False Heads

Photo: Barnaby Fairly 

Describe your style in three words?
Living dead party.

What’s the best gig you’ve ever been to?
Radiohead at Bilbao Festival or Pixies at Ally Pally. Both incredible live and two of my favourite bands. 

If you could be on the line up with any two bands in history?
Rage Against the Machine - because lazy journalists that never mention them could finally see how often we've ripped them off hahaha, and all joking aside they are just a huge ball of energy - every time I listen to them, I write a riff.

Elliott Smith - completely different crowds and artists but I've sort of been subtly ripping him off for years without anyone noticing, mainly lyrically but musically as well.

Which subcultures have influenced you?
Punk/grunge and any other subtype that basically grew from the king Iggy Pop for bringing leftism, anti-establishment, the idea of mocking authority into the mainstream. Artists who have their music written for them and just pushed out like a fucking factory pushing out processed meats are just part of that safe, boring, meaningless drivel that just perpetuates the idea that the norm and being mediocre is something to be content with. I think punk and grunge had very similar ideas and stood for the right things. There are elements of what certain 60s artists were doing that's similar, and also there are subcultures like Brit-pop that have influenced me, particularly Oasis, they were poor working-class kids who dreamt it, wrote great life-affirming songs (despite horrific childhoods) with a tinge of melancholy to them and took it to the very end. You can't not admire that. I guess I feel like I fall somewhere between Kurt Cobain and Noel Gallagher.

Also recently '60s pop, bands like the Beatles, the Everly Brothers, Simon and Garfunkel and The Beach Boys. My voice isn't suited to any of that sort of stuff but Barney and I make an effort to get quite interesting harmonies and there's sort of a dark purity that runs through all of that music which I'd like to think comes across in our music too.

If you could spend an hour with anyone from history?
Bob Dylan or David Bowie probably. They've just been through everything and every type of music culture and we're at the forefront of so many different things. Bob Dylan merged love, politics and stories in a way that hasn't really been done since and Bowie just didn't give a fuck and reinvented himself and his music whenever he felt like it was stale, which is something that just doesn't happen anymore.

Outside of music, I'd like to spend an hour with Christopher Hitchens, I'd probably be absolutely sloshed by the end of it, but he was a true individual who never compromised and never labelled himself or cared what labels were slapped on him. I think we've become far too obsessed with labels and tribalism in today's society, we need more people to teach people how to think for themselves, and maybe that will create more people who are individuals and don't want to live in an echo chamber.

Of all the independent venues you’ve played, which is your favourite? Probably Bootleg Social in Blackpool (big up Milo) such an awesome venue and spot to hang out for people into alternative music. Amazing staff and just an amazing vibe in there. And it's in Blackpool, in the midst of the hell of a million stag and hen dos, you have a beautiful needle in the haystack.

Your greatest unsung hero or heroine in music? 
I'm going to say Danny Fields, not just because of what that man has done for our career, and because he is a dear friend but because of what he has done for popular culture. The man managed Iggy Pop and got him signed, he managed the Ramones and got them signed. He was friends with Lou Reed, Andy Warhol, Leonard Cohen and countless others. He broke the story on The Beatles being bigger than Jesus. He helped change popular culture time and time again. The compliment we take in him believing in us and rock and roll again as a result because of us is the biggest I've ever received in my life, and it's an honour to call him a friend. I'm glad he is finally getting real recognition in mainstream press and media for what the man did for forging popular culture. He is a legend. An actual one.

Rapidly honing their craft for the last three years, 'Fall Around' is the first single to be taken from the False Heads eagerly anticipated debut LP due in March 2020. The band have won over the legendary Iggy Pop, who regularly plays them on his BBC 6 Music show and said: “they are young, talented and going places, if they came to my town I’d show up for that.” The band supported The Libertines on their sold-out ‘Tiddeley Om Pom Pom Tour’ and played Isle of Wight, Tramlines, Y Not, Reading Festival and War Child events.