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We check in with the Leeds noise-dance band following their set at our stage at The Great Escape. |
| Photos: Hazel Blacher | Words: Lloyd Bolton |
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Bathing Suits blew audiences away at The Great Escape, cramming a fistful of shows into the weekend. They played a brilliant and intense midnight set at our stage at DUST on the Thursday night that still has us reeling, a non-stop blast of noise-dance powered by pumping drum machine, forceful instrumentals from Elise Hughes (bass), Alex Mulholland (guitar) and George Dickinson (also guitar) and singer/programmer Freyja Blevins’ magnetic dancing centre stage. It comes as little surprise that the band have been announced as winners of the Steve Strange Award, the prize for the festival’s best act as voted for by attendees. |
We were all just about recovered from the show the night before when we convened for a chat on Brighton beach the following morning. We talked about the band’s origins, shady deals with Normal Village in a backroom of O’Neill’s Leeds and the invaluable culture of the city’s independent music scene. |
First up, could you tell us a bit more about how the band started. What was the mission statement? |
Freyja: The mission statement was to get me naked and dancing! When we got started we didn’t sound like what we sound like now. But we were definitely really fucking punk. |
George: It’s always been us four. The mission statement was, like, we just wanted to combine what it is: noise and electronic music. |
Freyja: And to get me naked! He can’t say it but that was the mission statement. |
How has forming in Leeds shaped what the band has become? |
Freyja: These guys were all at uni the year before… |
Alex: Literally first day at uni I ran into George in a smoking area and we were just kind of like, ‘Oh my god, someone else who likes the same music as me!’. Cos we were both from small places, we’d never met someone who liked the same music as us. So we just kinda hung out every day. And then Elise spawned in at one point as well. |
Freyja: Elise and Alex started a promotions company called Wisecrack and for their first gig they booked my old band and Alex’s old band too. But not long after that show both bands stopped and Alex was like, ‘Do you want to start a new band?’ and I was like, ‘Fuck yeah’. And then he asked these two as well and we’ve just kept going since. |
I love Leeds. Everyone’s so nice to each other and they uplift each other and without that you don’t have much of a community. If you’re all trying to be better than each other you’re all going to be shit. |
Alex: It’s like every act is like completely different – on Private Regcords for example, every band is a completely different style of music but everyone’s doing their own thing in a really interesting unique way. We all draw from each other a lot I think and it’s good that everyone’s just nice. |
I think Vardy’s been able to cultivate a sort of, ‘We can do this’ kind of spirit around everyone. And it seems like people are starting to pay a bit of attention to it which is so nice for him. It’s just his mentality of, ‘If someone’s not gonna do it for me, I’m just gonna do it myself’. And he’s sort of instilled that in everyone around him by being the nicest guy ever. Everyone owes everything to him, pretty much. |
Your live performances are so high-intensity. Do you have any rituals to get yourselves in the zone? |
Elise: I would a) I just drink so much Red Bull and b) you just can’t wear ear defenders. You need the fear, you need that shit to be so loud that your body is in fight or flight. If you wear ear defenders, you just don’t get as pumped. |
Did you feel you had to adapt your playing to work with a drum machine on stage? |
Elise: I would say for me it’s definitely very different to playing with a real drummer, because if you’re the bassist, like, and you’re playing with a real drummer, you very much have a rapport with that person. The drummer can make allowances for everyone in the band, the drum machine cannot make allowances for anyone. So particularly on bass it’s super metronomic music, there’s no room for slacking on the tempo. It’s almost like strength training. |
George: It is quite a different thing. The guitars have a lot more freedom because the drums are already so loud and because we’ve got so much pedal stuff going on. |
Alex: I don’t think you could comprehend how bad my general feel of rhythm is. Having to learn to count is shit. Because with a drummer you can just hit it and the drummer will play along to you, whereas with drum machine you have to be a bit more on it. |
We’re good at it now, and now we know what to say to get things like we want them, mix-wise. When we were first starting we’d never be able to hear the drums and everything would be crazy and we’d all be playing different parts of the song at the same time. |
Are there any sound tech code words you use to get what you’re after? |
Alex: More drums. You just have to hammer it home. |
Who do you all think you were in a past life? |
George: Probably a gladiator of some sort… |
Elise: I know I was definitely some kind of like, sickly Victorian child who didn’t survive very long. I know I did not achieve very much in my past lives. |
Alex: I would have been a court jester at one point, I would have defo been well good at that. |
Would you care to elaborate on that? |
What is your Roman Empire right now? |
George: Probably always continuing is The Beatles, I watch too much Beatles-related stuff. |
Alex: I’ve been really into Matt Johnson, everything he’s ever made. ‘The Dirties’, ‘Nirvana The Band The Show’, ‘Blackberry’, he’s done it all. |
Elise: Telling people lies, I’m big on misinformation. Anyone who knows me will know that I love spreading misinformation. I regularly just be thinking ‘What can I say that’s not true’. |
Freyja: That is the first thing that she has said today that’s true! |
My Roman Empire right now is me being shot by Hedi Slimane, if you haven’t seen the pictures go look at them right, they are gorgeous. Also book me! |
What is the weirdest place you’ve ever played as a band? |
Alex: O’Neill’s Battle of the Bands, easily. Basically, there was this guy who put on this battle of the bands, and it was a thousand quid to whoever won it. And every single band thought, ‘Oh my God, this is just going to be seventeen-year-olds playing their first ever gig, we’re gonna wipe ‘em!’. Every single band in Leeds had that idea. We rock up and just everyone is there. |
Us and Normal Village behind closed doors agreed to split the prize money in exchange for them winning. |
Alex: I voted for them like nine times in the last round, I was just stealing ballots off tables. And then basically we got £500 each and it paid for us to go to France. |
George: Maybe that’s damning, maybe we can’t say that. |
Alex: I’ve already told the guy who ran the battle of the bands that we rigged it. |
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