Gently Tender Gently Tender of North London are the band rising from
Pete: They’re certainly the oldest songs we have.
the embers of Lambeth’s Palma Violets. The band split following the release of their second record and founding
Sam: What Pete’s saying there is that we needed to release
members Sam Fryer, Pete Mayhew and Will Doyle have
these now because we’ve had them for such a long time. We
been patiently waiting in the background to launch their
couldn’t sit on them any longer.
new project. After luring in The Big Moon’s Celia Archer and London creative, Adam Brown to join the gang, Gently
Pete: They’ve been around the longest so there’s nothing
Tender have begun to take their choral harmonies to the
more we can do to them, they’re perfected.
smaller stages of the country. Singles ‘2 Chords Good’ and ‘Avez-vous deja’ opt to move their audience emotionally
Sam: So yeah, going into them and being honest, ‘2 Chords
over physically in an extension of Palma’s but with a nod to
Good’ is probably the most Palma Violets song we have
simpler times. Frontman, Sam Fryer took some time away
and ‘Avez-vous deja’ isn’t. I Like ‘2 Chords Good’ and the
from his Cricket podcast to meet us in a Kings Cross pub
timing because it shows that nostalgia and what we had.
alongside bandmate, Pete Mayhew to talk through the plan
‘2 Chords Good’ was written in the time of Palmas and is
and how it all began.
what our third album would’ve sounded like had we not split up. We don’t dislike what we did in the past, we love it
So we know that Sam, Pete and Will met at school but
but we’ve evolved. ‘Avez-vous deja’ is going into showing
how did Adam and Celia join the band?
people how ambitious we are and that we want it to be epic.
Sam: Celia came first as we share the same management.
Do you still have an affinity with London? Your aesthetic
We’ve toured with The Big Moon as well. Celia was very
has moved from Lambeth to more village Green…
interested in doing it and she’s a very good keyboard player as well. With The Big Moon writing a new album now,
Sam: Yeah I think it’s definitely taking a lot more from folk
there’s a lot of time for her to do something else for a bit.
music and the village green ethos. There’s more earth in the
Adam is more recent. I think we just needed that extra
music than concrete.
guitar layer. He was pretty much at every gig I went to. Pete: It’s just expanding from what we already had anyway. How much of Gently Tender is ready to go, is there an
It’s more interesting for us to write and for people to listen
album waiting in the background?
to.
Sam: We have a lot of songs, enough to make an album. We
Sam: We went away to a farmhouse in Wales to write and I
are never going to say we’ve got the album, we are always
think that has become more of a spiritual home for us. I’ve
adding to it. Your new song is always going to be better
taken a lot of inspiration from that place, the times we had
than your last song isn’t it, otherwise there’s no point in
there and the people that we met. Our name was taken from
writing it.
The Incredible String Band and the people that lived there were the ones who introduced us to The Incredible String
What makes these two singles the right ones to launch
Band. We definitely spent a lot of time listening to that kind
with?
of music and it definitely has a grip on this band.
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Words by Sam Ford and Josh Whettingsteel, illustration by Marcus Oakley
