B L A C K O U T
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"ART IS OUR ONLY SALVATION FROM THE HORROR OF EXISTENCE”
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HARVEYNICHOLS
C H L O E L O D G E
CARNABELLS
Carnabells, A rock ’n’ roll 5 piece from a old mining village in the heart of Yorkshire. Formed in the summer of 2012, LUKE THOMPSON guitar & lead vocals, MITCH THOMPSON lead guitar, JACK MATTISON keys & vocals, NATHAN FRANCEY bass guitar, TOM WEBSTER drums & vocals.
I was lucky enough to meet with 3/5 of the guys to talk about Carnabells, who they are and what they are about. Rockin’ up to Belgrave music hall in leeds Luke, Jack and Nathan all looked ridiculously cool with huge quiffs and patterned shirts, I sat down(with a few beers) to ask the guys a few questions.
Banter flowing I asked the guys how they all met Luke starts with "well my brother (Mitch) isnt here today, but obviously I met my brother because like..” before talking about how him and his brother "stole” the other band members from different bands around Leeds.
How did you come up with the name "CARNABELLS”? Jack: Two London street names, Carnaby Street and Portobello Street, and we couldn’t really decide between which street, so we just thought f**k it we’ll have them both, so we put them together into a made up word Carnabells. Luke: Everybody asks us what Carnabell is, and we cant really answer Nathan: Just we are Carnabells.
How would you guys describe your sound? Luke: Err, we’re into like 50’s Rock ’n’ Roll so we kinda have that influence with a bit of the 80’s indie like The Smiths stuff, It’s basically like a merge of that. Jack: yeah it is, we diverse from the traditional Rock ’n’ Roll stuff with spome new interesting sounds like ’jangly’ ’quriky’ guitars, were Luke adds as long as theres vocal harmonies in there Jack loves a harmony.
Who writes your songs? Luke: We mainly write together, I’ll come up with some ideas, like a simple basic bit and we all add our own little bit Nathan: It sounds more like us then, that way.
You Played Live At Leeds recently how was that? Jack: Yeah! It was an ace day really. Nathan: It were insane really. Luke: pretty sad that its over. We played the gig at Cockpit and we followed Midnight Beast, it was buzzin’ really.
You have a summer tour this year are you excited for it? All: Yeah! well excited. I saw on your guys twitter that you are playing at Boro, that’s pretty much 10 minutes away from where I live, have you been there before? Nathan: We’ve nver been before, well thats good isnt it, at least there will be two people at our show. Luke: Yeah we have never been to Middlesbrough before, is it good like? Me: Well..It’s interesting Did you enjoy making your music video for ’Magazine Dream’? Jack: Yeah, yeah we did, we drank lots of beer Luke: We just wanted to keep this one really simple, but for the next one its going to be a bit more yano.. still with lots of beers though. Nathan: It’s hard to do like,the video with all the camera in your face, I didnt know what to do. Do you have a favourite venue to play? Luke: Ermm, I dunno that’s a hard one, I suppose in Leeds, Cockpit is probably my favourite, it’s quite a cool place to go, and the atmosphere is always quite buzzin’ Nathan: I love Brundenel in leeds, I really liked Head of Steam in Newcastle. Are you’s recording anything new soon? Luke: We just have done, were going to be releasing that in June/July, just keeping it going with like tours and new stuff.
What is your favourite song of yours to play? Jack: Mine, would be a song called ’What did I do’ yeah deffo. Luke:Errrrr.. Natan: Thats a well hard question! Mine is erm probably ’Carnaby and Portbello’ thats a pretty new one that we wrote not long ago, we played that at cockpit too. Luke: Station Road is probably mine, none of these are online yet like haha. What are your guilty pleasures? What do you have in your iTunes that you dont want anyone to know about? Luke: Recently like i’ve been getting into 80’s pop music, that’s about as guilty as it goes for me, I try to keep it pretty good. Nathan: It’s got to be Mika, I love abit of Mika. Aww I love Mika everyone loves today. Jack: I love a dirty baseline hahha Luke: We once got a refence to Mika in one review, an old song, haha we dont play that anymore. You Guys have a really cool style, was that something you developed as a band or do you all kinda just do what you want? Nathan: We’re all just cool. Luke: Nathan wasnt, till we took him in haha, If you look at pictures of us 2 years ago we all look terrible. Kinda with the 50’s stuff, were all into that. Jack: Just like its naturally rubbed off on us, we dont look like nerds anymore. Nathan: the quiffs are just getting bigger. Thanks Guys!
CARNABELLS
G O G R U N G E
B L A C K O U T
JESSICA HIGGINS