They're named after a remote Scottish town they've never been to, and when not making summery indie pop, Stornoway can usually be found out tramping the hills. And success? That's all a pleasant surprise, they tell SINÉAD GLEESON
FIRST THINGS FIRST: Stornoway are not Scottish. The foursome might make pastoral pop, with a folky from-the-isles feel, but they hail from a drier, less windy corner of Oxford. Tonight, however, the band pays their first visit to their namesake town and are unsure what to expect. “Everyone assumes we’re Scottish,” admits Brian Briggs, the band’s singer. “So I’m interested to see how we’ll be received there; whether they accept us with open arms or tomatoes.” Once, several years ago on a sailing trip with friends, he almost made it as far as the town, but a combination of inexperience and dodgy weather forecasts scared them off. “Every night we’d stay up late listening to the shipping forecast and it was always for extreme gales. None of us were very experienced sailors and it became a bit of a mission to get there, so the name stuck because of that. We liked that it had a bit of a nautical feel to it, even though I’ve heard it’s a bit of a shithole, but it sounds very romantic, I think.”
Where musicians are concerned, we expect romantic sensibilities, but outdoorsy-ness? It's a rare trait among those usually found pottering in the murk of a recording studio or holed up in tour vans. Yet their fantastic debut single from last year, Zorbing– all layered harmonies and heart-on-sleeve declarations – is a love song that splices the two together. " Zorbingis brilliant! Basically, you climb into the equivalent of a giant hamster ball and run around and go down hills."
Hamster-balling certainly highlights their youth, as the band are not long out of college, where they formed. Briggs was studying environmental science at Oxford, where he met Jon Ouin, who shared a similar passion for music. The Guardiandubbed them "brainboxes" and Briggs admits that it's his fault that people assume they're "massively academic". Bassist Ollie Steadman signed up after answering an advert, but failed to tell them that he was still in school, not college, while his brother Rob completed the basic line-up on drums. Briggs's degree qualified him to work as an ornithologist, and he specialised in ducks. Naturally, he spent chunks of time outdoors involved in observation work, which proved to be fertile ground for writing songs. "I did lots of field work where I had to drive for an hour to get somewhere. It was great for working out lyrics. Walking is about the most strenuous thing I can do when trying to come up with words so the outdoors certainly seeps into a lot of the songs, for me."
In recent years there have been a slew of albums that have tapped the same bucolic vein, from Bon Iver's recorded-in-a-cabin-in-the-woods album to the campfire choral stories of Fleet Foxes. The latter comparison comes on the back of similar harmonies and folksy idiom, but also because there is a definite if occasional overlap between the tone of Briggs's voice and that of Fleet Foxes' Robin Pecknold. "It's flattering when people say that, because we're fans of their music, but we've never gone out of our way to sound like another band. What we do isn't particularly original, but it's how the songs come out." The similarities are, of course, coincidental, even if there is an argument to be made that in a world of X-Factorand Lady Gaga, there has been a re-embracing of music that could be described as more authentic. "There always have, and always will be great bands making this kind of music because it stems from just an acoustic guitar and a melody. The power of the media makes it sound like there's some sort of resurgence, but it's always been there."
That tradition of "great" acoustic bands can be found at the musical roots of most bands, often buried alongside a diverse bunch of bedfellows. But talk to any band of a certain age, whether they make indie folk or thrash metal, and they'll tell you they listened to Nirvana as a teenager. "Some of the first music I heard was in Ireland, because my whole extended family lives there. Every summer I went over to see my cousins, who were older, and they introduced me to stuff like Michael Jackson and then later it was REM, Guns'n'Roses and Nirvana. I remember listening to the radio and taping the charts, listening to stuff like James's Sit Downand The Whole of the Moonby The Waterboys."
For many bands starting out, media hype can be both a curse and a blessing. Myspace provides a platform, but mainstream media can alter the status and profile of a band massively. An appearance on Later . . . with Jools Hollandno doubt contributed to Stornoway landing a place on the BBC's Sound of 2010 poll, but Briggs and the band take it in their stride. "My attitude is that things have already gone beyond my wildest dreams, so even if this hype doesn't lead to multi-million selling albums, it's no big deal. I'm just enjoying the fact that it's going as well as it is so far. We all believe in the music we make. Having listened to the album, we're really proud of it and we're looking forward to seeing how it will be received."
Until recently, the four members combined a mix of those who had been classically trained, and those who were self-taught. With certain instruments, such as cello, this has an impact on their collective sound, but the band has forced itself to keep evolving. Briggs describes Jon, Rob and Ollie as "all naturally gifted about music", pointing out that on every song they try to use a different arrangement. Jon recently taught himself to play banjo and harmonium, while Ollie has learned guitar and double bass. "Yeah, both Rob and Ollie have also learned how to sing, so that kind of versatility in our musical ability has allowed us to sound quite varied. That's partly why we went for the album title [ The Beachcomber's Windowsill– set for release on 4AD on May 21st] because it's a bit of a hotchpotch of bits and bobs."
The album title also reflects the peripatetic nature of its coming together. Brian believes the diverse sound on the tracks stems from the fact that the songs were recorded in different places. He and Jon produced all but two of the songs, having started recording music together as soon as they met, on an eight-track digital recorder. “We recorded demos in whatever space we were living in, which meant it was recorded in bedrooms, sheds, kitchens. We got used to plugging a microphone into this box, and when we got talking to labels, we fully expected to be asked to record the stuff again in a studio. It was a pleasant surprise that they felt that the ‘bedroom recordings’ had a lot of character.”
Until last year, the band were all living day-job lives (Brian's brother Adam, who plays live with the band, is a doctor), which contributed to the album taking shape over a staggered period. Brian wrote several demos using guitar and vocals before bringing them to the band to work out the arrangements together. Although he is the main songwriter, Jon also put ideas together ("usually without words, or he'll put the words in Russian – he's quite shy"). They also added a guiro, a South American percussion instrument, on their current single I Saw You Blink, using it to subtly tap out the song's title in Morse code. It wasn't until they heard all the songs together that the band actually believed they had made something good.
“None of us are particularly confident people and the idea that these songs that we recorded on a little box at home would be good enough to release internationally is very surprising to me. The whole journey from tiny gigs in Oxford playing to two people to where we are now, has just been a really nice surprise.”
Happily, they can be assured of more than two attendees at their upcoming Irish shows. The brothers Briggs’ parents hail from south Dublin and Brian spent many summers in Ireland growing up. “I’m really looking forward to the gigs. My relatives have already bought tickets to see us play – about 10 of them are coming to the Galway and Dublin shows – so it should be fun.”
- Stornoway play Crawdaddy, Dublin on Friday, April 16th, Tower Records, Dublin on Saturday, April 17th for Record Store Day (1pm), Róisín Dubh, Galway on April 17th, and Cork's Savoy on Sunday, April 18th.
The Beachcomber's Windowsillis released on May 21st.
