Since forming a little over a year ago, London’s desert-rockers The Howlers have quickly identified themselves as one of the UK’s must-see live acts. I caught up with frontman Adam Young to discuss the release of their upcoming EP and their UK tour set for the Spring.

The London-based three-piece have become known for their old school, gritty, desert sound reminiscent of Spaghetti Westerns. Their tracks feel like they could be the soundtrack to a Sergio Leone movie with an indie rock twist. Even their fashion sense reflects their musical style. An impressive impact to have for such a young band and movies is where this sound originated from.

“I don’t think it was a decision we made, it was natural to us. It was something that we were drawn to. We were all drawn to the iconography of the fashion and things like the 60s and 70s, and you know, spaghetti westerns are just comical and hilarious. It’s just the pageantry. When you watch a film like that, you know, that was filmed in the 60s and 70s, and it’s badly synced up with how the audio and the film is, and the story is rubbish. It’s almost like a parody of life. We really like the film scores from those movies, you know, Sergio Leone movies and Ennio Morricone soundtracks. They are just so emotive and we, as a band use our music to express how we’re emotionally feeling. We try and stay away from politics as much as possible because we think, every band at the moment thinks that to be a musician, you’ve got to be angry at the government. We’re all angry at the government, but people need a little bit of hope. So singing about, how we deal with our mental health or how we’ve gone through some of the most horrendous things we would never wish on anybody, I think is a refreshing take on it and so I guess it naturally falls into a sound that no one else is doing. Plus it’s pretty cool, to create an atmosphere on stage is a very hard thing to do. Everyone can go up there and jump around like they are at Wembley Stadium, but to create something that is emotive… bands like The Murder Capital, they do it amazingly well. They get on stage and express emotion in a very visceral way and I guess we’re trying to do that in a slightly different way.”

Snugly wrapped within this western – esque indie rock sound is the band’s emotive lyrics. The listener gets a glimpse of the pain and emotion Adam is working through. In particular ‘In My Apologies’ captures this perfectly.

“When it came to writing lyrics. Up until the more recent tunes that we’ve written which haven’t been released yet, they are being released in a couple of weeks, couple of months. I used to write by myself, I’m on the autistic spectrum, I have dyslexia and so how my brain works is a complete mess. I use songs as a way of expressing how my mind is just absolutely crushed or, you know, it’s quite a lonely place to be sometimes, and the boys often say that I pulled songs like ‘My Apologies’ and ‘County Lines’ out my ass. They just come out of nowhere but I just sort of walk into a room and go, what do you think of this I wrote this last night, and it was just one of those things.”

“Our songwriting, especially now, for the new material, we’ve taken the songwriting I had and was doing, and the rest of the boys have got involved as well and now it represents all of us and it is miles better. So, with ‘My Apologies’, I wrote that song the day before we recorded it in the studio and, I recorded it in one take. The lyrics came from a time in my life where I was realizing that I wasn’t happy and I met someone that changed my perspective of it and I gambled everything to chase that feeling. I wanted it to be quite raw. There’s a track that we’ve recorded that is as dark but I don’t know, sometimes I find it really hard to talk about my songwriting and art. I like for people to be able to just listen to it, feel moved in their own way. I think that’s quite important to let people understand our music differently.”

The Howlers have gained widespread praise from radio royalty, including BBC 6 Music’s Steve Lamacq, KEXP’s Cheryl Waters, and BBC Radio 1’s Jack Saunders, Sophie K, and  Huw Stephens. In under 10 months, all 3 of their singles debuted on BBC Radio 1. It’s a fantastic achievement for an unsigned band to get such recognition. However, it wasn’t easy. The band had a tough time and a lot of fast learning to do within the industry.

“Yeah, unfortunately, because we had a bit of success that obviously attracts the more horrible people in the industry and we’ve been through a lot. People took advantage of that and we’ve just recently got back to ourselves. We built a team around us now, the most amazing individuals. The achievements we have with no major label backing, you know, it is amazing, but we’re always striving for the next thing. We’re not egotistical, we don’t go ‘yeah we’ve had this, we’ve made it’. It’s almost like, ‘we’ve got it that’s good, let’s go bigger.’ We will put in a good show and we’ll come offstage and we’ll beat ourselves up for like 10 minutes going ‘Nah that’s rubbish’ and that’s how we keep moving forward. Some of the best shows we’ve ever played, some of the shows where we got some of the best opportunities we’ve ever had, we came off stage and were depressed for like 10 or 15 minutes. It was just one of those things where I think as a band we appreciate everyone’s time. We want to keep giving people something that they appreciate and the same with radio and stuff, it’s nice to have that recognition. “

Since the beginning of 2020, The Howlers have been working on a series of records with Theo Verney (Traams, Fur, Egyption Blue, Pip Blom) and Tarek Musa (Spring King) producing and mixing as well as Third Man Records (The Black Keys, YAK, Jack White) conducting the Mastering. This collection of tracks sees the band deal with some heavy topics through the wonderfully expressive musicianship the band is known for. 

