Tribal Fighters is a name we’ve seen floating around more and more over the last few months, and not just due to events in the Middle East, so ahead of their playing the Manchester Label Love show we had a quick chat to Tom & Chris.
1. How long has the band been together and how did you all meet?
Chris – We formed in July of this year, but Tom (guitarer) and Clapham (drummist) have been in bands together for years. Separate to that, Tom and I had been having loose jamming sessions in a friend’s basement and I’d been introducing him to some new bands, so when their last band – a gypsy punk/grunge-y thing – fell apart, they got me in on bass and we decided to try something different.
2. Where did you get your name from & what does it mean?
Tom – My personal opinion is that coming up with a band name is as difficult as writing an album’s-worth of songs. That might sound ridiculous, but it’s something I’ve often had to struggle with in the past. The name ‘Tribal Fighters’ was actually in a phrase I’d heard on a news report on BBC 5Live, which was in reference to the unrest in Yemen a good few months ago. If you’re expecting some hidden meaning then you shouldn’t bother – it was merely something that sounded pleasing to mine and my bandmates’ ears.
3. Describe your sound for us & who would you say were your biggest musical influences?
Chris – Well when we formed the band, Tom and I had been nurturing a joint love of a little-known surf rock band from the 90s called Shadowy Men On A Shadowy Planet (can’t recommend them enough) and also some of the more out-there math rock bands, so I kind of see our sound as somewhere between the two. All the fast, twiddly guitars of mathy stuff, but also the simple pop-ness of surf rock (we mostly play in 4/4). We call it babe pop because it is happy and it is for the ladies.
4. And what about non-musical influences?
Chris – High fives, party poppers and bright colours. We also watch a lot of comedy on YouTube during our practices, so there is a lot of silliness that gets into our songs: we’re on a mission to put so many 30 Rock references in our songs that Alec Baldwin notices us.
5. Music can be a fickle mistress, what is your biggest high & low as a band so far?
Tom and Chris – We’ve not been together very long, yet people seem to be enjoying us. Our high point so far would have to be being asked to support a Canadian band that’s currently touring the UK and who are signed to one of our favourite labels – Constellation Records. Our low point, if we were to call it that, would be when we tried to play a song we’d made especially for our first gig (which was in a library – where we literally were told to play quietly), only to discover during the song that the Bertrand Russell audiobook samples we were using couldn’t be heard by us or the audience. But we survived – it’s all been a high really. Positive vibes dude.
6. What one fact about the band do you most want to share with the world?
Chris – Every time we do a riff, an angel gets its wings.
7. The old model of record demo-do gigs-get signed-make millions is pretty broken these days, what’s your plan to deal with this?
Chris – To be perfectly honest, we’re not a massively career driven band. I mean, one of the reasons we play the kind of music we do, is because we figure it would sound amazing when played in a sweaty basement full of drunk house party attendees- as a side note, we’ve yet to be asked to play in someone’s house but we would bloody love to. We have quite a nice set up in that we can home record all the demos we want and can practice at Tom’s house. We’re massively DIY so can afford to take our time, get gigs and gather fans at our own pace (though we’re very pleased at how quickly this all seems to be happening). If we get enough people interested in our music to make some coin from selling CDs or merch then we will literally dance forever about it, but for now we’re just happy to put together riffs and play fun loud gigs.
8. We journalists like to use easy labels to describe bands, what’s the worst thing you’ve seen yourselves described as?
Chris – The laziest way anyone’s ever described us would probably be a guy who said we reminded him of the Beach Boys. Obviously Beach Boys are brill, but we sound nothing like them and he only said it because we have surfers in a video we made. LAZY. We were also billed as “Multi-media narrative based rock” on the poster for our first gig, which may have been partially true, but made us sound like the most pretentious band in the history of anything ever.
9. We’re loving what you do but who’s floating your boat right now?
Tom – NASDAQ/FTSE 100 constantly make us feel both fearful and happy in how talented they are. Fun Fact: Their guitarist, Dan, once complimented me on my “twiddly riff” in one of our songs, and that made me grin like a lunatic. Other local bands we love, whose posters decorate our practice room, include Trojan Horse, Kites of San Quentin and Ghosting Season. We also <3 Last Lungs, Day For Airstrikes, Then Thickens and Brontide. And that’s before we delve into our love of Italian disco and UK battle rapping. Sorry for the <3.
10. What’s up next for you guys?
Tom – We’ve got a few gigs coming up that we’re pretty chuffed about (one at which you’re DJing – look out for hugs. From us) but we want to do a great deal more. If you’re looking for three brave men to come and play songs in your faces, then don’t hesitate to drop an email yo. We’re also thinking about taking our homemade demos into a studio and make them sound grown-up, but yeh, mainly gigs, gigs are good.
