HUDSON TAYLOR CHAT
- Mar 14, 2016
- 10 min read
I caught up with Irish brothers and duo Hudson Taylor, aka Harry and Alfie, before their headlining show at Nottingham’s well known venue the Rescue Rooms. It is safe to say they were a lovely pair of guys who love to have a good chat, and it was a pleasure to meet them! I hope to see and here more from them in the future!
Do you guys get on well working together as brothers?
Harry: We get on very well. Surprisingly well. That’s a very common question for us.. do we fight… but no! Ever since we have started its been no.
Does anyone take the lead?
Alfie: In different situations either one of us will take the lead, say in song writing for example…
H: Or right now, Alfie is taking the lead
A: Yeh, or anything its interchangeable, we play our strengths together
H: Not against
A: Not against yeah!
So you see which works best?! How did you begin performing together? Obviously you are brothers but was there a key moment?
H: We grew up together in a very musical environment so there was a lot of (..whats the word!?) encouragement! So if our neighbours came over our mum and dad would encourage us to get up and perform and do a song. In Alfies case he did a lot of dancing, Irish dancing and our parents would say ‘Harry play your piano piece’. So we had a musical thing going on.
A: In 2008 we were on holiday, Harry bought his guitar, we were staying on a campsite in Italy…
H: Walking down the beach
A: We finish each other sentences too!
Well I am sure this question has popped up before so you must know it well!
A: We have to change it up though, different stories.. We walked down the beach and there was a group of about five German people there
H: And they said ‘hey do you want to come over and play a song for us’ , so we did and did some covers and then thought, actually we could make a thing out of this.
A: They asked us to put some stuff on YouTube, so we put some covers up, like Oasis, The Beatles, a bunch of stuff and then started busking which really helped. We really fell in love with what we were doing, it was a way of making pocket money as teenagers.
H: We actually went busking in Nottingham! It was amazing, just before the Rescue Rooms gig!
Where did you do it?
A: Market Square! And it was actually sunny in Nottingham which was amazing, the sun was shining through the big Ferris Wheel. So it was lovely, we were chasing the trail of the sun as it started to move, so we moved with it.
Busking was what we really enjoy and we were able to live of music from an early age and its been our source of income, busking wise, since we were about 15/16 through our teenage years, and still now its nice..
H: Still now we just made £30, so a bit beer of money, we can get some sandwiches with that!
You started to answer my next question which was that you had started off busking and through YouTube, was the best way forward, which it seems to have been!?
H: It seems to have been a good combination doing stuff live, so gigs, busking, whatever and to combine it with social media because people can follow up on a gig and they can go and write to you, or upload their videos and all sort of stuff. So it seems if you have the two things going on, in our case when we busk we have a sign directing people to Facebook, directing them to Twitter, directing people to YouTube, and it can help. It is easily shared, if people like your stuff they then share it with their friends.
A: And you get to gage out how the song is and when you then start writing songs, I suppose you are looking at peoples reactions
H: Its all just the bigger picture and extension of word of mouth, you cant beat someone elses endorsement of something, so people have seen us back in 2008 and they put it on their facebook saying ‘I saw these guys in 2008, I am going to see them tonight’ kind of thing, and it seems to work really well.
How would you describe your music style?
H: Quite folky, singer/songwriter-esk , but there is two of us so you think two guys with guitars singing. That’s what we are doing, but we are doing it in harmony, as for, if you hear a record or see us live we have a band as well around us. So its not just and acoustic thing, we love to strip back and just do the two of us, but when we have a band around us we can have a bigger sound and
A: You can get people dancing!
So would you try any other style?
A: I think we’re.. This is our first album at the moment, and we have worked on it for three years, after all of that and recording, and learing about recording and even learning about writing songs and stuff like that, for the last three years I think we have just developed anyway, so ours song in the latter. In the last year on our album that we have written, are quite different to the songs we wrote three years ago. So I think we will constantly change on every aspect and how do what we are doing.
H: Sometimes we write a song, and it has a different feel, so we think actually, this is a cool direction to go in and we take that strand of direction. Theres a few songs on our album, they aren’t massively different but we wrote one and that inspired another, if you see what I mean..
A: So hopefully that just keeps on happening and with the touring, and with the amount of touring we are doing this year, we will have a lot to do for our second album.
H: We will start trying out new songs on the road and we will see how they go then, and how they go down will determine whether or not they go on the album. That is kind of what we did with the first album, most of the songs we chose for singles, we chose them either because they had a really good reaction online on YouTube or because, at a gig, and people singing the words to songs that had never been released because they went and looked at it on YouTube, they spent the time going online and finding out, that’s really special and tells you that a song is worth putting on your album.
That must make you feel really good?!
H: It is really one of the best feelings about the whole thing. Getting people singing the words to your song, its amazing.
If you could perform with anybody who would it be?
A: John Lennon
H: Yes John Lennon, Paul Simon, I would love to be on stage and sing harmonies with him, it would be a particularly enjoyable experience. I would say he probably wouldn’t like us very much, we are too raucous.
A: I wouldn’t say no to that either! Paul Simon, the list would go on.
H: I think Drake as well, you would love to work with him Alfie
You have had the opportunity to perform with Jake Bugg, Kodaline, the Rolling Stones, who has been the best, and the best place to perform in?
A: Well you drop a name like the Rolling Stones and its crazy, they are heroes of ours, and we got to support them accidentally in Hyde Park, as Tom Odell had a chest infection, and that really is a once in a life time opportunity for us.
