Back in 2006 there was plenty of chatter about the Arctic Monkeys’ rapid-selling debut, and now it seems there is another British band who is making its own bit of history just in time for the close of 2007. Lahayna might not be a name that is familiar to most Americans currently, but the soulful rock group became the 1st unsigned band to earn a place in the official UK top 40 charts on Nov. 18. Along with good old-fashioned hard work, Lahayna has earned a reputation for being one of the few bands in the London scene to give a nod to Motown, funk, and a bit of contemporary rock as well.
Of course, Lahayna has put in plenty of legwork to spread the word about their music, and even used technology (namely iPods) to bring its single “In The City” to the people. Its “street advertising” campaign seems to have paid off, with many a bystander preordering the band’s single before the official release. Guitarist Matt Edun is ecstatic at the results of hitting the streets, but he explained to UG writer Amy Kelly that breaking a top 40 record doesn’t mean he can quit his day job yet.
UG: How dramatically has life changed since your success on the UK charts?
Matt: It’s been quite crazy. We all have day jobs, so have had to get time off work for interviews. We were in The Sun newspaper last week and had interviews with Sky News, then went down to MTV and Radio 1. So it’s all been a bit surreal to be honest!
From what I’ve read, street advertising has played a huge role in your success. How did you ensure that your band would stand out among all of the others in London?
There are so many indie bands on the London scene and we got tired of image being more important than the actual music. We’ve done so much gigging over the past few years and we found that with our sound we had such a varied fan base who were feeling our music. When we made the leap to self release our single, we wanted to make sure we could get out to all these audiences. And without PR gurus and money behind us, that was difficult.
So we got our mp3 players and just stopped people in the street to listen to the music, primarily in London. But when we were on tour over the country, we did it in shopping malls during the day – until we were thrown out – and outside nightclubs. We weren’t sure how it would work first of all, but people really responded to the personal touch and our enthusiasm. Also people were saying how fresh it sounded, which was great to hear.
Did the Internet play a big role in your publicity as well?
So many bands are hitting MySpace these days that we kind of put that on the backburner to be honest. It’s still a great tool, but it obviously loses its impact when people are receiving add request after add request from bands. We used Facebook to get people to spread the word about us and set up groups. To be honest, gigging and out on the street is where we had the most joy. I wouldn’t be able to sit in front of a computer all day and send add requests – would rather be out playing music!
How did audiences first react to Lahayna’s musical style?
We’ve had lots of comparisons to the Chili Peppers, and as there isn’t a British equivalent, the public seemed to really get behind the sound. Funk/Rock is a difficult genre to get right and we were pretty pleased with the results. We recorded the 3 tracks on the MySpace separately from the rest of the album so we could save up enough money, and the album has a much more soulful feel to it, which is what we’re getting most excited about.
We played it pretty safe with the recording of “In the City,” as we wanted something that would be commercial enough to appeal to people we stopped on the street, and that track has got a catchy riff to start. It’s amazing how many people judge your music after only hearing the opening ten seconds of the song. We made the tracks sound quite modern in production, but after that we had the confidence to go back in the studio and really push our creativity, going for the real “vintage” sound we feel suits us more as a band.
We also knew our engineer and producer Luke Buttery and the guys at The Way studio better, and he was really instrumental in pulling our sound together. The new tracks should be up on the MySpace soon. We knew that if we wanted people to take us seriously we would have to do the album in a studio with the right gear for us, not cut any corners, and a producer who understands the project, which Luke did. We were so lucky in that respect. Where a lot of unsigned bands may be great, but record in a studio where the engineer/producer doesn’t feel your music. That relationship is key. Imagine the Chilis without Rick Rubin or the Beatles without George Martin. Would sound completely different. It’s telling that when George Martin lost control of the studio on the recording of the White Album that the album lost a lot of direction.
You walk a fine line with funk and soul music. It’s very easy that in the wrong hands it can sound tired and uninspired. You also need the right desk, right compressors, mics, etc. The classic albums were all recorded using this gear, so if you don’t have that you are at a disadvantage. Even as an unsigned band people are comparing you to what they hear on radio and wanted something that we could put straight onto the shelf. Saying that, the starting point is having good songs and being tight as a band.
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| "We got tired of image being more important than the actual music." |
Talk a bit about writing the single “In The City.” Did it all start out with that riff we hear in the intro?
Yeah, when I first wrote the riff I didn’t have any effects pedals, just a tiny Marshall combo amp that had built-in effects. I thought the riff would sound cool with delay on it. I played it to the guys a couple of times just on the acoustic and then we jammed through at a few rehearsals getting the structure together. In this time I got a pedal board together and got an extra job so I could get a couple of valve amps that I knew we would need in the studio to get the sound I wanted for the album.
