Coming out of the Brighton's now infamous music crop which includes the likes of The Magic Gang, Abattoir Blues, Birdskulls and Sulky Boy, Breathe Panel are the newest seed to flower with their début single release ‘On My Way' / 'Try To See’. After building a strong Brighton following, the band recently became part of the FatCat Records (Big Deal, C Duncan, The Twilight Sad) family after the local label caught a glimpse of the bursting ability and promise that come out of this four-piece. It is too easy to become obsessed with the band’s first effort, we certainly have had it on repeat, so to try and get it out of our heads we sat down in a sunny Brighton park and got to know Breathe Panel a little bit more.

Where did you grow up?
Nick: I grew up in Bishop’s Stortford, just north of London.

Josh: I’m from Weston super mere near Bristol. I moved to Devon for a bit and that’s where I met Harry.

Harry: I grew up in a little town called Sidmouth.

Josh: Benji, who is on holiday at the moment, is also from Devon but a different part, and we never knew – pure coincidence.

Is there much of a music scene there?
Nick: Not at all where I was from. There was an open mic once a week in one venue, and that was about it.

Harry: For Josh and I, Exeter was the nearest place where there was a bit of a scene.

Josh: It was mostly post-punk and music like that – very cliquey. We were mostly into blues rock so we didn’t really fit in.

Can you remember the first album you bought?
Harry: I can remember my dad buying me the Black Eyed Peas album, Elephunk, as I was really into the single ‘Where Is The Love?’. He also came back with a Rachel Stevens album, the one with ‘Sweet Dreams My LA Ex’ – maybe it was two for one.

Nick: A family friend gave me some CDs. I can remember Moby’s Play being in there, the Nirvana Unplugged album and Only By The Night by Kings Of Leon being in there – that’s the earliest I can really remember.

Josh: All I can remember is a Wheatus album on tape, but I don’t think it was mine. It was the one with ‘Teenage Dirtbag’ on it – I used to have it on repeat, horrible.

How did you all meet?
Harry: We all moved to Brighton for university. Josh and I have lived with each other for about four years, but we now also live with Nick.

Josh: I met Nick though a mate. We would muck about in the basement, getting really drunk and see what music we could make. Then we would meet up sober to try and piece together the mess we had made. After we had got a few songs down and wanted to play live, that is when Harry came in. We had a different drummer at first – Benji joined us quite recently when he moved down here.

What made you want to be in a band?
Josh: I had always been in bands with Harry since we were about 16, so we always thought that was what we were going to do. I then fell into writing with someone else.

Harry: Yeah, you ditched me.

Josh: Sorry about that mate, you’re back in it now. We were getting a bit tired of what we were doing, so we did something new and then that happened to be with each other.

Nick: When I first moved down to Brighton, I loved the idea of just being a solo artist writing acoustic songs on my own. I started listening to bands more and my friends were in bands, so I started to like that idea more. I asked Josh if he wanted to start something and he avoided me for about two months, a whole Christmas he made me wait, but he came running back.

Is there a story behind the name?
Nick: I was on a train to Plymouth for a wedding and had a few ideas around my favourite animals at the time, an elephant and  a bear. An anagram came out of the two as Breathe Panel. It doesn’t really mean much, but we now see our sound as Breathe Panel and it has just become its own thing – it has to us anyway.

Harry: Band names are something that become their own identity after a while, so it’s important not to over think it too much.

What are the band’s main influences?
Nick: From an early age, we all really liked the early Kings Of Leon albums. Now we all really like acts like Deerhunter and Real Estate.

Josh: We all listen to a lot of different things on our own too – like Ambient Drone, which nicely comes into the band’s music as well.

Tell us a bit about your debut single release?
Nick: We recorded ‘On My Way’ about two years ago in my room and had it sitting about for a while, then recorded ‘Try To See’ maybe a year ago. They seemed to fit really well together and suited our ‘embryo phase’. Plus, FatCat Records really liked them and got in touch with us about releasing them. That was a really great feeling, that someone actually wanted to put time into our music.

What has been a musical eye-opener and how has it affected you?
Harry: Josh and I went to Glastonbury in 2008 when Kings Of Leon were headlining on the first night, that was amazing, then in 2013 we saw The Rolling Stones headline Glastonbury! For me, I get so much out of seeing how different bands perform.

Nick: Researching bands. Hearing 70s post-punk bands and then researching the context of their music. A band now could do the same thing that they did back then but it wouldn’t have the same relevance. The time music happens in is just as important as the actual music, or the context of a song can be more important than its sound.

Who would be in your ultimate supergroup?
Josh: I would have Nick Drake as the frontman – probably the quietest frontman ever.

Harry: Marvin Gaye on backing vocals.

Nick: Lockett Pundit (Deerhunter) on guitar.

Harry: Could have Robert Johnson on lead guitar.

Josh: Kyle Bobby Dunn on backing guitar, why not James Brooks (Land Observations) also on guitar.

Harry: Ringo on drums keeping it together.

Josh: Then Michael Jackson’s bass player – I’m not sure which one, but the one that is on all of his big songs.

If you could work with any artist, who would it be and what would they bring to Breathe Panel?
Josh: I would like to work with Ethan Johns for no other reason than I really like his work. I think if we worked with him, our music would sound completely different to what we are doing at the moment.

If you could have made any album ever, which one would it be and why?
Nick: There is a band called the Balkans and their whole album (Bulkans, 2011) is amazing, every song is full of energy. I used to live with Paeris from The Magic Gang for a couple of years and he showed them to me.

Harry: I think it would have to be Magical Mystery Tour by The Beatles. They are a perfect selection of songs, as in how each track sits in the album – it’s perfectly set up. Then you think, they also made Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band in the same year.

What are your future plans till the end of the year and after?
Harry: We have some live dates coming up at the end of September and October – we are really looking forward to playing with Stephen Steinbrink and Honeyblood.

Josh: We are also playing at the Southsea Festival which will be really fun. We are hoping to go on tour later in the year too.

Nick: Also to write loads and generally be rock stars.

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Twitter: twitter.com/BreathePanel