Octopuses are one of Brighton's favourite bands, their jaunty indie pop has been filling venues for the last few years and they are, after a slight false start (read our review of the album preview show), releasing their positive début album Yes Please  on November 20^th. I caught up with band leader Adam Bell to learn a little more about the history of him, the band, their label and their place in the Brighton Scene…

 

Where do you come from originally?
I was born in Manchester back at the beginning of the 80s, I moved to Brighton with my brother and family in the mid 90's and have been doing music since I was a kid. I have lived in other places around the country including St Andrews in Scotland, Oxford and Cornwall, for a bit.

What are your formative musical influences?

A combination of Rock/Grunge in America and Britpop in the UK. Nirvana, REM, Oasis and Blur were probably my first four favourite bands, followed quickly by Weezer and Pulp. So a bit of a combo of the two, each side of the Atlantic. I was a big fan of The La's too, as my guitar teacher was a friend of Lee Mavers who played guitar in The La's briefly. I picked up a guitar at about the age of thirteen and was very excited by the whole idea of writing songs.
 

Has Brighton influenced your music making?

Mostly through some of the people I met when I moved back to Brighton in 20007. Matthew Twaites, who is a very old mate and my brothers best mate. He was in a band called Restlesslist and that was probably the first band I was really close to in Brighton. Although they were a completely different sound I think we influenced each other through enthusiasm. I formed Big Salad Records and made music with my old band Foxes at that time and Milk & Biscuits, I think we had a similar interest in melodic pop writing and we definitely influenced each other.
 

What was the first album you bought for yourself and how old were you?
The first album I bought was Graceland by Paul Simon, I think I was about 12 or 13 years old. Great album. Still listen to it.

 

What was the first instrument you played, do you still have/use it?
The first musical instrument I played was the violin when I was about 6 years old. I still have the first violin I bought but I haven't really played the violin since I was about 18 years old. I've still got the violin but it's in a terrible state.

 

Why do you make music?

Probably because it is exciting, I like playing in a band with other people. I think that my band Octopuses are my best friends, so being together doing something creative is an amazing feeling. Expressing yourself, getting things off your chest, music is a great way for me to express the stuff I'm thinking deep down that I don't express otherwise.
 

How did Octopuses get together?
I moved into a house share with Smalan and Tom Matthews in 2012 and we just used to have little jams in the front room and play at Open Mic nights at The Signalman pub. Then our first sort of gig was at a Weezer tribute night at The Green Door Store where me, Tom Matthews and Smalan performed a few Weezer tracks. Then we got the Grice brothers in a bit later to turn it into a fully fledged rock band.

 

Why Octopuses?

The name Octopuses originally came from Tom Matthews thinking of incorrect words that people think are correct but they're not. He thought that 'Octopi' was the correct pluralisation of Octopuses so we thought it would be funny to have a wrong word as the name. Of course Tom Matthews was wrong and it is actually correct!

 

How would you describe the music you make?

I would describe it as neo-psychedelic pop-rock music. We like to think about unusual topics lyrically and musically. I think we like to write tight pop songs but we also like to be a bit psychedelic in our outlook. I think that word always rings true as a good descriptive word for what we're doing.

 

How do you approach the writing process as a band? Is it always the same?

Quite often songs start with me playing the keyboard in the rehearsal room and coming up with a vocal melody line then the band builds around it. Other times at home I write, to a lesser or greater extent, a song with verse and chorus and bring it into the studio and we build on it form there. Also Smalan Odgers has written a few really good songs in the same sort of way and brought them into the studio, to a greater or lesser extent, already written and we build on that.

 

How was Yes Please recorded – who did you work with and where?

We recorded Yes Please originally in two weekend sessions at the Metway Studios in 2014 produced by Matthew Twaites. We did further recording and engineering at Silverdale Road with Alan Grice, our drummer, engineering or producing – whatever the word is! So actually the majority of the album was recorded in those two weekends very quickly in very long sessions. Two 20 hour sessions in the first weekend and then the second weekend as well but we spent quite a lot of time fiddling around with stuff with Alan Grice afterwards.

 

What was the process of getting from your initial recording sessions to the final version ready to release?

It was a lot of further sessions with Alan Grice and then a lot of discussions. We edited some of the songs down and we took out three tracks which we're probably going to release as b-sides next year, or as an EP possibly. Then we also mastered the album quite recently in Wales and the master really made a difference. It's great, we're really happy with the master.

 

You're putting on the gig of your dreams, which three bands make up your ultimate line-up?
The La's, Weezer, The Beatles. Should be a good gig, two Liverpool bands.

 

You're well known for your crazy videos, do you make them yourselves?

We have made a few videos in different ways. My favourite video, the 'Cool Story Bro' video, was made by Fred Burns and David Peter Murphy who are two really good friends of ours. The 'Pogo' video was made by Smalan Odgers and the new video 'Girl' was made by Alan Grice. Our first video 'Sarcastic' was Laurence Dean and myself.

 

Who would you work with if you could collaborate with any artist?
Probably Adam Kidd from Fragile Creatures, it would be good to write a tune with him some time.

Who are you listening to at the moment?

The Dandy Warhols, Godspeed You Black Emperor, Courtney Barnett, Mac Demarco. Those are the things I'm most listening to at the moment.

 

I hear you guys do a podcast called 'The Brighton Scene' – what's that all about?

That is me and Smalan weekly, every Monday night, we run a radio show called the Brighton Scene [Monday evenings on http://mixlr.com/the-brighton-scene/] and we like to talk to people who live in Brighton about different topics. We have regular features such as 'what injury do you have?' and 'where are the other Brighton's in the world and what happens there?' We play local bands, we chitchat, we just have a really nice time. We interview people, so there's quite a lot of lifestyle chitchat as well – what's life actually like? What's it like living in Brighton? The big question we're asking is 'what is the Brighton scene all about'? It's a very difficult question to answer.

 

Are there any bands from the Brighton music Scene we should be keeping an eye on?

Prince Vaseline, Purple, Milk & Biscuits, Fragile Creatures, Seadog… did I say Purple already? I think I did – that would be the starting point of the bands that I like. I also think the Hornblower Brothers are good and Tigercub. Plenty of others but those are a few that come to mind.

 

What has been your happiest memory with music?

Possibly the last ever Foxes gig in Oxford. The album had been out a couple of months and it was a good audience. Everyone knew the lyrics and were really into it. It's a bit sad in retrospect, as it was the last gig which was a shame, but at the time I was very happy because it felt like people were really getting into the album and knew the album, which was very exciting.

 

Octopuses debut album Yes Please is out soon, what are your future plans?

The album is out in two weeks (20^th November) we want to organise a Spring 2016 tour which we'll announce as soon as it's ready. We've writing a few songs for the second alum already as well as the unreleased tracks from the first album sessions so there's still plenty on the horizon of new music. We want to start recording the new album next year as well as touring as much as possible.

 

How do things work with you and Lick Music?

I actually work with Lick Music, it's myself and Tom Lavis. They are a record label, of sorts, and this album (Yes Please) is the first album release for Lick Music. We do sessions as well, we get bands in to do sessions in the Lick frozen yoghurt warehouse – that's something we're hoping to do more of next year. So, yeah it's really good. Really good people.

 

If you had to fight another member of Octopuses who would it be and who would win?

It would most definitely be Rob. He's a great guy but I think he's a terrible fighter. He lacks the necessary coordination to win a fight. So I think I would fight our bass player Rob Grice.

Octopuses are launching their album with a show at The Hope & Ruin on Thursday 3rd December. Check out the video for their latest single 'Girl':