H: That is one thing you can say will never happen again you know, you will never accidentally support a global massive band in Hyde Park
A: For 50,000 people on their 50th Anniversary
H: Yeah that will never happen again and is a definite highlight.
How did it feel when you got that phone call?
A: To be honest we were just delighted!
H: We had twenty minutes notice! We had no time to feel anything, it was just numb with excitement and adrenaline and everything else, it was a crazy, crazy thing. The Kodaline tour was great crack because they are Irish lads as well. And Jake Bugg as well. Nottingham man himself!
A: No complaints at all.
Last year you took part in the Coffee House Session Tour. How did that go for you?
A: Really great yeah
Has it boosted your followers as well?
A: Totally, playing Universities..
H: We played at Nottingham Trent actually and it was lovely, the people quite often that turn out to it don’t know who you are and that’s quite cool. They come up to you after and say ‘oh I didn’t know who you were before but I really enjoyed it, I am going to come and see you gig’ all that sort of stuff, its been really cool going back on the road, poping back to all these cities, people come up to you and say ‘I saw you at my university’ its nice that that can be the first place that someone sees you, and then the next time they see you is with a big band.
A: Its almost quite similar to what we do when we were going busking, and I suppose we never got the chance to do as much busking around the UK as we did in Ireland. We got to travel around Ireland busking. So its sort of like that, you rock up..
H: It feels very spontaneous
A: Yeah and you just do your thing, you play a few tunes for a bunch of people who are the same age as us. We would be in College or University if we weren’t doing this
H: We have got to gage what all the different Universities are like as well
A: I never got to go to University so for me it was like University life is pretty cool! I get to experience it but I don’t have to study!
Have you tried busking in most of the cities you go to then?
A: Today was the first time on the tour actually, having the time this afternoon, that we havnt really had, so we said oh lets do it!
H: We are going to try and make more of an excuse to do it in as many places as possible
As you said you have an album coming out, how was it having your EP Battles become number 1 in Ireland and 14 in the UK?
H: Ah yeah that was amazing! It was before we were signed or anything so 2012. Our EP, the hype got built up again by it being talked about online, and for us it was our first release, we are really proud. Full credit to the people who ended up buying it everywhere they helped it, they were the ones that did it for us.
A: We had no money for video or marketing like what they put behind us now, we have a team of people working on it, back then it was literally people that watched us on YouTube or people who saw us on Facebook, the street chipping in to help us out and telling everybody they knew and that really brought it up to number 1. We couldn’t believe that it happened and we did not expect it what so ever, which was amazing and really helped us. It basically got us signed and gave us a lot of confidence.
So it has been a bit of a whirlwind since then!
A: Absolutely yeah, bring the whirlwind on
H: Keep it coming!
We will wait until we are 45 and that will be the calm of the storm, then we will go back out on our 30th anniversary or something and fight.
Your album Sing For Strangers is being released in March (2015) how has it been recording that and seeing the finished product?
A: It was really good, it was a good learning experience
H: It didn’t come without its humps, it was a very long journey in a way, it took us four attempts sometimes to record a song, so to do that with twelve songs or more, obviously it wouldn’t take us four attempts for every song but for some it would take a few to get it right. We wanted to replicate what we do live, and you think that’s an easy thing to do but the day that’s in it…
A: Even if you have had a coffee that morning, a bunch of factors will come into that, in any recording day,
H: And then you start abusing the recording but the fact that you were really anxious or worried, but that has a certain charm about it
A: Or the first one, or the last one, or certain things you never really thought you needed to take into account
H: But we did!
A: You listen to it afterwards and think, I am not happy with this, or we are not happy with the outcome, so we are going to have to record it again. Or in situations now we are signed, there are another couple of chefs in there, those are peoples opinions and we know very much what we want so that’s probably hard for record labels to deal with.
H: And for us to deal with, we know very much what we want.
A: So its about striking the balance I suppose, and overall we are really happy with where the album got to in the end we made sure we were happy with everything and that was the most important thing really.
H: We have 21 songs! Can you believe it.
A few quick fire questions… Valentines day this weekend any plans?!
A: We are playing Brighton so I suppose we will do a few love songs
What’s the funniest moment you have had on stage together?
H: I don’t know..
A: We rip into each other
H: A bit of banter on stage sometimes Alfie might make a joke out of me or rip the piss out of me walking across stage. He will get me when I have my back to the microphone or when I am far away from it so I cant respond quick enough, so it makes my come back not very effective. He will get me when I am away from the microphone so he has the upper hand
A: It wouldn’t be planned, I would just be eager to get going!
Marmite?!
Both: NO
Favourite cheese?
H: Mines probably Halloumi
A: Mines a lovely mature cheddar, a strong Dublin cheddar
Cadburys or Galaxy?
A: Caaaaaa-ooo
H: Im going to say Cadburys
A: Yeah Cadburys
H: Theres some link with Ireland and Cadburys, so Cadburys all the way
Both: It’s the taste
A: I mean I wouldn’t say no to a Galaxy, it’s a bit smoother
H: Cadburys is more classic, you can put it in more things like rocky road but you wouldn’t put Galaxy in it its too smooth
A: Have you ever had such a long answer for a quick fire question!?
I have never had a deep analysis of chocolate like this!
A: You can see where our priorities are!
END
www.hudsontaylormusic.com
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