In Conversation With #175 - Home Counties
London based genre-hopping punks Home Counties have just released their new EP ‘In A middle English Town’ via Alcopop! Records.
Over the past 18 months Home Counties have firmly established themselves as one of the UK's most vital new bands. New EP 'In A Middle English Town', self-produced by the band’s guitarist Conor Kearney, blurs the lines of art-punk, guitar-pop and danceable post-punk in thrilling fashion, taking cues from the likes of Talking Heads, Devo and Gang Of Four, and lyrically examining the claustrophobia and suspicion of everything outside of the semi-detached, Thatcherism politics, the complexities of the British north/south divide and small village mentality.
They took a moment to talk to us about how the EP came together.
Hey Home Counties, how are you? So your EP is out now, how does it feel to have it out there in the world?
We're good thanks! It feels great to finally have the EP out there. We’ve been working on these songs for a while now, some of them since we started out in January 2020, so it is a relief to get them out. The songs sort of changed as we changed, so it feels like the first proper representation of what Home Counties is and where we want to be.
It is called ‘In A Middle English Town’ - what is the meaning behind that?
We took the EP title from track 2 off the EP - ‘The Home Counties’. I thought the lyric sort of encapsulated the broader themes running through all the songs. All of the songs are set in a sort of semi-fictional idea of England that is not bound by one particular time or place. Although the songs range in subject matter, they could be applied to any of the hundreds of ‘anonymous’ places (for lack of a better word) in the country.
Where was it recorded? Any behind the scenes stories from the creative process you are willing to share with us?
The EP was self-recorded, produced by our guitarist Conor, in a variety of bedrooms and practice spaces over the last year. A lot of the recordings retain much of the original bedroom demos - a lot of weird synth sounds that were made pretty spontaneously at demo stage, for example, made it onto the EP.
It was late September, after wrapping up gigging for the summer, when we were suddenly like ‘shit - we need to actually make the EP’. Then we got a bit more serious and booked a few days in a studio, got everyone together and finished the whole thing in four days.
It wasn’t a particularly eventful recording process - the usual eating pot noodles and waiting around sort of thing. We did have a lot of fun recording vocals. We invited our friends in to do the backing vocals on ‘The Home Counties’ (you can hear our friends Olwen and Georgie on the ‘Oh no!’ On Verse 2). It was fun making it more of a collective experience.
What are the key themes and influences on the EP?
The biggest theme on the EP is probably community. All the songs talk about it in one way or another. ‘Back to the 70s’ is about the loss of community and nostalgia for more collectivist times, 'The Home Counties’ is about contemporary individualism of the family home and suspicion of others in community, ‘Ad Gammon’ is about community asserting it’s historic identity against the culturally homogenising influence of London and ‘Village Spirit’ is the dangers of village mentality, as well as the strengths that it brings in terms of collective spirit.
Do you have a favourite lyric on the EP? If so, which one and why?
For its comic value, I am pleased with the opening lyric of the EP ‘Like Shaft, but without social significance, credits or theme song’. It’s one of the sillier lyrics on the EP, but I like the imagery of it - especially imaging Barn strutting down some 70s high street.
Now the EP is out there - what next for you?
We’re heading off on our first headline tour this week, which we are all very excited for. We’ll be returning to some of our favourite cities to play, as well as playing some we never have before. The Lexington (in London) on the 24th is a big one we’re looking forward to. After the tour we’re planning on getting back into the rehearsal room to get writing again - to find out where we’re going next.
