The Travelling Band Speak to Stereoboard about New Album ‘Screaming is Something’ (Interview)
Wednesday, 29 June 2011
Written by Rob Sleigh
Following the release of their second album ‘Screaming is Something’ and a tour that has seen the new record gather a host of early admirers, Manchester’s The Travelling Band are currently getting settled in to the festival season with dates at Eden Sessions, Green Man and Standon Calling. With more headlining dates on the horizon, the folk rockers have a busy few months ahead and things are just getting started. Frontman Adam Gorman recently took some time out from their hectic schedule to chat with Stereoboard about the band, their music and the meaning behind ‘Screaming is Something’.
Whatever your opinion of U2, Coldplay and Beyonce might be, there is no denying that, headliners and celebrity attendance aside, Glastonbury is one of the country’s most diverse music festivals, which offers young hopefuls an opportunity to share their music with the masses. One group that you won’t find arguing against this point is Manchester-based indie folksters The Travelling Band. Although they weren’t gracing any of the Somerset event’s many stages last weekend, the festival must have brought back some fond memories for the quintet. In 2008, The Travelling Band were fortunate enough to be given the honour of opening Worthy Farm’s Other Stage, despite being relatively unknown at the time, after receiving the festival’s Best New Talent award. A proud achievement indeed, and the perfect celebration to accompany the release of the band’s first album ‘Under the Pavement’. Three years on and the group are back with their sophomore release ‘Screaming is Something’ and, this time, they are setting their sights high.
“We’ve been out on the road for three years and we’ve tightened everything together,” says Adam. “I think the songs are a lot more where we wanted them to be. It’s a little bit heavier and a little bit more direct than the first record. It’s just closer to the sound we wanted to achieve.” Some recent live dates, which coincided with the album’s release, revealed that ‘Screaming is Something’ has already begun to earn the band some new additions to their fanbase. “It’s been really good. There’s been a good response. We’re finding a lot of people have already got the album and know some of the songs, which is a really good sign.”
During the last three years, The Travelling Band even managed to achieve some high-profile exposure when one of their songs was chosen for last year’s Ian Dury biopic ‘Sex & Drugs & Rock & Roll’. “As far as I know, it was the only song on the soundtrack that wasn’t by The Blockheads or Ian Dury,” Adam confirms. “Mat Whitecross, the director, knew Jo [Dudderidge, guitar/vocals] through a mutual friend, I think, and he was a big fan of our music. He was working on one of the scenes for the final edit and he realised that one of our songs was suitable for it. It was actually for a car crash scene, when Ian Dury’s ex-wife crashed her car. There’s our song blaring out the stereo amongst a bunch of tangled metal and bodies. It was quite an interesting use of the song. It was an honour, really, to be involved with it.” He goes on to admit that, since being included on the soundtrack, he has started to become a minor Ian Dury fan: “I’m not a massive fan, but I’ve got a lot of respect for him. Being involved with that opened my eyes to him a bit and I delved into it and had a look back through his catalogue.”
The Travelling Band first came to be in 2006, when a group of friends were invited to take part in a musical project in New York. “We started recording the first album in late 2006, when we weren’t really a band as such,” says Adam. “It was a bit of a loose collective and we were just getting together.” He describes how one of the group’s earliest members was invited to the US to do some recording while travelling in Brazil. “That idea developed and he ended up getting six of us over there. We turned up not expecting much – just a guy with a laptop – and it was a fully-fledged analogue studio in Williamsburg in Brooklyn. They drafted someone in to produce it and it was actually Eric Ambel, who used to play for Joan Jett and the Blackhearts. We weren’t expecting much, but we soon realised that it was actually going to be quite serious within a couple hours of being there.” The six friends would eventually become The Travelling Band and the recording project soon turned into their debut ‘Under the Pavement’. “A lot of the songs on that album were brought individually to the studio in New York. We were a lot less developed as a band. I think it’s quite a nice thing to have quite a loose album like that.”
