Having spent some time away in the studio, W. H. Lung are bringing their kraut-rock inspired synth-pop to Notts on the 23rd November, so we got to know ’em!
Hey W. H. Lung, we’re buzzing to have you here! How are you guys feeling ahead of hitting the road?
Hello! We really can’t wait. We haven’t done a headline UK tour since 2022 so it’s been a while. We find that it’s on tour you really feel all the good bits that come from releasing a record too, as you see people respond to the songs in front of you and chat to people and hear their take on it, which we always love. It’s also the first time we’ll have been back to Nottingham as a band since 2019!
Your latest singles are sounding huge and that synth influence really shines through. How have you found playing the newer tunes live?
Thank you! We’ve only played a couple in front of people so far so we’re super excited to see them come to live. We played Lilac Sky and I Will Set Fire to the House (the opener and closer!) on our American tour last year and it was really excited to see the songs take shape from the initial demos. They’ve both become much bigger for it, but that was the MO for this record – to capture the live sound as much as we could in the recordings. It’s been fun rehearsing the new tunes together as the synthier ones always take on a more scuzzy form live. We’ve learnt all of the new record to play live so expect to hear a lot of them in the flesh!
Originally starting as a trio, you’ve known each other for a long time. Do you feel that longstanding musical relationship makes it easier to write as a collective?
With myself (Tom) and Joe, I feel it has undoubtedly helped having written music with each other for a long time. I do think people can take to certain things more naturally, but I do also believe that a huge part of it is just practice and refining a craft and doing it for bloody ages basically! Me and Joe wrote songs together when we were teenagers that were probably rubbish, even though we thought they were brilliant at the time of course, but that’s just all gone towards the work we do with W. H. Lung. Even with the live band, we’ve been playing together in various forms since 2016, and it is such a tight unit now. On this tour, we’ll actually have a special guest joining us – as Sid from the Orielles is playing drums! But again – just rehearsing and playing together gels it all. You can’t rush those connections in a band if you want it to be something special!
Manchester’s got a really inspiring music scene, are there any venues or people that you point towards in terms of helping you hone your sound?
In terms of Manchester, the biggest thing for us was meeting our label, management, and press team who are all fantastic, in Melodic Records and In House Press. In terms of the city itself helping us with refining our sound – that comes from Leeds, and from Matt Peel in particular. Matt is a producer at a studio called the Nave, and he plays in a band called HONESTY signed to Partisan. Matt taught us literally everything we know (or I know, speaking for myself!) about music production and sounds. Other than Joe, I would say Matt has had the biggest influence on my life musically speaking, by quite a stretch. We’ve found our home in Manchester over time as a band (despite two of us growing up here) and we’re now lucky to have a home in Islington Mill in Salford, and an amazing group of exceptionally talented pals! Shoutouts to Adjustments, Modema and Greytooth – who are all definitely worth listening to. Also Shaking Hand who are incoming on Melodic Records and Lilli Holland-Fricke!
Tackling album number three is a tough feat, what can you tell us about the creative period between albums?
It is tough if you put pressure on it, but really it’s a very expressive and freeing time. I’ve come to realize that time is the biggest luxury in music – whether it be for rehearsing, studio time or writing. We purposefully took a good 2 years plus to even write this album, which was tough at times but I’m so so glad we did it. My advice for anyone would be to just take your time in the period between albums and just enjoy making stuff! You have to fight off the urge to rush and also need to trust people around you to tell you if it’s great or just not quite there. We all know in our gut, but sometimes it’s tempting to trick yourself that something is better than it is as you want to finish it. It has taken me 3 records to realize this though!
You recently did a short run of acoustic shows, was it difficult to translate the full sound of the singles into a more stripped down set?
It was surprisingly easy and natural to do it! We had a day to put it together and it really just clicked into place. We both absolutely adored the in-store tour. It was great to meet some old friends and also meet people for the first time in some shops we’d not had a chance to visit before. We treated it as a chance to chat about the songs more too which I think people liked as much as we did (hopefully).
Lastly, mosh pit or dance battle? You guys decide.
I’d say we’d verge towards the dancing end of the spectrum but you never know!
Have a great show, see you there!
See you there!
W.H Lung headline The Bodega on the 23rd November. Tickets on sale now.
