The indie-pop band Giant Killers are song writing duo Jamie Wortley (guitar, keys, lead vocals) and Michael Brown (bass, keys, brass, vocals), Here, the band talk to York Calling about their new single, When This Time is Over, which came out on 24th May via Little Genius. This track follows the release in January of their critically acclaimed debut album, Songs For The Small Places, nearly three decades on from when it was first recorded!
By Jane Howkins
You recently released a new single titled When This Time Is Over. What can you tell us about the track?
Jamie: This song has a special place in our hearts, it was the first one we wrote together. Before we signed to MCA, we had another recording contract with Arista – but as musicians and performers only – we didn’t write.
Michael: When we got dropped from that recording contract, it was a huge blow, but we weren’t going to hit the canvas without throwing a few punches on the way down – we decided we should give it another go – but this time as writers – to have complete artistic control for the first time. When This Time is Over was our launch pad for Giant Killers.
Jamie: We should also note that we wrote it on a guitar that Butch Vig had played. He was a legend to us as he produced Nevermind. For many of our generation – this album was one of a tight handful that soundtracked our lives.
Michael: I’d like to think, despite it being so stylistically different, that When This Time is Over contains a little bit of Smells Like Teen Spirit in there!
Michael: The guitar in question belonged to our mate Simon Gunning – an artist manager who looked after Butch Vig’s later incarnation as Garbage. He shared an office with our old manager, and he kept the guitar in a corner. We knocked around the place after office hours, we actually used to live in another office just down the corridor…
Jamie: After we lost that first record deal, we were skint and had nowhere to live – our manager gave us that empty office while we found our feet.
Michael: We’d pop into Simon’s office after hours to use that guitar.
Jamie: I’m keen to add that we didn’t break in – sorry Simon if you’re reading this. You did leave the key under the plant pot.
Michael: We used that guitar to write When This Time Is Over, and everything that later became Songs for the Small Places. We’d seen Butch playing it a few times while visiting Simon on business and we hoped a little of his magic would rub off from his fingers and onto our artistic endeavours!
How has the reception to When This Time Is Over been so far, and where can it be purchased?
Michael: As with the arrival of the album in January, we’ve been bowled over with the love that our songs, and in particular When This Time is Over has received in the music press. We really weren’t expecting the superlatives that have been heaped on the work.
Jamie: We were particularly taken by what you said at York Calling – about our songs being a dizzying tapestry of human stories and vivid vignettes. We’ll take that all day long!
Michael: I got a little giddy reading that myself.
Jamie: Do you need to sit down buddy?
Michael: Thank you, I’m not getting any younger. Which is essentially what When This Time Is Over is about.
Jamie: It’s available anywhere else you can buy music,
Michael: But Bandcamp is best as we’re donating 25% of the purchase price to the suicide prevention charity, Campaign Against Living Miserably.
Your debut album, Songs for The Small Places, came out in January to great acclaim. What can you tell us about the record?
Michael: Songs for the Small Places is a celebration of how the place you come from shapes your outlook on life – for good and bad.
Jamie: And how you always carry a little bit of that place with you, no matter how far you travel, or grow as a person. Songs for the Small Places is about the person you might evolve into, your future potential so to speak, while celebrating the person you used to be.
Michael: Which is what some of the reviews have picked up on – Louder Than War referred to it as a kind of nostalgia for the future. It’s about loving who you are and where you’re from. But also, to not be confined by those things. Which we feel is a journey that’s universal to everyone.
Jamie: Exactly, whether that’s Ghana, Guadeloupe or Grimsby, Songs for the Small Places is a work about personal growth and really importantly for both of us, how failure is a more likely outcome than success in any of your endeavours…
Michael: While still maintaining an optimistic view that the horizon will be bathed in sunshine when you get there.
The album sounds incredibly accomplished for a debut. How did you guys get together? What was the writing and recording process like?
Michael: As for how we got together, that’s easy. Jamie and I were proudly working-class dream chasers with no academic qualifications when we first met. I worked in a Grimsby double glazing factory while Jamie cleaned the town’s windows – I made ‘em, he polished ‘em.
Jamie: You could say we were destined to meet.
Michael: The recording started with the demos first – for that we went up to an old stomping ground – Fairview Studios in Hull to work with an old friend – a quite brilliant engineer and a very talented producer – he’s called John Spence.
Jamie: When we brought those ideas back down to London, we worked with other musicians to convert the stuff on the demos, which was mainly programmed music, to that very analogue live sound that is getting all the good praise in the album reviews.
