An Interview with INHEAVEN

South London quartet INHEAVEN have certainly been ones to watch so far this year with recognition and praises from most people they have come across, including The Strokes' Julian Casablancas, with their powerful and urgent sounding hits. I managed to catch the fourpiece as they played their last show on tour with Sundara Karma at The Rainbow in Birmingham. This was my third time seeing the band and I can honestly say that these guys are only getting better. They couldn't have been more well recieved by the audience which can be rare to see with a support act however these guys definitely knew what they were doing.

I had a chat with the band before their sellout support slot in the packed Rainbow Courtyard to ask a few questions. Read below on what the band had to say...

So, it's not been that long since you were here in Birmingham at this exact venue a couple of weeks ago supporting Yak. How was touring with Yak? Did you learn anything in particular from them?

James & Chloe: It was amazing. They're such a good band, it was really inspiring watching them play and I think we got better as a band watching them every night. The amount of energy they have is insane, we wanna try and bring some of that to our gigs now.

You've jumped literally straight from the tour with Yak to this one with Sundara Karma a day after finishing which must have been manic. It seems very non-stop for you guys at the minute and a load of people are calling you 'ones to watch', how does that sit with you?

Chloe: It's honestly so exciting. These last few months have been so great and we're having the time of our lives. I'm quite sad that this has finished now but we have Wychwood Festival tomorrow (today) but then we're home for a week so I'm sad about that.
James: Oh, we love it. It's what we've always wanted to do. We love being on tour as well and we have lots of festivals lined up for the summer so that should be fun.

So a lot of your songs have a real sense of drive and urgency about them and I feel like that comes across even more when you play them live. What is it that gives you that drive when writing music?

James: I was inspired by the Motown work ethic of writing as many songs as possible and songs fuel you to do stuff like this and be on tour; so the more songs you write the more fun you get to have and the more you get to play shows and go on tour. So we just kept writing and writing and now we have so many songs and hopefully that'll fuel us for a good however long. We'd like to have enough songs for us to do this for our whole lives cos I mean we never stop working really.

I've heard about you guys wanting to do everything very much independently and you like doing your own thing such as Chloe; I know you're behind a lot of your music videos. Would you say that things are still pretty much under your control with your ideas and what you produce?

Chloe: Yeah definitely! I think even more so now, actually. We're still doing all of our own videos and creating our fanzines and artwork. No-one's ever really tried to take over so I think we're pretty lucky.
James: I heard somewhere that a horse in committee is a camel. Have you ever heard that? So like, you give a committee a horse and you say 'right we really need a horse' they'll give you a camel cos there's so many of them all having an input. So if you really want something that you've got in your own head then the only person who's gonna know what that is is you. The more people you get involved, it's just gonna turn into something completely different.
Chloe: With videos especially, bands often have an idea and someone then does it for them and they end up hating it.
James: We've known so many bands that hate their videos and we never wanna be like that cos we love the stuff we're making at the minute. And cos Chloe's a very talented videographer so of course that helps.

I like your artwork as well it's quite unique. What was the idea behind that?

James: I designed that but I did nick the flower from Chloe's video and used a scanner to put that on. I was reading about Diiv and they created their album artwork using just a scanner so I thought I'd have a go at it cos I thought it was cool. I just randomly knocked it up but every time I look at it now I think it's so cool and I can't believe that was just something I didn't really think much about before doing and now it's just stuck with us and is on most of our singles.

And of course, you were in last month's Flying Vinyl too, how did that come about for you guys?

James: They wanted to put out a single of ours ages ago but for whatever reason it didn't happen. But for this single - (Baby's Alright) our label didn't wanna do vinyls for it and we really wanted to so the Flying Vinyl guys were just like 'hey you can come and do it with us'. It's free as well cos they pay for everything which is really cool. I think actually it's probably been one of the best promotional things we've done.
Joe: Still to this day people are saying how much they love it and the fact that it's exclusive as well makes it even more special.
Chloe: I love seeing the photos people put up on Twitter and Instagram of them playing our vinyl. I just think it's an amazing concept over at Flying Vinyl and it's gonna be really big. They always put such good bands in there too which is why it's successful cos they're not just putting any old shit in there.
James: I love how they really try to promote all of the bands they feature in their vinyls, too. They're just really nice and I think they've helped us out quite a bit.

Do you support their ethics in the importance of keeping the physical side of music alive?

James: I do, yeah. I think people are quite hungry for it as well cos we started this band wanting to champion the physical format and fanzines but then it was like oh god half of the country is already doing that too. I feel like everyone's had the same idea at the same time and it's quite exciting cos kids are buying shit again and enjoying it.
Chloe: I do think that most people are listening to music on the internet but they buy vinyls as a memento. I mean sometimes I think some people just buy them to put on Instagram cos we have a lot of kids who buy our vinyls and they don't even own record players.
James: I don't even have any music on my phone anymore cos I stream everything.

That brings me onto another question, what's your opinion on music streaming services such as Spotify? I know there's quite a big divide on this one because a lot of artists hate it whereas others think it's quite helpful.

Chloe: I think it's really good but I hated it for a long time because I didn't really understand it.
James: I think as long as you make it easier for people then it's better, cos it's easier to just listen to it on Spotify without downloading it illegally cos they're not gonna get it elsewhere. To be honest bands don't really make anything out of MP3 sales they make money out of gigs and people go to your gigs cos they like you on Spotify. So yeah I guess it's better for bands but it's probably shit for record labels.

Quickfire..

Go-to pick me up songs?

Jake: Anything by Talking Heads
Chloe and James: Train in Vain by The Clash.

Three songs that have been on repeat in the van on tour?

Joe: We're all actually really antisocial and we all play our own things in our headphones but I was listening to a lot of Etta James today.
James: Easier Said by Sunflower Bean.
Chloe: I was listening to Closing Time by Tom Waits today. That's a good one for night time actually.

Two good things and one bad thing about touring?

James: Playing gigs is obviously great, seeing different places and the bad thing is probably the food cos it's constantly unhealthy cos we're at service stations all the time.

And finally, if you could invite any three people round for dinner who would they be?

James: Elivs, Joe Strummer and Prince
Jake: William Burroughs, Andy Warhol and David Bowie

By Rosie Mulhern