Thursday, January 30, 2014 3:29pm ET by  
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The Family Rain talk to Pressparty about their debut album, small towns, and artistic integrity

Bath based blues rock band The Family Rain are due to release their debut album, 'Under The Volcano', early next month and they sat down for a chat with Pressparty during Amazon's recent Summer Wish List event in London to talk about their career so far, growing up in a small town, and playing music as brothers. 

1. So, you’re three brothers. Was music a big part of your upbringing? How do you feel it influenced you growing up and did you always want to form a band together or did that happen in another way?

It’s really nice place to grow up, we’re kind of from the outskirts – it’s a nice place to grow up… it gets a little tedious because it’s quite a small town. It’s a beautiful place, though. We shot our first music video on Salisbury Plain!

We were never into playing instruments until we were about 14 or 15… but we grew up listening to our dad’s record collection, which was like the Beatles, Rolling Stones, and Fleetwood Mac. We had kind of a 'non musical' upbringing, but we had all the good stuff. 

2. What's the band dynamic like as you're all siblings? Is there ever any tension?

It works both ways, we argue about pretty much everything – everything’s solved with an argument, but at the same time it works in that we can be brutally honest with each other – everything’s out on the table and there’s no backstabbing involved. You can lose your friends but you can’t lose family at the end of the day.

3. Your debut album, ‘Under The Volcano’, comes out on February 3. What was the creative process like?

It was a long time coming; we’ve been playing since we were 15. It’s the best part of 10 years and we ended up just wanting the best 10 songs that represent where we are at this point in time. We wanted 10 songs that didn’t overlap each other… a variety of different sounds. We wanted to reflect that in our album. It was just a case of sitting down with the producer, Jim Abbiss (Arctic Monkeys, Adele) – it’s an interesting mix.

More than anything it’s fun to see how far we can push it as a three. We’re into the fact that it’s just the three of us and we can try whatever we want without being embarrassed or shy. Jim (Abbiss) was up for trying anything – it was quite fun to experience. We recorded the main chunk in Berlin – at Hansa Studios – where David Bowie did most of his records and Iggy Pop; it’s an insane studio… like a little time capsule from the ‘70s.

 

 

 

4. Apparently you caught the attention of the Bath chapter of Hells Angels. How did that happen?

We played every pub and s**t gig in the West Country. One particular show we played some of the Hells Angels were… It was all quite intimidating. They made us play until 5am in the morning and we had work that day!

5. What was it like trying to raise your profile in a small town? Did you find that you took a more hands-on approach with gigging and getting your name out there?

You know everyone in the music scene and there were a lot of good people there. We were about to move to London and then we thought we’d be one of thousands of bands trying to make it. So we decided to form The Family Rain and just locked ourselves away for 2 years and made a song on Salisbury Plain and put that up and it all went from there. I’d like to think the logic in that is that we weren’t doing anything to impress anyone, we were doing it from our own place with our own rules – we try to keep that ethos and do stuff that makes us happy and that makes sense to us.

 

 

6. What was your 2013 career highlight?

We went on a really s**t holiday to Ibiza in 2009 and we went back there last year with Biffy Clyro to Ibiza Rocks – it was like a social step up! It was great… it was amazing. Apparently, from what they told us, they were the ones requested that we did it. It was cool. 

The Family Rain will play a headlining show on February 11 at The Garage in London and they are also set to do some in-store gigs to promote the release of 'Under The Volcano':

  • February 5 – Rough Trade East, London
  • February 6 – Rise Records Bristol 
  • February 7 – HMV Bath 

 

To discover The Family Rain and other great new and emerging artists, and to download exclusive free tracks, be sure to visit Amazon’s MP3 Store.

Watch The Family Rain's music video for 'Vulpicide' below: