The Howl & The Hum

Name, where are you from?
Sam, Brad, Conor & Jack, based in York, from here, there and everywhere.

Describe your style in three words?
Retirement home hurricane.

What’s the best gig you’ve ever been to?
Neutral Milk Hotel - Communist Daughter. Saw them at Leeds Stylus and I have a very specific snapshot of Jeff Mangum singing "semen stains the mountain tops" in this song and it painting a far more beautiful image in my head than it did on the record, the crowd felt like being in the most wonderful cult.

If you could be on the line up with any two artists in history?
Talking Heads. 'Stop Making Sense' is probably the greatest musical film ever made, I think the live version of this song contains all the energy the picture has, so this tour would’ve been special to sneak on.

Boygenius. I think all three of these songwriters (Julien Baker, Phoebe Bridgers, Lucy Dacus) are up there with some of the best this century. This EP killed me, it’s honest, confrontational and minimally produced, and their voices work so well together, so if we were on a lineup with these guys I’d just hound them to find out how they write.

Which subcultures have influenced you?
Post-punk and new wave. We’ve always loved that ‘coming straight from work’ look post-punks adapted to make their own. Working in hospitality for years we always dreamt of wearing our work gear and then putting a f*ckload of hairspray on and playing dirgy music for a few hours after serving people who thought we were slugs.

If you could spend an hour with anyone from history?
Would’ve loved to have asked Gandhi how he came up with some of those guitar tones. Possibly the Boss ME-80 but difficult to work out without concrete proof, 60 minutes face to face would do it.

Of all the venues you’ve been to or played, which is your favourite?
The Brudenell Social Club in Leeds was always an ambition of ours to play. We sold it out last week so I guess our careers are over.

Your greatest unsung hero or heroine in music?
Only mildly unsung but Richard Dawson is one of the best songwriters working today. I spent too much time in folk clubs surrounded by armpits, beards and signed Fairport Convention merchandise so some of his melodies seem comfortably familiar to me, yet his stories wrench the narrative far away from what’s conventional in both traditional and modern songwriting.

The Howl & The Hum recently released their new track 'Only Boy Racer Left On The Island', check out the video below.