poppedmusic

Sea Girls

Words: Luke Pettican

Sea Girls are unstoppable at the moment having released 2 EP’s this year alone and smashed a string of festival dates. With a headline October tour and more festival dates (including London’s Bushstock), they aren’t showing any signs of slowing down. We spoke to singer/guitarist/frontman Henry Camamile and guitarist Rory Young just before their phenomenal set at All Points East.

We know you guys come from all parts of the country, but where exactly did you all meet? And how did the band form?

Henry – We met in the Midlands. So, we all did our final years of school together in Leicestershire. We were in different bands and didn’t quite take any of them that seriously. Then we did a couple of years in two different bands down in London and both of our drummers left…

Rory – One of them had an operation. He like popped out stitches whenever he drummed so that was pretty tense. Then the other one was maybe a bit too big for his own boots.

Henry – To be fair to him, he couldn’t be bothered to be playing to like ten people, but we loved it. After that, we just combined forces. It made sense.

Where did the name Sea Girls originate from?

Henry- It’s from a lyric in a song (Water’s Edge by Nick Cave) and we just thought it sounded like ethereal beings or whatever.

Rory – There’s line that goes ‘Those City Boys and those City Girls’ but it sounded like Sea Girls. The track talks about being by the water’s edge so I thought it was Sea Girls for a long time.

Henry – We just thought it was kind of cool and other-worldly.

You’ve played at Neighbourhood Weekender, Great Escape and Biggest Weekend already, how’s that been so far?

Henry – That weekend where we played Neighbourhood and Biggest Weekend was my favourite, I think it was all our favourites.

Rory – It was a crazy weekend considering where we were a year ago and then suddenly we’re playing Biggest Weekend and that tent at Neighbourhood was mad for us.

When we got there to put our gear down, there was a few people milling about in this massive tent and you’re like ‘ohh okay’. Then we went come back up to this ramp to a full tent. It was a great feeling.

What can fans expect from your headline show?

Henry – We always try and play the best show. I guess we’ll just have to adapt to the stages we play. I think we’ve been doing it quite well. Like today we’re going to play it like it’s our only show.

Rory – I think we’re pretty consistent in the way we approach live shows. Because, we’ve had so long just like playing to nobody.

Henry – Every show we play now is a treat

Scala is only 4^th London date, how does it feel to already be playing a huge venue like that?

Henry – It feels cool, so cool.

Rory – Nerve-wracking as well. Us being aspirational and hoping we’re building towards something, we’re just picking up any momentum we can

Henry – I guess it also means we can play a longer set because it’s more legit. So, you can also expect a longer set, we’ll have a few more songs for those shows.

Rory – And hopefully a bit more up our sleeves in terms of playing live

Henry – Obviously we’re just learning constantly and as you say it’s our 4^th London show so we haven’t actually played that many shows as a band really so hopefully we’ll be getting the whole time and not like getting too up our arses.

Rory – Well we’ll see, there’s still time.

Your new EP (which is great by the way) comes pretty soon after Heavenly War. Was there this great urge to release new music?

Henry – We’ve got a lot of music and I think we just wanted to put it out and there’s no point in holding back and I think people appreciate it. The reason why, I guess, we get more and more people turning up to our shows is because there’s more and more music getting put out, people can hear what we’re about and the kind of band we are.

It’s just exciting to keep having material to put out. It keeps it relevant, I think.

Adored sounds a little bit different to the other songs on the EP. Was that purposeful or did it come naturally?

Henry – I think it’s just like ambition, it’s quite an ambitious song.

Rory – It started off as a very complicated, kind of a burden, of a song and it’s only once all the players get in and we’re working it out then suddenly it just came naturally in a way.

Henry – It’s a sound that we hadn’t made, and we were like we can do that. It’s cool. It’s not so pigeon-holing yourself.

Rory – From the first time we played it, and nobody knew it, you could see people reacting to it because it kind of takes people into it because of the different parts.

Henry – It just adds dynamics to the set, that’s why I love it. 

And finally, what does the future hold for you as a band?

Henry – A lot more music, we want to be ambitious!

Rory – Then the album next year

Henry – We’re hoping to put it out the beginning of next year. Loads more shows. Exploring what we can do as a band too

Rory – Expect songs like Adored.

Henry – Yeah, Adored is different but it’s because we want to keep music that hits but it’s not necessarily what you expect.