The Brighton five-piece have long been on our musical radar, giving us many a mad night in and around Brighton’s venues. Live they are a force to be reckoned with, bringing a performance which is absorbing, enthralling and will leave you in a sweaty stupor. On record their music is bold and direct, being dark, emotive and grungy. Wherever you hear them, their music is sure to take over your conscious. I caught up with Harry (vocals), Scott (drums) and George (guitar) from Abattoir Blues in the wake of their Nai Harvest tour to find out more about what makes their sound, as well as have a chat with a passing Paeris (from The Magic Gang) who joined in on the conversation.

What kind of music were you all brought up on?
[HARRY] My earliest memories of my parents playing music was Neil Young and Lenard Cohen. My dad was really into The Stone Roses also.
[SCOTT] My mum loves reggae.
[HARRY] That’s why Scott has such a great beat.
[SCOTT] It is literally the only thing she ever plays at home.
[GEORGE] My dad used to play a lot of Lou Reed. Both my parents are really into David Bowie. My mum also got me into Talking Heads. I had older sisters when I was growing up, so when I was 14 I got into stuff like Brand New, Hundred Reasons and more emo kind of stuff.

What was the first music you owned?
[GEORGE] The first single I brought was Without Me by Eminem. I think the first album I got was a Blink-182 rarities album, which is actually a really crap album but it was still a big deal for me at the time.
[SCOTT] My first album was Elephunk by Black Eyed Peas and it was brilliant.
[HARRY] My first single was Natasha Bedingfield’s These Words. My first album was equally awful –Ultimate R&B 2004. We actually found it just before we last went on tour and to be fair it has got some absolute bangers on it.

How did you all meet?
[HARRY] Me and George met through our mate Jack, who was our old guitarist and now plays in Bridskulls. Then we met Scott just through other bands. We had been told Scott was a really good drummer and then when our old drummer left, I spoke to Scott after one of his shows.
[SCOTT] Pretty much exactly a year ago. I originally thought I was joining Birdskulls…
[HARRY] …but we got there first. Since Sam and Scott joined, we have all gelled really well.

Must be great to be a part of this young emerging Brighton scene with the likes of The Magic Gang, Birdskulls, Sulky Boy, Our Girl, Posture, Manuka Honeys, …, under the Echochamp collective?
[HARRY] Yeah, it’s really exciting and spurs us all on. We live with The Magic Gang and Sulky Boy, and we all encourage each other to do new stuff.
[GEORGE] We feel pretty lucky to have fallen into this group of really talented bands. Kris from The Magic Gang also records a lot of our stuff.
[SCOTT] I was looking at this all from the outside before I joined the band, and you could really see that something was happening with these bands.

What is the story behind the band’s name?
[HARRY] It is from a Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds album – Abattoir Blues / The Lyre of Orpheus. I absolute love Nick Cave's music, but I am a bit worried he may want to sue us for using it. When we first started the band we couldn’t come up with a name for ages, so me and the first drummer (Dylan) went through our albums and it was one of the first ones that came up.

How would you describe your music?
[GEORGE] I guess it’s kind of 80s post-punk with an emo tinge to it. We all like pop music’s structure, that is something we actively pursue. Someone said to me the other day that watching Abattoir Blues is like watching five people playing from five different bands, as in different musical backgrounds.

What are your main influences?
[GEORGE] Everyone comes from their own musical heritages.
[SCOTT] Sam and I both love Jeff Buckley’s Grace. Our most neutral musical love is probably The Stone Roses.
[GEORGE] For me, I take a lot of influence from the guitar playing on The Devil and God Are Raging Inside Me by Brand New.

What inspires your lyrics?
[HARRY] It’s observational. I’m quite into politics and take a lot of influence from that. There are also songs about work and more boring things too. The most recent song I have written is about the migrant crisis. My writing is about all sorts of stuff.

