WL//WH Interview/Track Premiere: Alone in Rotterdam: Creativity, Spirit & Integrity // An Interview with BIRDS

• Thanks so much for the interview. How did you get into music? What music or bands were most inspiring to you growing up?

My dad is really into music. He was a Northern Soul fan from a very young age and used to sneak up to Wigan Casino (an hour from where we’re from) on the weekends when he was a teenager so there was always a lot of Northern Soul played in the house and the car growing up as well as lots of 80s and 90s indie music. I guess the latter was my first love really! I got into bands like The Cure, Echo & The Bunnymen (also a favourite of my dad’s) Pulp, Blur, Primal Scream and Oasis when I was a kid. My mum also really loves New Wave so there were often bands /artists like The Eurythmics, Gary Numan, Soft Cell and Adam & The Ants playing around the house too. I then started learning to play the piano, the violin and the guitar when I was at school (and would have been up for learning to play even more instruments if I was given the chance).

• Being a blog that deals also with dark sounds, how and when did Wave and Post Punk sounds become part of your music heritage, which artists/bands are you into in particular?
  

I still listen to Wave and Post-punk on a daily basis. Bands like Sonic Youth, SWANS, Dinosaur Jr, New Order, Nick Cave, Joy Division, Siouxsie and the Banshees, Cocteau Twins and My Bloody Valentine never leave the rotation. There are a lot of more ‘indie’ bands that I used to listen to when I was younger that I don’t really listen to much any more but the darker, more post-punk- y bands and the noise bands are here to stay and I’ll probably be listening to them until the day I die.

I also love the crossover of electronic music and post-punk sounds. My friends back in London run a club night/label called Snap, Crackle & Pop which specialises in this very thing (as well as the darker side of dance music) so it was always a part of my social life (and sometimes work life as I would often jump in to help run things if they were away and I used to do their artist pick-ups as I had a car – which is how I actually met a lot of artists and DJs who have now become my peers in the underground dance music scene) to go and see these acts when I was living in London.

• The most noticeable thing about your music is a seamless unplaceable melting of elements from many different genres, acid/electro/bass/breaks/dark wave, infused with a wide amount of emotional sensibility. What would you say is the signature element of Birds?
  

I guess the acid lines have always been my signature. It’s rare that I make a track without a resonant and distorted acid bass line. On top of that, I always kind of think of my music as dance music that’s quite hard-hitting and you can still head bang to – whether the beat is based on an Electro beat, a Trapp-y Bass beat, or Amen Breaks, there’s still an element of it being quite heavy and dark.

• You lived and worked across two different cities, London and Rotterdam, what has each reality brought to your creative side? What are, music and life-wise, the main differences and affinities, if some, between them?
  

I live alone now and there’s also not so much happening early week in Rotterdam and because I work in events, I mainly work weekends so Monday-Wednesday is usually quite a peaceful time for me where I get the chance to make music, work on the live set and just generally look after myself a lot better than in London so I think that’s helped to improve my creativity a lot. The only downside is that there is a little less happening here in general but that’s mainly due to a few recent club closures but the municipality has just granted something like 22 new late licences so I believe we’re about to get some new clubs which is really exciting as it would be great to attend a few more events to get inspired from them.

That being said, I feel like sound-wise I get to see more of the music I’m into here as there’s less of a focus on money and more about people putting on some cool ‘underground’ shit that they’re actually into. I think that the people here prefer to take more risks rather than jeopardise their integrity which I think is pretty awesome.

• Can you share some insights into the concepts and inspirations that influenced “Home?” How does the process of writing vocals, singing and producing harmonize for you in the studio? How much is driven by emotions and how much by rationality?

In terms of the actual production of the music – I start with the drums. The beat is based on whatever I’m feeling like making that day – whether that be breaks, bass, electro or something a bit more experimental. I also like to use a lot of samples in place of a standard drum kit so I might place a weird percussion sample, or a gunshot sound or a 1 bar vocal sample on one of the 8 tracks to make things more exciting. You can manipulate the samples in a really fun ways both on my drum machine (an Elektron Digitakt) and my Octatrack so I like to do that. I then usually make quite a sub-y bass line, either on my Moog Slim Phatty or my Erica Bass Line. Next up I make a resonant acid line that fits. From there, I arrange the track and EQ everything and add some nice effects before working out where I can fit in either a guitar line, a vocal or a lead synth. I then add some breakdowns and then that’s pretty much the process done.

