Green Gardens in Interview

Green Gardens are a band from Leeds that have just completed their latest UK tour. They have just released a new double single called ‘Greeting’ and ‘I am Kind’, and I had the opportunity to find out what inspired them for these brand new tracks. 

How did the Green Gardens come together and when did you decide that you wanted to pursue a career in music?

Jacob: “We met in the first week of moving to Leeds for university. We decided to play together because we liked each other more than anything. It was an excuse to hang out really! I think that’s why we’ve been able to carry on so long because we would be hanging out either way so we might as well do something with our time together.”

What’s your favourite venue to play in Leeds?

Jacob: “Our bingo card is full to be fair, I think we’ve played them all! The first time we played at Brudenell Social club, we all found that really cool. What we love doing now is doing places that we’ve never been to before in Leeds – every now and then something will pop up which is really exciting. All the venues that we play in Leeds are all struggling, the independent spaces in particular are amazing. We love to see new spaces opening up, and we also love to play Wharf Chambers.” 

Chris: “I tend to gravitate more towards the rooms that when they pack out are a bit minging. It can either be the best time in the world or the worst thing ever and you just kind of roll with it – I love that.”

After the performances where do you usually end up?

Chris: “Most of the time we hang around the venue until last orders, and then we finally pack our stuff up and leave.”

Jacob: “We’re all pub people rather than bar or club people, so if there’s a pub that’s open late like Brude then we’ll go there”.

What was different about this tour compared to the previous tours you’ve done, and what felt different about it?

Chris: “It was nice to do a tour where we hadn’t just released an album. We just released a double single six weeks ago so that we could play them on tour and fill that space between releases so it was a bit more of a nerve wracking one in terms of when you haven’t just released a big-body of work, is anyone going to show up? But, the turn outs were all really nice, and it felt nice to give the last record another bit of life and do some songs that we didn’t play in November. This tour was about testing the water and doing a tour in between releases, doing towns that we hadn’t done before like Edinburgh, to see if people travel for it, which they did, which was nice! 

What’s been your favourite city to play? 

Chris: “We all loved Edinburgh!”

Jacob: “It’s such a cool venue, it was a nice intense little space. The city was really cool, too.”

Chris: “We weren’t going to stay over that night but then we were like this is the nicest place ever!”

Jacob: “Brixton was also a really nice show. You always put a lot of pressure on yourself for a London show because we always seem to end up there at the end of the tour so everything leads towards that. But it had a good vibe.”

What’s your most random/memorable moment from any of your tours?

Chris: “When we’re away we have a lot of car-yapping times. We have those choose your own adventure fantasy books – we read those out in the front of the car to decide what we wanna do. Those are loads of fun and make the time fly. By the time we arrive at the gig we don’t want to get out of the car because we’re halfway through the story.

Jacob: “All of the in-between bits are the best bits. We do a lot of exploring in between shows, and on the last tour we went to a castle and they let us try on all the helmets which was pretty wicked. We just nerd-out in between shows.”

Your music sits best within the indie-rock genre: which artists or scenes have shaped your music the most?

Jacob: “There’s a lot of lofi stuff from the 90s that we listen to a lot. The way that music production works is that you are expected to create things to the best possible standard, but we have found a lot of the real gems in our mistakes. If Chris and I record our demos at home and there’s a slip up  or it isn’t perfect, that becomes just as important to the song as the lyrics or the chords.There’s a lot of that in bands such as Broken Social Scene (that we all love) and Sparkle Horse. I think when something is too polished and is done to the best it can be, we all kind of switch off a bit.”

You’ve just released your latest double single ‘Greeting’ and ‘I am Kind’: what inspired those tracks and how are they different from your other songs?

Chris: “They’re quite different to each other, and I think they ended up sitting quoite nicely sonically together. These two felt like they could stand on their own and set the boundaries of what the next thing is going to be in a nice way. I wrote and demoed ‘Greeting’ and Jacob did ‘I am Kind’, and then we brought it into the band and then shaped it with them. Jacob and I talk a lot about the feeling of the grass always being greener on the other side, and no one is necessarily ever happy with anything that they have because everyone is always wanting for something. I wanted to do something around that frustrated feeling of being a bit trapped or second-guessing yourself.”

Jacob: “I can’t really remember why I write them. I find myself looking back on it and trying to analyse them in retrospect, but it is hard to say. My subconscious does a lot of the work, not to say that it’s about nothing, but it’s almost that it’s about everything. I am quite careful not to have a target when I’m writing, and it’s too massive to pinpoint.”

If someone was discovering your music for the first time, what would you want them to know? Is there a specific song you would want them to listen to?

Chris: “Whatever we have just put out because that’s the most relevant thing. At the minute we’re in a nice rhythm of writing and releasing, not settling too much into one thing. That’s what we feel most connected to.”

Jacob: “The goal is to never release the same thing twice, everything we’ve ever released sounds slightly different, which is what is exciting for us.”

Words by Katie Hawkins