“We want to look back on all the stuff we release now with nostalgia and think, ‘that was the time we started and that’s where it was going and that was when we were desperate for it.'" Hot off the heels of the release of their debut single ‘first one (she did it again),’ frontman Louis, bassist Josh and guitarist Taylor of The Night Transfer sat down with us to discuss the band’s current success and future trajectory, as well as their local indie music scene. Drummer Ben Stacey was unable to attend the interview, though the band credit him as an important driver of the band's success, as well as a key part of their live act.

Speaking on the reception to their recent release, Louis shared his excitement for how it’s been taken up by listeners. “I’ve been a part of two other projects with music on Spotify and this has been the fastest growing project I’ve been involved in, ever. We have more than 3,000 plays in only a couple weeks, which I’ve never seen. I’ve never been that lucky before, so we’ve definitely done a good job on the marketing.” The group have been promoting their song at various live performances, and also teased an upcoming video project for the track— Taylor made it clear that they didn’t want to push it too far though, saying, “it’s hard, because we don’t want to be our own biggest fans by posting all the time and really pushing it, but you kind of need to do that. You want people to discover it for themselves.”

Part of the impact of ‘first one (she did it again)’ can be put down to its striking, collage-style artwork, which Taylor had made in collaboration with the rest of the band. “I used to design lots of concept covers for Pink Floyd concerts— it was all really surrealist stuff. I would go through magazines all night, cut out what I thought was cool, scan them in digitally and then make collages, so I had a lot of that stuff left over.” Taylor explained that, because of this process, each member of the band could contribute to part of the artwork, bringing in their own cutouts and ideas. “The suitcase with the window on it was my piece, some of the terrain was Josh, other stuff was Louis. It’s eye-catching, and we wanted to make something that could be shrunk down because of the modern age we live in.” Louis also explained the story behind the band’s unorthodox logo, explaining that he had scribbled it onto a window before one of the group’s first gigs, even admitting that “the ’s’ wasn’t meant to be backwards!” 

Diving deep into the new single, Louis revealed how the track came together: “I put that song together, literally, the day we met. I said, ‘right, I’m going to write an indie song’ and at first, it was really slow trying to get it all going. We called it ‘Demo One’ for two years straight, so calling it anything other than ‘Something One’ didn’t make any sense.” Speaking on the group’s writing process, the group explained that Louis often brings the band the fundamentals for a new song before they iterate on it, and finally let Taylor polish it off in post. “To get pleasing chaos, or controlled chaos, is so hard to do without it sounding all over the place— the psychedelic outro was just lots of experimenting. It gets to a point where you’ve heard it so many times that you’ve lost all perspective and you start to come up with issues you’ll never un-hear.”

With its extended ending and unique collection of sounds, ‘first one (she did it again)’ is clearly the intersection of a broad range of influences. Speaking on these, Taylor cited a host of genres including “northern soul, folk, post punk, dream pop, every weird and obscure angle,” even if the band did admit that incorporating each of these can cause disagreements within the group. The four-piece are committed to indie music, however, with Josh stating that, “I think we have an indie ethos— it’s going to be guitars, it’s going to be rock-based drums— but I think within that, we can fit ourselves into whatever. The next singles we’re going to release are noticeably different from the first one, but I think they still sound like us.”

Despite the fact that the band begin their tracks musically and add meaning later on, ‘first one (she did it again)’ is still a very lyrical track, exploring some relatable insecurities. Speaking on how he came up with the words, Louis cited David Bowie’s ‘Young Americans’ as an influence: “I just wanted to write a song with lots of lyrics. A lot of the time, I’ll write the lyrics and bash them out and there’ll be loads of metaphors, and I’ll build a meaning out of that.” The group didn’t want to delve too deep into the track’s meaning, however, explaining that “I like to leave it up to the listener to come up with their own meaning. Sometimes, you don’t want to listen to music that’s about other people— you want to make it about you and feel like you’re in your own little movie, and all the music you’re listening to is about you.”

Moving onto the live setting, the band were keen to talk about the shows they host in their garden, which allow them to connect to their fans in a more grounded way. As Josh explained, “we did it in our kitchen the first time, and it was quite fun because it was so intimate. Everyone’s on top of you— I had to have my bass vertical— but it was definitely a cool thing to be able to say we did, and I think people found the concerts quite endearing.” Louis agreed, going on to say that, “it was quite romantic. There was no separation between us and the crowd— were just together in the room, listening to music that no-one knew.”

The Night Transfer have also began to reach out to larger venue as their appeal expands outside of their local circuit. Discussing the difficulty of breaking into the industry, Josh stated that, “I think if you’re good and they like you, there’s chances. If you put yourself out there and put the effort in, there can be opportunities, but it’s a timing thing, and you have to get lucky.” The group were quite hopeful, explaining that, despite the widespread fear that grassroots venues are being dominated by larger arenas, the band had found opportunities to play throughout Nottingham, setting them up an upwards trajectory for the future.

The group are certainly here to stay, making it clear that they want to continue this project for as long as possible. “Music as a career is what we want. We do want to be a big band— we’re not all ‘let’s be cool and alternative and not wanting success.” We’re real about wanting to be big.” For The Night Transfer, it seems like the music really is at the forefront of everything for them. “It’s not about being big as in famous— it’s big as in, ‘this can be what we do today.’ Still, you have to be pretty big to be able to do that, but it’s more that we care about music a lot and we just want to be able to do that.”

In true Jaily Review fashion, we also had to ask each member what their current favourite album is. Going down an obscure path, Louis chose ‘Rong Weicknes’ by Fievel Is Glauque, explaining that “we listen to so much music and it all sounds the same, so we look out for stuff that’s really different. This is indie-jazz: I’ve been obsessed with it!” Taylor, meanwhile, went back to a classic with ‘Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness’ by The Smashing Pumpkins. “It’s a really long album, but it covers so much ground musically. It dips into so many genres, from psych rock to metal, and even when you have the heaviest metal sections, it was this emotion to it.” Josh also stuck to the classics, talking keenly of Interpol’s ‘Turn On The Bright Lights.’ “That’s probably the main reason I got a bass to begin with. It’s just so bass heavy— he really tied it all together. He was definitely one of the big inspirations for me to pick it up.” The group's drummer Ben Stacey was unable to attend the interview, but later let us know that his favourite album is 'PRATTS AND PAIN' by Royel Otis, on which he commented, "I'm loving the album: it's great to find an interesting new band. Every song is unique and different but captures their distinct sound."

New single ‘first one (she did it again)’ is out now on Spotify.

Pictures were generously provided by The Night Transfer.