Oh and in terms of emotions and rationality – I guess any kind of emotional element is added when I add the vocal so it depends on if I’m feeling sassy/angry/peaceful/sad that day. I also wouldn’t consider my music to be particularly rational. Rational music would be a lot more simple and easier to sell. It’s very intense music with a lot of elements which makes it slightly dark and unhinged and not particularly ‘accessible’ to a lot of people.

Birds by Leroy Verbeet

• Are there past records you can’t give up and still play nowadays?

‘Dirty’ by Sonic Youth but really just anything by them but that’s probably my favourite.

Also anything by Underworld – I feel like they’re a band that encapsulates that band meets electronic music vibe for me perfectly so I’ll always come back to them. My top 3 Underworld albums are “Beaucoup Fish”, “A Hundred Days Off ” and of course “Dubnobasswithmyheadman”. “Cowgirl” is one of my favourite songs of all time.

“Bas Relief” by Eleven Pond. It also reminds me so much of being in my mid-20s and before my big group of friends at the time started to get older, settle down or get fed up with the tough London life and move away from each other. I had a lot of fun during that time. I played in a lot of bands, worked in bars and putting on parties and attended A LOT of parties. Ha.

“Radioactive Man” by Radioactive Man has also had a massive influence on me and that’s also a sound a really found inspirational for this record too. It has a driving darkness about it that I’ve always loved, whilst still being a record you can dance to. I also feel like even though it’s a dark sounding record, there’s also a lot an emotion there which is something I really tried to bring into my own album as I didn’t want to to be a cold club record.

• Any gigs/clubbing that changed your perception of music?

Gigs – one of my favourite live bands is a band from Bristol called SCALER. They played a release party for their first album on a Thursday night in Fabric and it was packed full of people dancing sooooo hard for a Thursday night at 9/10 pm. They also have these insane visuals which add an extra dimension on top of everything. The way that this band switch so seamlessly between genres and have so many different influences was something that really inspired me. One minute they’ll be on a Drum n Bass vibe, the next it’s stoner metal. It gave me the courage to not be too afraid to play with genres even more than I was before that and to make my tracks a bit less linear.

Club nights – I have to mention Wrong Meeting night at a club called Bloc in London in about 2017. Ransom Note put it on and Andrew Weatherall and Ivan Smagghe played b2b all night. That was a very special evening indeed. Also at the same club was the first time I saw my friends Lena (Willikens) and Vlad (Ivkovic) play B2B with again, Ivan Smagghe. A lot of experimental slower music played that night with made me realise that there’s a certain demographic that don’t just want to dance to 4/4 techno all of the time and it’s something I would like to be a part of. That club was actually a really good club but was only around for a couple of years which is a shame.

Also, I’ve had some really great times at Fold’s Unfold party during times I’ve felt like going for more of a high-energy vibe.

• First ever bad or good rave/clubbing experience?

Hmmm this one’s a tough one. I only really started going to dance music nights once I moved to London when I was 18. I actually don’t really remember what the first proper club night I went to was. It’s quite a long time ago now…..I did used to do the door at Corsica Studios though roughly between the ages of 18 and 20 which really opened me up to the club environment and it became somewhere I’d go, sometimes even alone for a dance because it felt like a safe and welcoming place to be. I guess this means that was around the time I started to see the dance floor as my ‘home.’

Bad clubbing experiences – plenty. Over-the-top security checks, not just at the door but someone going around with a torch all night really kills the vibe and that happens a lot in London. Also, some places just never seem to have much of a pleasant and welcoming community around them which means that the whole club just seems like a soulless warehouse. Community is key!

• Your latest favourite record/track?
  

I didn’t see it coming but….Charli XCX’s ‘Brat’ is absolutely brilliant. But also I love a track called ‘Duality’ by Blumistu, ‘Cosmic Runner’, the new EP by Alberta Balsam and ‘Almost Love’, the new mini album by Anna Prior. Also, Desinformant recently released a bass ass Bass/Electro record on my label Feed The Void.

• Many thanks for being our welcome guest. What’s next for Birds? Do you have any intention to present your album in a live setting?

So I’ve already started working on the next EP. I have a single coming out on a small FLINTA* label called “Epiphany”. I’m also working on a couple of remixes. There are also going to be some remixes of the album tracks by Poly Chain, Jerome Hill, Ben Pest, Ivna Ji, Hedchef, Borusiade and maybe a few more people.

Yep – I’ve already played a live gig with tracks from the new album and tracks from the new EP and plan to do plenty more!