Children of Leir - Interview

  by Anthony Strutt

published: 31 / 7 / 2013

intro

Anthony Strutt talks to Leicester-based psychedelic two-piece the Children of Leir about their history to date and just released eponymous debut album

The Children of Leir are a Leicester-based two-piece consisting of Stuart Gray and Gregg Hunt. They have released a self-titled download album called ‘The Children of Leir’ which is also available from the band as a CD issue, and specialise in playing hypnotic psychedelic trance-like long numbers with strong grooves. Pennyblackmusic spoke to Gregg about the Children of Leir’s short history to date. PB: Why did you decide to call yourself Children of Leir? GH: The name refers to the mythical British king, Leir, who supposedly ruled from Leicester. I'm from the area and we both live there now, and it sounded pretty cool! PB: How long have you been playing together? Were you in any other bands before then? GH: We formed the band in April 2012, but it has been a bit of a sporadic project up until very recently due to other commitments. Both myself and Stuart were involved in other bands. I was in Acid Rock band Cherry Choke and Anglo-French Art/Pop duo Obscure Ivresse, while Stuart was in Scottish Fence Collective act Viva Stereo and Leicester band the Vitamin Sees, So we both had a fair bit of other stuff on the go! PB: Does the group just consist of the two of you? GH: The band consists of myself on guitar and vocals and Stuart Gray on keyboards and vocals. PB: How did you first get together? GH: We're based in Leicester and had known each other for a few years before we decided over a drunken conversation to make some music together as Children of Leir. We didn't really have any specific influences at the time, but the emphasis was definitely going to be on repetitive riffs and motifs, and using the 8-Track machine we recorded on to try to capture a kind of eerie atmosphere, so I guess there's parts of Spacemen 3, Neu!, Velvets, Stereolab, Loop, etc... plus Hammer Horror films were a definite influence on the lyrics! We listen to and watch all sorts of stuff so there are a few things that creep in without us realising it. PB: How would you describe yourself? Is it as a psychedelic band? GH: For want of a better description, we call it 'Motorik-driven, mystical-horror influenced, psychedelic folk-pop'. PB: What kind of press/fan reaction have you had to date? GH: In all honesty we didn't expect things to go as well as they have done. It is a pretty niche thing we are doing, but we seem to have found a little gap in the current psychedelic scene. We aren't as 60's influenced as some bands, and not as proggy as others so we are slowly building up a fair bit of interest through internet blogs and reviews and the live gigs seem to go down really well. PB: You have just released your first album. How can people get a hold of it? GH: The first album is out now. We'll make up hand-made CDs for anybody who wants one, and it's available to download on Bandcamp. Hopefully we'll get it released on vinyl later in the year! PB: What immediate plans have got for the future? GH: We're planning on doing some gigs and a split EP with an Antwerp-based band, Dylan and Rufus and the Sons of the Monarchy. We have also started recording the second album. PB: Thank you.

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