's so good. And so like, yeah, I also like that it's collegiate and we're like we're all in the same game, we're all trying to like do our best and it's good vibes, man, I like it a lot. Great stuff. to finish up quickly by hands. 10 questions, these are a bit guitarri, but I want all your answers. Uh, starting off with music or lyrics. Music, predictably lyrics. So alright, major key or minor key? 00, minor, minor, minor. Well, Val Van Porn a modeller. man, I, I went from Waldworths, um, I was, I was using a Helix, which is great, like it was really good, but, um, yeah, so I was, I was using a Helix, which is great, but actually playing through a marshall now you, you just get the sound and you feel the punch there's, there's air moving, um, it's just, it feels so different and I, I, yeah, I can't turn back from it. Yeah, I, I was tearing up when. It was emotional. I was doing some drum stuff and I walked upstairs to go and find him, and he's just in front of the amp like I was like, you good man? He was like. Never get a, especially on tour, it's really difficult. You can't, it's hard to fly to Europe and take a martial stack, but apparently they're at this festival, you wouldn't know. Um, album or single. Album or single, album. What's a favourite album of yours? By another band. What, what album changed your life and made you it's always albums, man. Album's always, oh, I mean, I, it's so difficult. Uh, I, ah, Revolver, I guess, is just the best answer. It's one of them. Yeah, do you know what I mean, one of them. I'm uh, I'm gonna go City of Evil, even venfold. Such a formative experience for me. Can I go for 2? Can I go for 2? The. Game, the documentary. That was one of the first albums I ever bought and like has stayed with me forever and still does. And then also Turnstyle's latest album. So both of those together, that's where I wanna be, you know what I mean, like, creatively, I don't know. Studio or live performance? Say that again. Studio live performance, live. It's live, it's live. That's riff or big chorus. Can you have both, you can have both, er you can have both. But there are, there's a trade-off sometimes, er, I mean, I think we know, I'm gonna say big chorus. Get them singing along, right? But sometimes one leads to the other, that's the good shit. I love both, but I love her, I are a big riff's cool, man. I'm biassed, I love big riffs. Yeah, yeah, yeah, like we're we're, we're, we're, you know, reverting to type, you know what I mean, we're, yeah, yeah. practise or talent. practise. What does that mean? Yeah, yeah, what do you mean by that? I mean, er, would you rather have practised a lot but have little talent or have er not practised but have a lot of talent? Which would you rather? I think they interrelated, yeah. What does, what comes to mind, what are you thinking of? I think all of these are supposed to get an answer out of you, then. Yeah, no, right, I know. I like it. I think there's got, there's a lot of players out there who have practised a lot who are great players, but then there's some, again, there's some people who don't ever practise and then just go out there and kill it, so you, and it's difficult, it's difficult to get one without the other, you need to, you need a bit of both. Yeah, man, I, I'm a, I'm a teacher as well, so like, you can kind of see, yeah, you can kind of see. Who's got it, you've heard that phrase before, right, so some people have got it, and then what do you really see people and they're like, no, they've got it. You hear them play, and you're like, yeah. Is it like an intuition, they, they like get the thing quicker or something? Yeah, I guess it's a bit of that, I guess it's how you, you er, like process information and stuff, but some, you see some, some kids play and it's like, wow, this is. You've, you've got, you know, you've just got it, man, it's feel, it's groove, it's, it's, it's brilliant, but I'm gonna, yeah, I'm gonna, you can't really have one without the other. You work hard and then you play hard, right, so that's, that's what it is. You do, you do, but it's just what it is. You you do. Yeah, you do all the practise and then you have a good time. But would you rather be the best musician in the room or the best songwriter in the room? Well, we're gonna, yeah, yeah, well, it's actually songwriter for me. Why? Because I don't, I look at, I look at songwriters, er, it's a completely different art form, and there's some, there's some for me, drummers out there that are absolutely incredible, but nothing beats a, a well written song for me, you know, listening to people like Macca, the Beach Boys, I'm talking about sixties guys, but just like undefeated. So good. Yeah. Anything to add to that? I, I agree, I agree, I agree, like I fully. Agree. I think like, uh, I, I to be controversial, I feel like AI is obviously making the production of music, uh, frictionless in certain ways, and so you're gonna have to connect with people in a different way. You can't like. Uh, and I think a lot of that will come down to how it emotionally connects with someone, and I think AI will always fall short in that way. And so how, the, the moves you make to make it connect on a deeper emotional level. Songwriting's obviously a powerful part of that. And, uh, yeah, I mean, obviously the music matters, and like you have to get that right, and you, there's also more like human ways of doing that. But for me, like, I mean, look, I would say that cos I can't play anything. I songwriter, you know what I mean? I couldn't agree more. I wish we had longer. We'll leave it there. Thank you so much. yen check them out on tour at festival hyphen admission chips.