Michael: I’m not sure if our process is typical of other songwriters – Jamie does the topline melody, I do the lyrics, and we then use a guitar and a tenor sax to create a lot of, I guess you might call them musical sketches for other instrumentation to enhance the main chord progression.
Jamie: It creates a structure and a framework for the song, and then we develop it further in the studio.
Do you have any more singles planned for release soon?
Michael: We have a string of them – next up is Around the Blocks, which is out on July 12th and comes with a previously unheard track called Normal Service Will Not Be Resumed, plus a very special unplugged track recorded live in Bristol.
Jamie: Then we have Who Am I Fooling as our third single off the album arriving in very early September, which will also feature some surprise bonus tracks. The cover art for both singles is spectacular – we can’t wait to share them.
Michael: And then we’re aiming for an Xmas Number 1 with our power ballad – the snappily titled, I Hoped One Day You Would Know My Name.
Jamie: Which is ironic as Michael often can’t remember his own name. Or mine.
Your music has a dreamy indie-pop sound. What/who are you most influenced by? What have you been listening to recently?
Jamie: I love any great singer, Nat King Cole, Sinatra, James Brown, George Michael, Amy Winehouse, Nina Simone, but also, anyone who understands a melody – I don’t mind a bit of Manilow or Buble if I’m honest. Love a musical too.
I’m currently listening to Bill Ryder Jones.
Michael: Bowie, almost anything from the canon of UK and US punk and new wave, Roxy Music, as my first instrument is a sax, I’ve listened to lots of jazz, and swing, but love a bit of disco and dance too. I’m musically promiscuous! I have a soft spot for Beyonce and Taylor Swift – two of the best gigs I’ve been too.
I’ve been listening to Yard Act, Bob Vylan and Nadine Shah of late.
You’re based in Brighton and Hove. What is the local music scene like in your area at the moment?
Michael: It’s thriving – and inspirationally there seems to be a lot of young bands willing to stand up for good causes and to write about them in their work. The Damn Shebang, Hutch, the fabulously named Champagne Socialists, Finian James, Genn – these are just a handful of many other young bands in Brighton who aren’t just brilliant at what they do, but who are giving their time and energy to raise money to help striking nurses with their food bills for instance or helping catering industry workers campaign for a decent wage, or campaigning for peace in Gaza. It’s totally refreshing.
Jamie: In our formative years, there were campaigning movements such as Rock Against Racism and Red Wedge, in which mainstream bands were politically engaged, but that fell away for some time. I’d like to think we’re seeing a re-emergence of that kind of thing, perhaps as a response to the difficult times we’re living through, and this does seem to have its epicentre in Brighton.
Do you have any tour dates lined up for the UK?
Jamie: Well, we’re making a live appearance on BBC Radio 5 Live for the Euros on Saturday 13th of July – we’ve been asked onto the Patrick Kielty show, which will be our second time this year, to perform in the BBC Live Lounge.
Michael: It’s an unusual and entertaining segment where we play a couple of song requests from football fans who ring into the show.
Jamie: When we did the same show back in March, we managed to squeeze in a version of Grimsby Town’s own live favourite – We Only Sing When We’re Fishing – which for the uninitiated is set to the tune of Guantanemera.
Michael: We’re putting together a tour for the back end of the year – we are opening the main stage at Shiiine On Festival on November 15th.
Jamie: Which as Giant Killers will be our first major festival gig in 28 years, and we’re doing some warmups for that in Brighton, London and Grimsby.
Any last words for the fans?
Michael: Yes, at least £2 of every sale of our album, and 25% of the purchase price of our EP at our Bandcamp site will go to the suicide prevention charity, Campaign Against Living Miserably. As mentioned earlier. Poor mental health is often an unwanted bedfellow, and a common struggle for creative people.
Jamie: It goes with the territory for a lot of folks in the creative community. Many artists have spoken intimately about their own struggles with their mental health.
Michael: If people who need help, don’t get the right signposting, or counselling, then that is potentially fatal. 1 in 5 of us will harbour suicidal thoughts over the course of a lifetime – this is a public health issue and a societal phenomenon we’ve all been touched by.
Jamie: Which makes Campaign Against Living Miserably and their mission in suicide prevention something everybody should support – so even if you don’t buy any of our music – think about donating to them anyway.
LISTEN ON SPOTIFY:
open.spotify.com…JBHgKc
LISTEN TO THE WHOLE ALBUM ON SPOTIFY: open.spotify.com…fZGdIQ
Bandcamp link:
giantkillers1.ba…er-e-p
Also available on all platforms: Amazon, Apple. 7Digital, Spotify etc
www.facebook.com…laces/
www.instagram.co…enius/