Do you prefer playing live or writing songs?
[HARRY] Both. You get a different buzz from each. For me the best feeling I have ever felt whilst being in the band is the feeling where you have a new song and everyone is smiling and looking around at each other realising that we have got something good here.

Are you planning to release anything new soon?
[GEORGE] It has been a while.
[HARRY] We have been really lucky in releasing only one song and still having all this good stuff happen for us. It has made us even more excited to get this new music out. We have been flourishing in our writing of late.
[GEORGE] We all think this new material is much better than our old stuff too, and it’s the same for the people who have heard it.
[HARRY] We’ll be recording soon, so hopefully we will be releasing something in the next few months. The ball is rolling.

What has been a musical eye-opener?
[HARRY] It was when I was younger and my mum first showed me Ziggy Stardust by David Bowie. That was the first time I thought, “wow, music is sick!” and that it goes further than the Now compilations.
[SCOTT] Mine was when I saw this hardcore band which I think was called Ice Berg. I had never seen anyone express themselves onstage like them, in their music but also between songs. He was saying things against racism, it turned out there was a load of racist skin-heads in the audience and they then tried to fight everyone. It was seeing how it can have that kind of effect.
[GEORGE] For six/seven years, Radiohead were my favourite band and I was obsessed with them. Seeing them headline Reading in 2009 was one of my most emotional moments in music. Even before that, it was the first time I heard Kid A and realising how amazing it was. Also seeing an act like Alex G live – as I’m not musically trained, he just makes his own style and it made me realise that you really can play music however you want.

What would be your perfect line-up for a concert you are putting on and where would it be?
The gig would be in the bowl of the skate park at The Level, like in the Sum 41 ‘Fat Lip’. Slowdive would be first support, then Bad Brains, with My Bloody Valentine headlining. Showgaze is the bread and hardcore punk is the filling.

If you could have written a song or album, what would it be?
[HARRY] I would have liked to have written the blue album or Pinkerton by Weezer. Liquid Swords by GZA was a pretty big album.
[GEORGE] Maybe Songs Of Leonard Cohen, that is one of my favourite albums. The song ‘One Of Us Cannot Be Wrong’ has to be one of the best songs ever made.

Have you been to any gigs recently that have stood out?
[HARRY] We saw Broardbay last night which was incredible.
[SCOTT] Juan Walter was really good.
[GEORGE] Breathe Panel are amazing live. Also Whitney at the Green Door Store was brilliant.

What are you listening to at the moment?
[GEORGE] I’ve been listening to a band called Flouriest.
[HARRY] Kendrick Lamar’s new album Untitled Unmastered is amazing.
[SCOTT] I have been listening to a lot of Coneheads.

What are your future plans?
[HARRY] We are going on tour with Nia Harvest from 25th March and will be sharing a van with them which is going to be pretty fucked. In the middle of that we are playing the O2 Forum in London with Wolf Alice, which is crazy.
[GEORGE] Straight after the tour we want to be recording and then go back on tour over the summer.

Paeris from The Magic Gang came and sat down with us, so I asked him more about the Echochamp collective.

What is Echochamp and how did it all start?
[PAERIS] We are all friends and everyone was doing various musical project, all showing each other our songs before putting it out there for people to hear. It made sense to group it all together under one title, as it was something we used to referrer our music to anyway. When DIY and NME would review the bands they would always mention Echochamp, even before it was a thing. We all then thought why don’t we do something with it. It has only really been this year where we have pulled our finger out with releases and doing London residency as well where we put on bands from our, you could say, circle of people who are all our mates.
[HARRY] We are a label and a promoter which act under this collective. The other day Posture who we are doing a release for, got a play on Radio 1 which was a really nice feeling for all of us.
[GEORGE] We are all very productive too, so it is nice to have an outlet where we can put stuff out.

Where is the residency and when?
[PAERIS] We are doing it at The Old Blue Last in London every month which is locked on till the end of the year. Then if we can be a bit more efficient, we will bring it down to Brighton too.

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