Carnage and Chaos: Future Indie Stars Pastel on Keeping it Real
Monday, 20 January 2025
Written by Simon Ramsay
Flying out the blocks armed with a killer indie-rock sound that’s equal parts throwback and breath of fresh air, it’s easy to see why Pastel made waves before their debut album ‘Souls In Motion’ was even released. From being hand picked by Liam Gallagher to open his Knebworth shows to high charting vinyl EPs and stadium-sized streaming numbers, their combination of graft, talent and no nonsense style has resulted in an anthemic attack that feels like another wake up call for guitar music.
If that sounds like a fairytale start to any career, it’s best we fill in some important adversarial blanks to properly frame the group’s achievements thus far. After forming in 2017, the Swansea based five piece – led by Mancunian cousins Jack (vocals) and James Yates (guitar) – signed to independent record label Spirit of Spike Island just before being struck by a couple of potentially fatal hammer blows. No sooner had lockdown knocked the world off its axis than the band’s original guitarist and songwriter left, taking his songs with him.
That could have left Pastel – now completed by bassist Liam O’Shea, drummer Rhys Wheeler and lead guitarist Joe Anderson – up a certain creek without a paddle. But, instead of imploding, they sagely used the time afforded by lockdown to hone their craft. Once the world opened up again the fivesome really got to work.
Having supported The Charlatans, Gallagher and The Twang, while appearing on Soccer AM and releasing two excellent EPs in ‘Deeper Than Holy’ and ‘Isiah’, they flipped any negatives into the kind of positives that epitomise the resilience that flows from a barrage of tunes that recall The Verve, Oasis, Ride and The Stone Roses.
Prior to the release ‘Souls in Motion’ and the band’s largest UK headline tour to date in February and March, we caught up with Jack and James to talk about why their debut is an antidote to the current state of musical play, their attitude to fate and what Liam Gallagher’s really like.
You’ve described ‘Souls In Motion’ as an album you feel people have been waiting 20 years for. What is it about the record, songs, maybe the band yourselves, that you feel has been missing for the last two decades?
James: I feel a lot of new music that’s been coming out over the last few years, and I don’t mean all of it, but I’d say the vast majority of it, just seems quite fake and lacks any attitude or charisma. It all seems a bit dull and regurgitated. So we just wanted to come with a fresh approach, which I think we’ve done. Last night we were driving from Swansea up to Manchester and had the album on CD because we’d been signing them. It was the first time we’d all sat together and listened to it in full.
When it ended we were like, ‘Put it on again.’ No one spoke for two hours, we just sat there proud as anything, smiling, thinking, ‘I can’t believe how amazing this actually sounds.’ Because when you’re in the process of doing it you listen differently. You’ve heard the songs millions of times. You’re just sick of it. Whereas, because we hadn’t listened to it for so long, to put it on in its entirety, was really special.
Heroes Blood kicks things off in a way that screams mission statement. What can you say about how that came together?
James: One thing that always sticks out about that song is Jack said to me, ‘I’m working on this song.’ ‘Alright what’s it called?’ and he said ‘Heroes Blood.’ I loved the name. I’d heard the lyrics but the riff at the time, because he was writing it on an acoustic guitar, I was like this guitar riff isn’t…the lyrics are so good but it’s not got any beef to it.
Jack: You’re saying it, but you’re not backing it up with a sound.
James: We were trying but it was one of those things where it just wasn’t working so we left it. And then one day in practice, there was no thought process, it was like, ‘Let’s try that song again.’ The chords were the same, notes the same, but just played in a different variation. We changed a few effects and finally it had the punch it needed. You know ‘I’ve got heroes’ blood running through my veins.’ If that’s not a statement I don’t know what is. We wanted to start strong.
The album certainly pulls no punches from the off, beginning with three high energy bangers. Then there’s a really satisfying ebb and flow during the middle section, before a trio of gorgeously melodic songs that bring the record to a finale.
James: That’s what I was thinking yesterday. I really liked the way it flowed. Sunnyside was on and I love the outro on that, and the outro to Escape too. It was late as well, I’m tired and had my eyes closed, and I thought, ‘I feel like I’m watching a film’s ending.’ The album took me on a journey of carnage and chaos and then slowly, it was nice. It was the way a film should end.
Jack: It’s a perfect ending. We couldn’t have ended the album better and didn’t even mean to do it.
Was that something you might have almost done subconsciously, having grown up on bands from 25-30 years ago who were more committed to crafting a proper album, from front to back, before things became more about streaming?
James: Definitely. Another thing I was thinking yesterday was it’s a real shame that not many people care about albums anymore because, for someone like me, or us in the band, we love albums.
Jack: I want to sit there through it all. You wanna get sucked into something and disappear for 40 minutes. It’s better craftsmanship and it shows who’s a real musician when they can suck you in for 30 minutes rather than just one song. When an album grabs you it’s different than a song. That one song might be better than the whole album but if the album’s got you listening for longer, it’s more impressive.
James: Absolutely. I’ve said this before. Albums have been dying and the way TikTok is going, it’s not even about singles any more. It’s about 10 to 15 second hooks. I don’t have TikTok, I refuse to have it, but my girlfriend will be lying in bed and you hear these snippets, and then you’ll be driving a car and the radio’s on and you’ll be thinking ‘I’ve heard that before, where do I know that from?’ And it’s from TikTok. But then the rest of the song is a pile of crap. The hook’s probably crap as well, but it’s catchy. We’ve gone from ‘Dark Side of the Moon’ to singles to 20 second clips.
