With their second EP of the year on the horizon, Bamily have been working hard to keep their listeners happy. Their unique electronic sound and ability to throw the best parties have made them a group to watch. Leann chatted to Luis about their latest release and upcoming plans.
Whilst driving back home to Manchester, Luis explained how hectic life in the band can be: ‘my life’s a constant frenzy of going places and trying not to be late for things.’ Though he also spoke about the importance of momentum in the music industry, and how, after the difficult hit they received during the pandemic, the band is booking gigs and making the most of the upcoming months.
You have a lot of shows coming up. You’re going on tour with Kawala, you’ve booked your first festival, Spring Classic – how are you feeling about it all?
Oh my god, amazing! We want to do more gigs. The approach of just doing two big headline shows a year, it’s just not very fun. I think that one of our strengths is live. Getting festival slots and support slots makes us so happy. We’re super psyched to play Shepherds Bush Empire, and Devon is going to be really sick.
You’ve been known for throwing house parties and raves. As you start to book more gigs do you think you’ll keep on with your intimate style of parties or is that something you’ll be moving away from?
We’ll definitely be doing more. Of course, we had one in February which was really sick. We had Charlie Bones, one of my favorite guys. We were just so excited to be able to play with him because we were so used to hearing him on the radio. But I think come summer, we will be looking for locations to be throwing raves again because they are just so much fun. They’re the essence of summer for us. Doing raves feels very real. We’re in London, one of the best cities in the world to just pitch up and throw a party. Someone’s gotta do it so we really enjoy being those guys.
I’d love to ask you a bit about the EP you guys just released, Happy Birthday Charlie. With first track, ‘Free’, I feel like it really matches the atmosphere of summer that you just mentioned. Summer joy does feel quite quintessentially Bamily.
Yeah, well we knew someone who was in a relationship who just needed to get out of it so the song was about that friend of ours. Also mixing it in with the theme of freedom and the post lockdown feeling. We actually had this song ready to release last year but for various reasons, we weren’t able to release that then. But now we’ve got it out and it feels really good. It’s supposed to be all those feelings of summer, joy, escape, and freedom of course. If you’re saying quintessentially Bamily I think we were kind of trying to do that. We like experimenting and we like doing different sets of things but sometimes it’s important to be like, ‘what’s the most Bamily we can go with this?’
And the EP itself has quite a unique concept behind it.
Yes, for each of our birthdays this year, we’re going to release an EP, the first one’s Happy Birthday Charlie. I’m up next, and then it’s Tim, and then it’s Benji at the end of the year. We were thinking it’s just a really good way for us to stay organized and make sure that we’re making as much as possible because we’ve all got lots of other stuff on. It’s a nice way of sharing the responsibility in the band for what type of songs we want to release. We can be quite crippled by choice so the birthday thing is a really nice way of saying, okay, well, Tim, it’s your birthday, you’re completely in charge of this.
At first glance, Bamily appears like any other traditional band, but amongst their guitars and drums kits, their live performances also include live DJ sets. Their experimentation with ambient music gives a fresh, new-age sound. Luis explained that their style was born out of the fact that the band has such a huge taste in music, and eventually, ‘it made sense for Bamily to exist on dancefloors as well.’ A lot more dance music in store as the group plans on moving away from the traditional verse-chorus song structure.
The music industry can be so concerned with producing reliable, popular music for the sole purpose and profit. Yet amongst it all, there are still gems to be found. Having the chance to witness the rise of a group that recognizes the importance of community, creativity, and how music can give way to some of life’s best experiences is incredibly exciting.
Listen to Happy Birthday Charlie below.
As they start to release their next EP in honor of Luis’ birthday, Bamily’s new single Good Night is now available to stream.