“To understand it a little better. I lost a family member to COVID-19. We dealt with it the only way we knew how to, which was to lock ourselves away in a North London factory, a windowless room and we just spent 9,10 hours a day in that room just writing music together expressing the grief and the emotion and helping us go through that period. It just happened to be at the same time that the Black Lives Matter protest was going on. So, we would go to and from the studio every day to sirens and chanting and people queuing outside shops in masks. It was this time when we realized we were going to be who we want to be and we just tore up everything and went ‘let’s be ourselves, let’s get back to being who we are’. We were already close anyway we’re unbelievably tight both as musicians and more like family than friends, we’re like brothers to each other, and the new tunes represent that. It is the first time that Cam helped with songwriting in terms of lyrical content. He writes poetry and I said let’s use some of your poetry. Let’s get it in there. It’s the first time that we worked on every bit of a song together. We are unbelievably proud of what we’ve done.”

“It follows the same line, what we’ve done before, same sort of sound, that desert-y sound. It has gone a little bit more, West Coast. So, you know bands like the Allah-Las, Night Beats, Black Keys, things like that. We’ve just gone, ‘you know what, f*ck it let’s just do our thing’ and from the demos that we created, we managed to get this team around us, which is unbelievable. I still pinch myself and go how the bloody hell did we get there. The tracks were mastered and worked on by Third Man Records in America and it was the same guy who did Jack White’s debut album, The Black Keys’ albums, The Kills and he’s working on our records and that’s amazing. So yeah, I think people are gonna like it. It is miles better than what we’ve done before. So if you like what we did before you can’t, not like it.”

With no live gigs 2020 was a challenging year. However, The Howlers have scheduled a UK tour this Spring. The prospect of seeing The Howlers live I’m sure has excited many, considering the band is at their most raw and compelling in a live setting. Although it’s difficult for Adam to be hopeful for the shows to go ahead.

“I mean, it’s definitely getting postponed. So, yeah, it WILL happen. When it will happen I don’t know, it’s probably gonna get postponed to the end of the year. All the tickets will remain valid because I think it’s right to honor the people that supported us when we really needed them to, but we’ll see. We are known as a live band and I’m buzzing to get back to it”

Adam explained the difficult times the band had within the industry with people mistreating them. It is a scary journey sometimes for a new band to find their feet. Budding artists don’t know much about management or the industry and that does leave them open to people taking advantage. From his experience, Adam gave advice for anyone who might like to pursue a career in the music industry.

“As a band, we’re not stupid. We’ve all studied music and we’re very clued on. Unfortunately, we have been through some stuff that made us very vulnerable and people took advantage of that and as a result, we’ve got ourselves out of those situations and now we’re back to what is important… us. My advice for an artist is, you don’t always need to have the big goals that people strive for like a label or a publisher or anything like that sometimes you can do things on your own. We’re very fortunate that we’ve got a really good publisher behind us and that’s all we need really at the moment. Be prepared for it to be shit. You know, we’re sold this Hollywood dream that it’s champagne and cocaine and it’s more like pot noodles and cans of coke. That’s literally it, it’s one of those things, but it’s the best experience you’ll ever have and it’s the best job in the world. I’m very fortunate. It comes with tears and breakdowns and unbelievable happiness and frustration, but at the same time, I wouldn’t change it for the world. So, yeah, I just advise people to know what they’re entering into, realistically.“

The Howlers create intoxicating tunes bursting from the seams with emotion. Blood, sweat, and tears go into every song to make the blistering, infectious desert-soaked sound we have come to love from the band. The upcoming EP is no exception. After listening, I was blown away by the band’s proficient musicianship. Keep an eye out for the upcoming EP. It’s a doozy.

Hopefully, the bands live dates can go ahead if so you can catch The Howlers Live at 

MARCH

18 – YES – Manchester

19 – Rough Trade – Bristol

20 – The Lexington – London

27 – The Rossi Bar – Brighton

APRIL

01 – Edge Of The Wedge – Portsmouth

03 – The Sunflower Lounge – Birmingham

06 – Oporto – Leeds

Author : Danu