The Edge were lucky enough to get to interview Liverpool-based quartet SPINN and find out more about their music, musical influences and football support.
‘Believe it or not’ has got one of the catchiest hooks I’ve ever heard – how did you guys come up with it? Was it the start point for the song or something added in later?
Thank you!! Andy and Sean had recorded the demo for this on a day where I couldn’t make it down, so I just got emailed the instrumental track and they asked me to write some lyrics, it kind of just came to me whilst I was penning down the words, and it’s actually one of the few tracks I clearly remember writing. The melody was always there but we tried whistling it in one demo, just to shake it up a bit, and it sounded terrible, in the end we settled for a classic ‘Oooh’
I saw you at Truck festival this summer, great set, where did Johnny get that “Still Hate Thatcher” t-shirt, I can think of a few people who might like it…
It’s from a little shop on Bold Street in Liverpool called News From Nowhere, it’s actually a bookshop but they have a few teeshirts in the back, when I saw it I had to buy it, still one of my favourite Tees.
What was your summer festival highlight? Favourite festival? Favourite set you did? (Could be all the same festival if you like)
I’d definitely say playing Leeds festival was the highlight for us, I know it’s really generic but we used to go when we were younger so it was crazy getting to play there, it was obviously always an ambition of ours so to actually get the opportunity to play, and for so many people to watch us is insane. Truck Festival was great too, we stayed the weekend with our mates after we’d played and got some pretty bad sunburn but it was well worth it because, similarly to Leeds, we went when we were younger and always wanted to play it. The crowd were immense, we’re very lucky boys.
Johnny, the on-stage & video dance moves are amazing, are they at all inspired by Ian Curtis?
Surprisingly, no. My main influences for my dancing (before I ultimately created my own definitive genre and unmistakable style) were Mick Jagger, Morrissey, and Tyler The Creator in the first 15 seconds of this video ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DMaJwB5Y-aI ) all mixed in with a bit of Bowie Glam Rock showmanship
Funnily enough somebody called me Tory Ian Curtis on the Youtube comments of our Reading set. I loved it, we proper buzz off shitposting on our videos, it means you’re doing something right. I’m definitely not a fucking tory though, fuck that, Ha!
Following on from that, who are your biggest musical influences? I’ve seen people compare you to the Smiths and noticed ‘This Charming Man’ sung at karaoke in the music video for ‘Bliss’, not to mention the Cure style make-up in ‘Notice Me’…
The Smiths are obviously a huge influence on us, they’re the band who made everything make sense for me, it’s a shame that Morrissey is being such a dick recently because it’s kind of ruining their legacy, which is so sad. The Cure were a big influence when we first started. Lyrically Robert Smith made me want to write, if you listen to ‘Sunshine’ by us I tried to emulate him a lot in that tune, he’ll always be one of my main influences in that sense. Stuff like, Slowdive, Gorky’s Zygotic Mynci, Pavement, Bill Ryder-Jones and The Pastels are what we’re currently into. That said, we try to just write what we like, what we listen to changes all the time, so we’ve got countless influences, as long as it sounds like SPINN, we’re happy.
Funny story about that Karaoke bar, I was the only one in the band not there, I’d left my ID in the apartment which was 11 miles away from Tokyo city centre so everyone got drunk and sang The Smiths (my two favourite activities) and I was riding the last train back to Shibuya after rushing back to the suburbs, rummaging through this messy apartment and sprinting back to the underground station. Gutted I missed it though.
And if you don’t mind me asking, who is ‘Notice Me’ about?
I wrote it about a poster of David Bowie I had up in my old bedroom room, I was feeling a bit shit about how the band was going, it’s kind of like a prayer asking my hero for help, we’ve gotten better since then, so maybe somebody was listening. Probably not though. I’ve never actually told that story before, but that’s who it’s actually about. It’s about David Bowie.
Finally, the most important question… as Liverpudlians, Everton or Liverpool (or perhaps neither)?
This causes so much trouble when we’re all together, like we’ve had to all take a breather when we talk about football before it gets too personal, even on whats-app group-chats there’s murder. Both me and Louis have season tickets to our respective clubs, touring makes it a bit of a nightmare to go to every game but we go when we can.
Our allegiances are as followed:
Andy – Liverpool FC
Sean – Everton FC
Louis – Aston Villa FC
Johnny – Everton FC
CHEERS!!
Buy tickets to see SPINN at The Joiners on their upcoming tour on December 4th here.