Jack: There’s no attention span in music anymore. That’s why albums are dying, because no one has the attention span to listen to things for longer than 20 seconds without getting a dopamine hit on fucking TikTok.
One thing that sticks out from the album is how, structurally speaking, for the most part you deliver your choruses twice and that's it. Done.
James: There’s another reason why I think music’s been crap recently. Everyone’s trying to figure out how to write a perfect song. Everyone thinks there’s a formula to follow and it’s just like, ‘Write a song.’ We’ve never sat there and gone, ‘We should only do this amount of choruses.’ That’s just the way it was written.
Knebworth was apparently a blur for you, the enormity of it all, but in terms of the gigs you've played since, what lessons have you taken from those shows?
Jack: Throughout any gig we could play some songs in different orders and they’d still work perfectly. But then there’s other songs where you can see the energy die in a set and that’s happened at, probably not every gig, but early on at most gigs. I don’t think it’s a bad thing. It’s a good lesson.
James: We played Knebworth so early in our career, we didn’t really know anything. We just turned up and played. But we’re already planning for our tour in February now. It’s like, ‘How do we improve from the last tour?’ When we went out with The Twang in December we played the opening track and then had two little interludes into the next song and it all flowed as one. But for some reason one night, there might have been a problem with Joe’s guitar, Rhys didn’t carry it on and the energy completely died. I said afterwards, ‘Next time, I don’t care if Joe gets fucking shot by a sniper, you’ve got to carry it on.’
We spent so much time structuring it to the point of…we want to take people on a journey. We want it to rise and fall and it stopped, I’d say for five seconds, and in just those five seconds the energy disappeared. It’s a mad thing to see when you’re standing on a stage. But, again, it’s a good lesson. There’s no point moping about it. We take it and we go.
In terms of timing, from your old songwriter leaving, to how the time afforded during lockdown helped you grow, to Knebworth and how that came about, so much of it almost feels like destiny.
James: Yeah, but then I love saying ‘the harder I work the luckier I get.’ When the old songwriter left and we got Joe in I’m convinced, no one in the world will tell me otherwise, that during lockdown, and for the two years after, we were the hardest working band in this country. I am sure of it. We live in Swansea and in lockdown it was legal that people could meet in England but not Wales. So we’d get in the van and drive to Hereford on the English border and practice there. After lockdown you’d see so many bands, if they made it to the end of lockdown, within about 12 months they’d finish or start another project.
Jack: If you wanted to do something you’d do it. Don’t let anything get in the way. Stop faffing about and moaning.
James: We work a lot with Charlie Lightening, who is the music director guy. We did a film with him last year at Abbey Road. At the end of this film we have to play the final song with Ronnie Wood, Billy Bob Thornton, Duff McKagan from Guns N’ Roses, loads of people. It’s full of fucking superstars and we’re in the corner and he says to me ‘Honestly, before you started playing I was shitting myself because I thought this is all on them now.’ And he said ‘I was so proud of you. You just came in and smashed it first time.’ It was so perfect because we didn’t just turn up, we put the effort in. We locked ourselves in a room for three weeks and fucking practised and practised while also working full time. So when we turned up, Ronnie Wood’s asking us what the chords are. It kind of feels like fate but I also feel like…
Jack: We don’t want to undersell our hard work like that.
I have to ask about Liam Gallagher. What surprised you about him?
James: You know what, he’s everything that you’d expect but he’s also just a hundred times nicer as well. I’ve met him a few times since then and he remembers you. He always says to us, ‘I watch your interviews and stuff.’ And he doesn’t have to, you know what I mean? He did enough by letting us support him a couple of times.
You’ve repeatedly said after supporting him that you weren’t nervous because that’s the goal, to be on that kind of stage. What’s the plan with regards doing that for yourselves?
James: Just keeping it real, and if it happens it happens, if it doesn’t it doesn’t. We’ve got things in place now. We’ve got a few live agents interested. It’s just one step at a time. We’ve got this far and we haven’t even got an album out yet. So we’re doing alright. We’ve just got to see where the album takes us. Every time we’ve done something I always think, ‘What’s next?’ And at that time I never know what is next but something always seems to come up. We’ll just keep riding it until we crash.
Pastel’s ‘Souls in Motion’ is out now on Spirit of Spike Island.
Pastel Upcoming Tour Dates are as follows:
Thu February 13 2025 - NEWCASTLE UPON TYNE Cluny
Fri February 14 2025 - LIVERPOOL Arts Club, The Loft
Sat February 15 2025 - MANCHESTER Club Academy
Sun February 16 2025 - LEEDS Brudenell Social Club
Thu February 27 2025 - ABERDEEN Tunnels
Fri February 28 2025 - GLASGOW King Tuts
Sat March 01 2025 - EDINBURGH Cabaret Voltaire
Thu March 06 2025 - BRISTOL Bristol Strange Brew
Fri March 07 2025 - BIRMINGHAM Mama Roux's
Sat March 08 2025 - LONDON Dome, Tufnell Park
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