The Slow Country: “We’re quite happy that we didn’t release till then, that we were able to cut our teeth in small venues”
The band spoke to us about their journey together so far.
Over the last three years, alt/folk-rock newcomers The Slow Country have quietly crafted their jagged landscape of tear-inducing sorrow and blissed-out joy. Having built up a formidable live reputation by playing shows across the UK and supporting the likes of The Last Dinner Party, Pem and Trudy and the Romance, the Manchester-based band seem to have officially found their footing.
Since releasing their debut single Walking Song in November of last year, The Slow Country have not only gained critical acclaim but also proved themselves to be just as captivating on record as they are on stage. Ahead of the release of their second single Right There Inside, vocalist and guitarist Joe Darley and bassist Finnbar Simmonds gave us an insight into their musical journey so far.
For people who haven’t heard of you guys, can you tell us a bit about your band?
Joe: We are a big band; there are seven of us. We’ve got three guitars, bass, violin, keys, drums, and a lot of singing as well. We kind of operate in the alt-folk/alt-rock space and try to write a lot about the problems of modernity and nostalgia, longing and being broken.
Finnbar: There’s Joe and James [Darley] (guitarist) in the band who are both brothers, and then me and Charlie Smith (vocalist and guitarist) are friends from North Yorkshire – literally never not known each other. Joe and Charlie met at uni in Manchester, and then they also met Gina Edwards, the keys player there, and Ben Court, the drummer. All three of them worked at a cinema together in Manchester, and then Miren Summers, the violin player, we met at a gig.
J: Yeah, we’ve just been picking up more and more members as we go along, so who knows, you wanna be the eighth?
Sure, why not! I take it you guys have quite a close working relationship, then.
F: Very much so, we’re all really close. At the moment, four of us live in London and three in Manchester, though, so it’s quite an odd split of having to go to one city to practice. But we’re all very close with each other, and it’s really just a very wholesome band.
What’s your creative process like since you’re such a big band and live in different cities?
J: We find it a little more challenging to all get into a room together, so we might have rehearsals in different spaces. We might have the four of us down here, that’d be all the guitars – me, Charlie, Finn and James in London – getting together, having a rehearsal over some ideas. Someone might come with the bones of a song written and then the others might get together up in Manchester, and we’ll send things back and forth and it’ll all come together.
It comes together quite quickly, it’s quite surprising. It’s forced us to learn this in a new way and do a lot of remote writing, which is unusual, but it’s working quite well. It does force you to write in a way where one person has to come up with more of a structure and more of an idea, so that there’s a firm plan going into it. Then, when you get into the room together, fewer changes need to be made.
I don’t think I’ve actually heard of a band doing it like that before.
J: Yeah, it’s mad.
What inspired your second single, Right There Inside?
F: I think musically, it’s quite a joyous song. One of the main links for all of us, we absolutely love Big Thief, just in their joyous big band vibes. Same with Arcade Fire – Joe and I have been really big into them again recently. Then, narrative-wise, that’s all you…
J: I wrote the lyrics about an overindulgence in nostalgia. I don’t know if you’ve got those friends from home that you go and see, and all they want to do is talk about old memories, and they’re not really in the moment anymore. It’s like they’re trapped in a prison of nostalgia, so it’s about that and wanting to live in the moment again.
Do you feel any pressure with this release, since it has been a few months since Walking Song?
F: I personally don’t, I have no idea how he feels. I think we’re really happy with how the last one went, and we’re just really excited to get the next one out. We’re confident in it as a song, and it’s just nice to have more in our repertoire out in the world for people to hopefully connect with.
J: Agreed. We’re in a balance of wanting to get stuff out quickly, but also there’s no point in rushing it. We’re trying to be methodical, and if something isn’t right, there’s no point releasing it. So, we’ve been deliberately slow.
You’ve now done various live shows across the UK; what role has the live music scene played in your growth as a band?
F: Massive, to be fair. We started almost three years ago now, and we only released a single last November. I think for us, we’re quite happy that we didn’t release until then; that we were able to cut our teeth in small venues, try out songs. There are loads of our songs that we’ve altered just from playing them live and then realising this bit needs changing. Like Walking Song, we put it on the back burner for a year as a band and then suddenly picked it back up.
J: It’s been a funny process. I think we’ve got like two extra-long LPs of material that we’ve rotated throughout the years, but we find that these stay until we find out what works. I think if we rushed into a release a while ago, it would’ve been a bit of a mess. So, I’m glad we’ve waited, and the music scene’s been really good for that. Manchester and London – there are loads of great venues we’ve played in and loads of great artists we’ve played with as well.
If you could do anything as a band, what would it be?
J: I want to play a secret set at End of the Road festival, that’s all I want to do. Yeah sure, a number one would be great. A collab with Will.i.am, that’d be weird, but End of the Road, we’ve been going to that festival for like ten years straight, rarely missing a year, and the secret sets there are so special to a lot of us.
F: I think that’s very much up there on mine as well, but obviously we’d love in the future to record a full-length album. We’re flirting with plans at the moment to record an EP soon, but to record a full-length album and be in a studio for a set amount of time and be able to experiment on a much longer-form piece of work would be an amazing experience. But, yeah, playing an End of the Road secret set is a dream. It’s not the highest of dreams but, hey, it means a lot to us.
J: And that’s all that matters.
This interview is now available in our first print issue and available to purchase here.