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The Communion crowd account for much of the folk music in the UK. Pale Seas are one the newest bands to join the crew. The dreamy folk-pop quartet create music laced with jangly guitar lines and ethereal melodies. AltSounds had a chat with one half of the band a little while ago, when they blissed End of the Road festival with a magical half hour set, despite their numerous technical faults.
AltSounds: You had quite a few problems with your set, have you had other sets that were worse than that?
Jacob: Haha, what a question!
Graham: Jake, that’s a leading question, careful how you answer that.
Jacob: No, I’ll be honest; we have had one that was slightly more catastrophic than that.
Graham: But that’s probably the highest concentration of technical faults.
Jacob: Yeah, I don’t think we’ve had that many in one set before. But it makes it more exciting - if we don’t know what’s going to happen, then the crowd probably won’t either.
AltSounds: How long are you here for? Are you going to watch any other bands?
Graham: We were just discussing this, we’re not sure.
Jacob: I said I’d walk home because I can’t miss Patti Smith. I just couldn’t miss her.
Graham: It was the plan to go home tomorrow, but I think we want to see Grizzly Bear and I probably want to see the Sunday acts as well.
Jacob: Granddaddy, headlining, the last band.
Graham: Patti Smith and Graham Coxon as well.
Jacob: I wouldn’t want to miss this. If we were playing somewhere else, we’d obviously have to go, but it seems like it is an amazing festival. You’ve got to stay when you’ve got festivals like this.
AltSounds: Could you tell us a bit about the band?
Jacob: What do you want to know?
AltSounds: Anything - some fun facts?
Jacob: Oh god, we’re not a very fun band. Fun facts? The car we drive round in is called Sinead. What else have we got?
Graham: I’m just thinking of Bish (Pale Seas' bass player), but there is too much to say.
Jacob: We have Cultural Hot Potatoes in the car, we one member of the band has to bring up a topic and we have to talk about it for as long as we can. Once we spoke about how many dimensions there are and...
Graham: Oh, how many celebrities over 50 that we... love.
Jacob: Helen Mirren won. She won by quite a long way. You obviously don’t want to know terrible facts like that, though. As a band, we’ve been going for about a year and a half. We are from Southampton originally. We’ve all gone to uni in London at some point.
Graham: We just zip up and down the train line, for practices and gigs.
Jacob: A couple of us are still in uni. You’re still at uni, I’ve dropped out.
Graham: Trying to balance dissertation with all of this - it’s a nightmare.
Jacob: It’s difficult, for you. But I don’t have to do that, so I’m dandy. I guess that’s us in a nutshell. Quite a bad nutshell.
AltSounds: Do you have any funny festival stories or traditions?
Graham: Oooh, careful now.
Jacob: I can think of some absolute atrocities, but I can’t say anything. It would be highly detrimental to us as a band, probably. Not even in a bad way, but in a disgusting way. I can’t actually say it. It’s too gruesome.
Graham: Next question!
Jacob: There must be something that we’ve done at a festival. I can’t actually say it, that’s all I can say on that.
AltSounds: Your latest split single (Bodies/My Own Mind) was released on Communion. Are there any other bands related to Communion that you think your fans would like?
Jacob: Daughter, they’re really good.
Graham: Michael Kiwanuka.
Jacob: Michael Kiwanuka is great. Paul Butler recorded Michael Kiwanuka and he just recorded our spilt single. Paul wasn’t actually through Communion - he was through a Fiction label - but he was instrumental in getting it to sound like it did. Although he’s not actually with the label, he recorded for Michael Kiwanuka, so he’s kind of our main guy related to Communion.
Graham: I like the sound of that Michael Kiwanuka EP - the one he did in the Isle of Wight. It’s a really nice sound.
Jacob: Daughter as well; they’re great. She’s got a lovely voice.
Jacob: Originally, I wanted it to be like a girl gang. I just wanted a girl gang doing some horrible things, but then one of my friends came and said that he had an idea. Basically, my idea wasn't in keeping with the song - my idea was aggressive as it revolves around a fight - but he came up with a far better idea. He let me have three girls in it, which was nice, but that was my only say in it. He said that the song was more about loss than it was about finding something and fighting with people, so he took it upon himself to make it. He did a great job; he's really talented. He did well to make the video look how the song sounds.
Graham: Videos are so hard to get right.
Jacob: Yeah, a lot of the time, unless you're making it as a band, the video gets blown out of proportion and it doesn't end up how you wanted it to be. My friend really picked up on what we wanted. He grew up with us, so he knew what the vibe was.
Jacob: We are going to start sometime soon. I'm really looking forward to it, actually.
Graham: We are looking at getting some tracks recorded before the end of the year.
Jacob: Definitely. We will be starting to get the album together by the end of the year. I think there are about seventy odd snippets that I have written and haven't been put into songs. There about ten or eleven that have.
Graham: We definitely have the material there. It just needs to be sorted out and recorded.
Jacob: I reckon around the middle of the start of next year that we'll get it out. But expect a delay; there is always a delay.
