South East London’s Young Native were one of the acts that took The Great Escape by storm over the weekend with their Saturday afternoon slot. Their debut EP, Consciousness Is King was released back in April and it grasped my attention with its sun-kissed hooks and confident swagger. I was now keen to see how they would transpose the sound into a live setting. Their show-down in the basement of Queen’s Hotel attracted quite the crowd as they grew with confidence throughout the set; their walk became a strut as they laid into hits such as ‘Stripes’ and ‘Sunset’, both are songs that have achieved the group radio airplay courtesy of BBC Introducing.

Here’s what I found out about their beginnings, and ultimately, their future plans as they still remain a fairly young band in the making:

How are you finding your weekend so far then?
Ben: Yeah, it’s great man, it’s been crazy so far. I’ve only just got here as I go away tomorrow but it’s been ridiculous up until now. I really want to catch DMA’s tonight actually, they are on at Wagner Hall!

Yes, you guys seemed to have that sort of DMA’s thing going on?
Sean: Definitely, we are very into that sort of DMA’s, Sticky Fingers, King Krule sort of sound.

Whereabouts do you guys get your influences from then as a band?
Sean: We get it from all over really, we are all different. I’m very into Australian music right now, I’ve only just got into Oasis too actually. I used to hate them you know, but then I got round to it and there’s some proper good stuff from them.

How do you find South East London works for you as a band then?
Tristan: Well, everyone seems to attach that to us you see and that’s cool with us. There’s a really great music scene there. It’s a good place to be, a lot of good influences that we work well with. It’s just doing London as a city though, it’s so tiring because there are so many bands there. We have done the circuit over and over again and now we are just looking to get out of there and see some more you know. It’s about finding your own sort of niche within London.

Do you play often around the country then or is it mainly London?
Sean: It’s just been London so far you know. Asides from London, we’ve only played one other city. We’ve only played about 12 gigs altogether, we did Reading the other night at the Purple Turtle for BBC Introducing. That’s the only place outside of London that we’ve done.

Ben: Oh, we played Sussex Uni that one time.

Sean: Yeah but we don’t really count that, it was odd.

Do you have plans to tour the rest of the country?
Sean: We have a festival in the north of Wales over summer and then a few other dates too. We have a few things lined up in the way of dates but we don’t have anything confirmed 100% yet.

You’ve done quite well with your latest single, ‘Stripes’ right?
Tristan: Yeah, ‘Stripes’ got quite a lot of attention, it did well. BBC Introducing jumped on it and made a big deal of it which we were really happy about.

Sean: We had a bit of confusion though, I had a text from a friend saying that we were being played on Annie Mac with ‘Stripes’. I had no idea that was going on so ran over to the computer to find the show and flick through the playlist for the day. As I was looking through I was thinking I can’t see any Young Native on here. Turned out it was Local Natives!

Do you have many plans for future releases then?
Tristan: Yeah, we are running through a few ideas. We are releasing a summer EP, the plan is to record in June and then have a full release for it in July.

Right, so what can we expect from that?
Tristan: I’m not sure yet to be honest man, we are toying with the idea of three, maybe four tracks – we are just trying to work out which ones. We weren’t sure whether to re-release and re-record stuff or whether to release brand new material. Our last EP was good but some of the songs we currently have recorded we are playing around with the idea of tampering with them. We really want a summer vibe to the whole thing.

Yeah, that’s what I found from your first EP, Consciousness Is King, there was a summer vibe to it. It was a little Jamie T, King Krule sort of thing?
Tristan: Yeah, that’s it really. We really wanted like anthemic choruses.

How did you find Queen’s Hotel as a venue to play at then?
Tristan: Yeah, it was good man. It was a bit of a strange vibe, there are obviously a lot of people here to see what goes on musically and then a lot of people here staying over at the hotel so it was interesting. Generally, though, we were impressed. We seemed to have a nice turnout, there were plenty of people who were down here to catch us which is nice. We weren’t really expecting much from it, but credit to our manager as he seemed to have helped get a fair few people down here.

So you say you played at Sussex Uni before, what was that about?
Tristan: Yeah, it was just really random. I don’t think people were really there to see music, they were just at their SU you know. I mean, obviously they do tours and stuff where you play universities but it wasn’t really like that. I mean, all my family live down here so I come down a lot and appreciate that there is a really solid music scene and that down here. Brighton is a city I really love for that reason.

Do you think Brighton is somewhere that you would want to embed yourself in the future?
Tristan: Yeah, definitely man. Obviously, Brighton has a huge hip-hop scene and a lot of my mates who I went to college with stuck around here and they talk about how great it is. The venues down here seem wicked and it’s definitely an environment that we would work well within I think.

Following this fantastic reception at one of their early shows, they look set to forge their way into quite an optimistic future. A band full of characters, Sean, Tristan, Ben and Myles, each add a different element to the mix. They clearly have a knack for a good cover too after their version of Nelly’s ‘Ride With Me’ – they dressed in an array of sportswear and delivered each sentence with a glimmer of cheekiness. They seem like a band that have the persona to match the music industry. Taking it all as it comes and making it mould around them rather than falling around it. Young Native are a gang of four to watch out for in the future.
Tom Churchill

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