Then our singer and bassist wrote the lyrics and we tweaked the structure a bit more. The song is about the frustrations we have living in such an overcrowded city, but how even though the daily grind gets us down, we wouldn’t want to be anywhere else. I think a lot of people can relate to that. We chopped the track down again slightly when we got into the studio and tried it at different speeds, with and without a click, to see what felt best and ended up running it faster than we initially practiced with a click.
What kind of effects are you using on that song?
I’m using a Memory Man delay pedal for the main riff running through a Fender Showman. Then on the transition between the first chorus and second verse, I did some overdubs where I used a Ibanez 808 delay with everything set at max – so it would feedback – and an Ibanez flanger pedal. We then reversed that sound and I overdubbed a tremolo guitar so the verse kept the chill-out feel. I used a Marshall 2555 for the solo on lead channel and for the overdriven sound on the chorus ran a Marshall Shredmaster pedal before it.
Lahayna definitely has a soulful element to it. Were you influenced by guitar players in the Motown era?
Most definitely. Actually my favorite album of all time is Marvin Gaye’s What’s Going On, which usually surprises people, as they would expect it to be something guitar-led. I love the simplicity of Motown records and how each part rubs against each other to make it work, all sitting on a great beat and one of those Jamerson grooves. Just great musicians playing these amazing songs that has such atmosphere on recordings – that was something we really wanted to capture on the album. We really wanted it to be atmospheric.
Your music has been compared to the Red Hot Chili Peppers in the past. Was John Frusciante a big influence to you?
The Blood Sugar Sex era had a massive effect on my style of playing. Again, I love the atmosphere on that record. It just feels really dirty and raw. As a guitarist you can see how he has learned to use the studio more as the years have gone on. I especially loved his solo album Shadows Collide With People. It was like one of those great 60’s singer-songwriter albums. I’ve been really influenced by blues guitarists like Muddy Waters, Stevie Ray Vaughan and obviously Page and Hendrix, who were massive influences on Frusciante, too.
Do you consider yourself more of a rock or a funk guitarist?
Personally I think of myself as a rock guitarist, heavily influenced by soul and blues. But people are going to make their own minds up, which is the beauty of music. As long as it connects to people, I couldn’t care if people think I’m a grunge guitarist, rockabilly whatever! You’ve got to play to what suits the song. That’s always what I’ve found important. Your personality will come out if you’re really feeling it.
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| "We've had lots of comparisons to the Chili Peppers." |
Do you have a pretty straightforward setup for the studio and your live shows?
This is where I can get geeky! For studio I used mostly Fender Showman, which I use for clean and for tremolo sounds. If I want to dirty the sound a bit I will use a Tube Screamer. For solos I used the Marshall 2555 on lead channel, maybe with a Tube Screamer if I wanted to really push it. I also got a loan out to get a Jamison copy of the AC30, which I used with a Brian Setzer Gretsch 6120 – really nice bluesy rockabilly sound.
I was really lucky that the studio had a Selmer amp, which is the amp that Beatles used on the first few albums. In all the promotional pics they had Voxes, as they were the sponsors, but it was Selmers that gave that jangly sound. I kind of fell in love with it and it was hard to give it back at the end of the session. I also used a Watkins Copycat for a bit of slapback and also as a pre-amp.
Guitars-wise I have the Fender Strat, Fender Telecaster, Gretsch Brian Setzer 6120, and then whatever else in the studio I can get my hands on! Live shows is my Strat into my Marshall 2555 and Marshall cab. Effects are Vox 848 wah into Marshall Shredmaster into 808 Tube Screamer into Keeley Compressor into Memory Man delay. As we don’t have the cash to get sessions in to do keys, we rock the live show up a fair bit and the Marshall really suits this. To be honest, though, I’ve played through so many other amps when we’ve kit-shared at gigs, and you need to be versatile enough to adapt.
Some artists are discouraged by the whole subject of downloading. Do you tend to see it as a negative or a positive?
Without downloading we could never have got into the charts. We were already in debt as a band with the recording costs, which was a huge gamble. It would have been impossible to afford the artwork, press, CDs, etc. People may illegally download an individual song by a band, but I think the majority of people want to own albums on CD and vinyl – problem is that a lot of albums have been rushed recently and haven’t lived up to expectations. Getting on iTunes was a big deal for us and has meant that people around the world can hear us. We’re not just limited to the British market.
Have you been able to give up your day job yet to the live the dream of a full-time musician yet?
We’ve had a fair few offers off the back of our chart success, but we’re taking our time before we sign ourselves over, so we still have our day jobs. The amount of investment we put in to make sure we could record this album as a professional band has been huge and it looks to have paid off, but we’re not going to rush into anything. Although it would be nice to afford that Selmer amp!
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