WATCH// Pale Seas - My Own Mind
AltSounds: You had quite a few problems with your set, have you had other sets that were worse than that?
Jacob: Haha, what a question!
Graham: Jake, that’s a leading question, careful how you answer that.
Jacob: No, I’ll be honest; we have had one that was slightly more catastrophic than that.
Graham: But that’s probably the highest concentration of technical faults.
Jacob: Yeah, I don’t think we’ve had that many in one set before. But it makes it more exciting - if we don’t know what’s going to happen, then the crowd probably won’t either.
AltSounds: How long are you here for? Are you going to watch any other bands?
Graham: We were just discussing this, we’re not sure.
Jacob: I said I’d walk home because I can’t miss Patti Smith. I just couldn’t miss her.
Graham: It was the plan to go home tomorrow, but I think we want to see Grizzly Bear and I probably want to see the Sunday acts as well.
Jacob: Granddaddy, headlining, the last band.
Graham: Patti Smith and Graham Coxon as well.
Jacob: I wouldn’t want to miss this. If we were playing somewhere else, we’d obviously have to go, but it seems like it is an amazing festival. You’ve got to stay when you’ve got festivals like this.
AltSounds: Could you tell us a bit about the band?
Jacob: What do you want to know?
AltSounds: Anything - some fun facts?
Jacob: Oh god, we’re not a very fun band. Fun facts? The car we drive round in is called Sinead. What else have we got?
Graham: I’m just thinking of Bish (Pale Seas' bass player), but there is too much to say.
Jacob: We have Cultural Hot Potatoes in the car, we one member of the band has to bring up a topic and we have to talk about it for as long as we can. Once we spoke about how many dimensions there are and...
Graham: Oh, how many celebrities over 50 that we... love.
Jacob: Helen Mirren won. She won by quite a long way. You obviously don’t want to know terrible facts like that, though. As a band, we’ve been going for about a year and a half. We are from Southampton originally. We’ve all gone to uni in London at some point.
Graham: We just zip up and down the train line, for practices and gigs.
Jacob: A couple of us are still in uni. You’re still at uni, I’ve dropped out.
Graham: Trying to balance dissertation with all of this - it’s a nightmare.
Jacob: It’s difficult, for you. But I don’t have to do that, so I’m dandy. I guess that’s us in a nutshell. Quite a bad nutshell.
AltSounds: Do you have any funny festival stories or traditions?
Graham: Oooh, careful now.
Jacob: I can think of some absolute atrocities, but I can’t say anything. It would be highly detrimental to us as a band, probably. Not even in a bad way, but in a disgusting way. I can’t actually say it. It’s too gruesome.
Graham: Next question!
Jacob: There must be something that we’ve done at a festival. I can’t actually say it, that’s all I can say on that.
AltSounds: Your latest split single (Bodies/My Own Mind) was released on Communion. Are there any other bands related to Communion that you think your fans would like?
Jacob: Daughter, they’re really good.
Graham: Michael Kiwanuka.
Jacob: Michael Kiwanuka is great. Paul Butler recorded Michael Kiwanuka and he just recorded our spilt single. Paul wasn’t actually through Communion - he was through a Fiction label - but he was instrumental in getting it to sound like it did. Although he’s not actually with the label, he recorded for Michael Kiwanuka, so he’s kind of our main guy related to Communion.
Graham: I like the sound of that Michael Kiwanuka EP - the one he did in the Isle of Wight. It’s a really nice sound.
Jacob: Daughter as well; they’re great. She’s got a lovely voice.
LISTEN// Daughter - Youth
AltSounds: What was the influence behind the video for Bodies? Jacob: Originally, I wanted it to be like a girl gang. I just wanted a girl gang doing some horrible things, but then one of my friends came and said that he had an idea. Basically, my idea wasn't in keeping with the song - my idea was aggressive as it revolves around a fight - but he came up with a far better idea. He let me have three girls in it, which was nice, but that was my only say in it. He said that the song was more about loss than it was about finding something and fighting with people, so he took it upon himself to make it. He did a great job; he's really talented. He did well to make the video look how the song sounds.
Graham: Videos are so hard to get right.
Jacob: Yeah, a lot of the time, unless you're making it as a band, the video gets blown out of proportion and it doesn't end up how you wanted it to be. My friend really picked up on what we wanted. He grew up with us, so he knew what the vibe was.
WATCH // Pale Seas - Bodies
AltSounds: Have you got any plans for an album?Jacob: We are going to start sometime soon. I'm really looking forward to it, actually.
Graham: We are looking at getting some tracks recorded before the end of the year.
Jacob: Definitely. We will be starting to get the album together by the end of the year. I think there are about seventy odd snippets that I have written and haven't been put into songs. There about ten or eleven that have.
Graham: We definitely have the material there. It just needs to be sorted out and recorded.
Jacob: I reckon around the middle of the start of next year that we'll get it out. But expect a delay; there is always a delay.
