Arrows of Love - Interview

  by Jamie Rowland

published: 24 / 7 / 2012

intro

Former front man with London-based alt-folk band, Hush the Many (Heed the Few) Nima Teranchi speaks about his abrasive current band the Arrows of Love and their new single 'Honey'

Nima Teranchi was the lead songwriter and vocalist/guitarist in the London-based alt-folk band, Hush the Many (Heed the Few). After a sold-out limited EP and a handful of singles getting serious airplay by the likes of Rob da Bank and Huw Stephens (back in the day when they filled John Peel’s still never-bettered Radio 1 slot), the band disbanded when core member Alexandra Brown decided to leave. In seemingly no time at all, Nima returned with a new band; Arrows of Love. For the past four years and with a shifting line-up the band has been cementing its sound – a much more raw, aggressive and bold sound, taking influence from early hardcore and grunge. This year the band have really hit their stride with a series of gigs and short tours blowing audiences away around the country, and recent single ‘Honey’ getting great reviews. With their debut album recorded, mixed and mastered (by Shellac man Bob Weston) Nima took the time to talk to us about how Arrows of Love came together as a band and a sound, and how the crowds have been reacting to their frenetic live shows. PB: Arrows of Love have been around in one form or another since Hush the Many (Heed the Few) split in 2008. Can you give us a brief rundown of the band's history, and how the current, completed lineup came to be? NT: It originally got going with Luis Felber of Turbogeist, Wim Eden and Emma Browning of Second Head, and other friends like Bethia Beadman who'd just been playing with Courtney Love. Luis and Wim helped define the Arrows' sound forever, even to this day. It became a revolving collective for a while but that approach could only go so far, once the show offers started getting too good to refuse and too hard to organise. So last year I met Mike, whose band had just wrapped up, Lyndsey, and six months later Nuha from Dead Pixels....and so it was PB: Arrows of Love's hardcore-influenced, grunge sound is far removed from that of Hush the Many (Heed the Few). Was that a conscious decision to explore new musical territory, or was it more of a natural evolution? NT: A natural evolution, triggered by vast amounts of disillusionment. I used to look to the light, and believe that love could fix anything, so Hush the Many reflected that. But things changed; got sick of seeing so many pretend hippies around me, and with the death of someone beautiful I once knew at the hands of another, my whole perspective on the world changed, and so did everything that spilled out. PB: It's not often these days that you see shows with as much frantic energy and aggression as you put into your songs and performances, and it was certainly a breath of fresh air for me when I came to see you play. As you've toured around different parts of the country, what kind of reactions have you gotten from audiences? Do people seem hungry for a more visceral performance? NT: The number of times I’ve heard the words "you" and "insane" in the same sentence has been amusing. There's always going to be some who'll want to leave the room in two minutes, but we've met a lot of genuine excitement, and sometimes we've seen a lot of giddy wide-eyed smiles like people are on a rollercoaster, sort of unsettled but real happy to be part of it. It's been a ride for us too. PB: Your debut album is set to be released this summer; what can people expect from the record? NT: Flaws. PB: Was it a smooth and enjoyable recording experience? NT: Ha ha! I don't even know. We did it mostly in my basement...in a very undisciplined, undignified, and sometimes dirty way. I had to learn from scratch how to use microphones on amps and get the best out of some equipment a proper studio wouldn't even touch. And with the mixing we had a couple guys try it, but in the end I just downloaded a ‘Teach Yourself How To Mix’ book and sat there for two to three weeks, sixteen hours a day, ending with a fifty hour stretch, and deliriously walking out the house with songs, three t-shirts, and one sock to take the plane to Chicago for the mastering session. PB: The album has been mastered by Shellac's Bob Weston. How did he become involved, and how was it working with him? NT: Working with Bob was a proper pleasure. I'm usually the one hearing stuff that most people think I’m imagining, but that man has ears like a NASA satellite, so it was a treat to sit around and hear what each other heard, not be told I’m mental, know that he's hearing even more detail, and find ourselves generally agree on what was needed. We plan to keep working together from here and both had a genuinely good time. He originally got involved because a friend of mine heard the album recordings early on and made me listen to Shellac, which blew me away. So when I started ranting about them on the internet another friend dropped me his email address. I wrote to him like a goofy, eight-year-old fan and he said he liked the music and he'd master the album. It was like winning the lottery. Better - because I’d rather good music than money. There's no one I’d rather work with on this front. PB: What lies ahead for Arrows of Love? Will there be a tour to support the album's release? NT: We never know what lies ahead from one day to the next. If we can grow the fuck up then probably quite a lot. If we can't it could end tomorrow. PB: Thank you.

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