Introducing #278 - Ain't
Let us introduce you to London five-piece Ain’t - who have just released their debut single ‘Oar’ via Fear Of Missing Out Records.
The band have a feverish word-of-mouth reputation about them, making them a must-see on the live circuit. Despite having not released a single official track, the only way to find out anything about them has been to see them at live show, but that’s only if you can get into them. On the strength of these live performances alone and some scattered live recordings from South London’s beloved Windmill in Brixton, the band have already played alongside the likes of Human Interest, Spoort, and Real Farmer.
Bringing together the stranger side of ‘90s guitar, post-punk, and shoegaze from both sides of the Atlantic, Ain’t expertly toe the line between nostalgia and ingenuity. Comprised of George Ellerby (Guitar/Vox), Ed Randall (Guitar), Hanna Baker Darch (Vox), Chapman Ho (Bass Guitar), and Joe Lockstone (Drums), Ain’t’s compulsion to create seeps through with urgency and heft.
Debut single “Oar”, written in the midst of the pandemic, meditates on the swarming frustrations that stem from losing faith in those in charge. Recorded with Oli Barton Wood (Porridge Radio, Shame, The Big Moon), Darch's vocals elastic-snap between a darkened, sardonic reverie and a spitting swell, capturing both the self-protection of apathy and an ever-bubbling, eruptive anger. The band’s line-up produces a sonic scowl, piecing together an incandescent hum that borders industrial noise and a lush, slow-pop dreamscape. “When the promises come unstuck, I’m left to steady the oar,” Darch laments, leaving Ain’t to pick up the pieces.
The band took a moment to talk to us about their music.
Hey there Ain't, how are you? So your debut track ‘Oar’ is out now - can you tell us what it is about?
Hello When the Horn Blows. We’re well thank you, definitely a whole lot well-er now that Oar is loose on the listeners of the world and not just gathering dust in our Google Drive. It’s the first song we ever wrote as a band so it feels great and strange to finally be releasing it.
George took a first pass at the lyrics that would eventually become Oar in the dog days of the pandemic, so what has survived from these are a suitably despondent look at moral cowardice in authority. Hanna reinterpreted this early draft through the lens of the Welsh legend of Ilys Helig, a sunken city, and monstrous medieval imagery. Amongst other things, I think it’s a song about losing faith in the goodness of others and helplessness in the face of the sublime.
Where are you from and what are your favourite things to do there?
We are originally from Bournemouth, Oxford, Leicester, Weston-super-Mare, and South London. Now we’re nearly all based in South London.
It’s a good place to be, particularly as music lovers and we’re spoiled for choice with venues like The Windmill, The Ivy House, and Dash The Henge constantly curating weird and wonderful nights and all as good as on our doorstep. There is also more good food around than you could ever know what to do with and just enough greenery left amongst all the concrete that you can clear your head every once in a while.
What are the key influences when it comes to your music?
Ain’t was brought together around a pretty fixed diet of alternative guitar music, 90s bands like The Smashing Pumpkins, Bedhead, and Unwound but also more contemporary stuff like Alex G and DIIV. The summer we first started to take the idea of being in a band seriously some of us were lucky enough to see the latter two and that felt revelatory.
I think a lot of the bands we like best are bands that insist on completely marrying the most traditionally accessible elements of their music with everything that makes them so wonderful and difficult and strange.
How would you describe your sound to someone who has never listened to your music before?
A bit like a band who listens to all of those bands in the last question, I guess. We take a lot of inspiration from the stranger end of 90s alternative rock so there’s a healthy dose of the noise and distortion and loud-quiet-loud you might expect from that, but we can be quite tender too when the occasion calls for it. If you were to make a venn diagram of crate digging Numero Group nerds, Radio 6 Music dads, and your 12-year-old self who was a little too moved by the Twilight soundtrack - we’re probably somewhere in the middle of that.
Now the track is out there, what next for you?
Well immediately next we are playing a couple more shows before May is out. We’ll be at The Victoria with Scarlett Woolfe and Oh Non on Saturday 25th, and on Tuesday 28th we’re joining So Young Magazine for their monthly night at The Social.
After that we’ll be gearing up to release a track called Teething which, like Oar, we were lucky enough to record with Oli Barton-Wood whose work with Porridge Radio and Nilüfer Yanya we are all big fans of. Eventually the two will be released as a 7-inch single by Fear Of Missing Out Records.
