Band Of The Week #108 - Thyla
This week’s Band of the Week is Brighton alt-rockers Thyla - who have just released their sophomore EP - ‘Everything At Once’, which sees the band creating something that has no boundaries to their sound. They took a moment to talk to us about Nietzsche, standing up for your art and how the EP came together.
So your EP ‘Everything At Once’ is out now, how does it feel to have it out there?
Liberating. We’re pleased to finally put out a body of work that feels like our own. In the past it always felt as if we were operating naively with the process of recording our music; nobody knew anything about production or pre-production and we were unable to articulate our artistic vision. When we started working on this EP there was a different mindset and we all grew up a bit. To put it out and so far get a great reception is exactly that, liberating.
What is the inspiration behind the title? Does it have a story?
When you cut free from being nannied and directed aesthetically you take on a lot of responsibility, you have to decide truly who you are and what you want to say. Everything at once is basically all of our musical frustrations over the last 18 months blurted out, at once. It’s everything at once.
Do you feel your sound has changed from ‘What’s On Your Mind?’ and how do you feel the creative process differed on ‘Everything At Once’?
Before this we had a process that involved third parties and chopping and changing stuff, what we ended up with was compromise music. We were tied up in a lot of ways and nobody knew how to produce or command a studio. If you were to polarise the experience we had with Whats On Your Mind, that would be a fair description of how it was for Everything At Once. The difference was night and day and we really got exactly what we wanted this time around.
What are the key themes of the EP? What sort of message are you trying to put out to your fans?
Stand up for your art and your right to self-determination, work really hard never believing you’re the best and always striving to get better. Look after your family by thinking about what responsibilities you haven’t yet taken up for them and then doing so. Nothing is ever helpless and you the individual have the power to make things better.
Do you have a favorite lyric on the EP? If so, which one and why?
There’s a line in the second verse of December:
"So come and face it
Cause you’ll never change things
Get yourself a why and the how won’t be so painful"
It was inspired by a Nietzsche quote “He who has a why to live for can bear almost any how.” When I first came across this it really resonated with me, in the wake of some recent personal family issues, i’ve realised the importance of pursuing something meaningful in your life; something that adds value to the human experience so that when things start to fall apart you have a reason to get up and fight back every morning. Deep for a Friday, apologies!
Last year was quite a busy one for you, supporting the likes of Rolling Blackouts Coastal Fever and your first full-length UK tour, so what does 2020 hold in store for you?
Well, we hope to be touring and peppering the festival circuit again this year but the most exciting thing about 2020 is that we locked ourselves away in January and managed to record our debut album! We’ve ended up with a body of work that we are immensely proud of and 2020 will be shaped around making sure we do it justice.
The four-piece will be hosting an EP launch show in their hometown on the 7th February at Brighton Electric.