Prior to the group’s formation in New York, the six band members had all known each other very well within Manchester’s renowned live music scene. “Myself and Chris Spencer, the bass player, played in another band called The Brothers With Different Mothers back in the day – probably about 10 years ago,” recalls Adam. “Nick and Steve used to be in a band called The Vox and Jo used to play in a band called The Deadbeats. We were all kind of knocking around in the Manchester music scene. We’d all played with each other a few times and become good friends. Then we went down to Cornwall to do a run of gigs, all three bands together, and we started jamming and playing each other’s songs. It kind of developed pretty organically out of that. There was never really much talk of really being a band. It was always this kind of collective until we went to New York and started recording the record. It quickly became apparent that we wanted to move forward as a band and get on the case a bit.”
Speaking about his own introduction to music, Adam describes how he had taken an interest in performing from a young age: “I didn’t pick up an instrument until I was about 15 or 16, but before that, I had sung in bands from about 13. I’d always had that urge to get up and sing.” He explains how he had taken some of his early influences from his world-famous local scene: “I got into bands like The Stone Roses and Oasis. As a kid from Manchester, they were the first thing I stumbled upon that kind of got my hackles up, if you like. It developed from that. I went from picking up a guitar and singing and, by the age of 18, I was writing songs. Writing music became my main focus. I went through a couple of different bands. I can remember moving down to Wales and playing cowbell in a band for a while, just to be involved [Laughs]. After that, it’s just always been a way of life, you know?” Over the years, Adam’s influences have broadened, although he admits that those early inspirations have continued to have some effect on his music: “Wherever you are, the surroundings will always influence what you come out with, in an artistic sense. We’ve got a lot of friends in Manchester, it’s got a great musical community and I think all those people doing really great stuff is always going to have an influence.”
Going on to talk about ‘Screaming is Something’, Adam cites some of the influences that have had an impact on him and the rest of the band in more recent years: “I think there’s quite a lot of stuff in there. It reflects a lot of the stuff we’ve been listening to over the past two or three years. It’s everything from some of the heavier, guitar-based stuff like Band of Horses to some of the more gentle moments like Bon Iver or Iron and Wine. It’s difficult to describe influence with five people in the band because, even in the band itself, it’s very diverse in terms of what people listen to. In terms of describing the sound, I think there is a folk element to it, but it’s not solely that, by any means. But the folk thing is very much at the root of it.” As for the album itself, we ask Adam where its title came from. “It’s a tough one to describe. It’s that base instinct that we all have. It’s kind of a guttural instinct. Even if people don’t always act on that instinct, there’s always that element of wanting to get something out in certain situations, when you’re feeling certain emotions. It’s exploring that subject, really.”
With all writing and recording on hold for the time being, following the album’s release, The Travelling Band are currently concentrating on what their name suggests they might do best – touring. Adam provides an indication of what to expect for anyone hoping to catch the band at one of their soon-to-be-announced October dates or their upcoming festival appearances: “We do the songs slightly differently to the recorded versions. We find that, the more we play, the more the songs develop. When we’re out on the road, we’ll add a bit here and take a bit away there to make it work when we’re doing it live, so you get something slightly different to what you’ll hear on the record. Sometimes, we get a little bit heavier than people might expect if they’ve only listened to the recorded stuff.”
So, how much do the group enjoy touring? Is it a case of Travelling Band by nature as well as by name? It would seem so. “We’re happier when we’re out on the road. Playing music in the studio has its merits as almost a different art form, for me. We like meeting people and getting that instant reaction to playing music that you get when you’re playing live. Getting out there and doing it in real-time. I think that’s the lifeblood of any musician, really.”
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“We’ve been out on the road for three years and we’ve tightened everything together,” says Adam. “I think the songs are a lot more where we wanted them to be. It’s a little bit heavier and a little bit more direct than the first record. It’s just closer to the sound we wanted to achieve.” Some recent live dates, which coincided with the album’s release, revealed that ‘Screaming is Something’ has already begun to earn the band some new additions to their fanbase. “It’s been really good. There’s been a good response. We’re finding a lot of people have already got the album and know some of the songs, which is a really good sign.” 
