Whenyoung Class of
r 2019
T
he idea of the ‘band as a gang’ might be a tale as old as time – or, at least, as old as The Beatles – but it’s one that still rings with a certain kind of romance. At their best, bands should be more than the sum of their parts, a hand held out offering a bridge to a more exciting universe, and no-one understands this idea better than Whenyoung. Only one EP (the just-released ‘Given Up’) in, they’ve already essentially staked claim to the colours red, yellow and blue as their own signature palette and started a book-swapping club with their fans, and that’s just the tip of the iceberg. “Music isn’t our only love, we love books and fashion and being in a band is about tying all those elements together,” begins drummer Andrew Flood. “Especially nowadays, being in a band isn’t just about playing music. You have to be more than that and we always wanted to be more than that.” It began back in Ireland, in the small town of Limerick where indie aspirations weren’t exactly the done thing. “You’d get chased down the street for wearing skinny jeans,” Andrew notes, before vocalist Aoife Power finishes: “So that’s how we first bonded, because we looked like we were into music.” Already realising the benefits of creating their own tribe, the pair, alongside guitarist Niall Burns (who’s
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From Limerick to London, this trio are building their own world of giddy escapism wherever they go. Dive in. Words: Lisa Wright. Photos: Phil Smithies.
off getting a wisdom tooth extracted when we convene in London today), began discovering the component parts of their world together, poring over books and art and film and music, sharing all their findings and creating their own artistic language informed by the work of director Jean-Luc Godard and autobiographies of old punk legends, author James Joyce and Patti Smith, Blondie and more.
“Nowadays, being in a band isn’t just about playing music.” Andrew Flood Having upped sticks to London, the first incarnation of their results came in the form of the short-lived but buzzy Sisters. “With Sisters, we never decided what we wanted to be. Now we realise that a lot of bands actually think about what they’re doing before they do it...” jokes Andrew. And so, realising that what they wanted to do was something different and more pop-focused, the trio decided to draw a line in the sand and start afresh under a different name. Welcome, Whenyoung.
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anding with wistful, hyper-melodic debut single ‘Actor’ back in October 2017, all this prep – both conscious and less so – meant that the trio seemed to arrive pretty much fully-formed. Sonically and aesthet-
ically strong from the start, it saw them hit the ground running. “Superfood took us on tour when we were just about to release our first single, and that started everything,” recalls Andrew. “We hadn’t really played out of London before, then we did tours with Public Access TV, Husky Loops, Dream Wife, Declan McKenna... It felt like there was a ball rolling.” Then, with just two tracks to their name, they supported The Vaccines at the capital’s 10,000-capacity Alexandra Palace. “That was massive for us. When we first moved to London we lived in Muswell Hill and we’d go up to Ally Pally and drink cans on the hill, so we couldn’t believe it when we played there,” grins Aoife. More recently, meanwhile, Whenyoung headed off on their first proper headline tour – a milestone they topped off with the most unapologetically Irish knees-up that the London indie world’s seen in a good long while. “We’d been listening to ‘Riverdance’ in the van when we were driving and thought, this is such a great piece of music!” enthuses Aoife of their endearingly patriotic choice of walk-on tune. “We thought it would lighten it up for everyone before the show, and I think we kind of got away with it...” But if the picture of a load of slightly sozzled gig-goers all attempting an Irish jig shows the more light-hearted side of the band, then there’s more to Whenyoung than just a bunch of twinkle-eyed tinkers, too. Whether discussing with legitimate anger the tragedy of the Grenfell fire on ‘The Others’ or musing on the destructive nature of “too many six in the mornings” on ‘Given Up’’s title track, the band might deal in sprightly, sing-along melody, but there’s a
