Interview with Crystal Tides: ‘We smash every idea we have together’

Portsmouth-based indie band Crystal Tides released their dancey single with a soaring chorus, ‘Courtney Love’, earlier this month, the first track from their EP slated for release early next year.

The band comprises Billy Gregory (vocals), Harry Knowles (lead guitar), Joe Knights (drums) and George Regan (bass). Knowles and Gregory met at university and Regan and Gregory used to play together in a former band. They knew Knights having seen him play in another band and essentially poached him. Their name was born out of a desire to capture summer vibes. As Regan puts it: ‘We’re sunshine, sunshine indie, it’s feel good. The name is designed to make you think of summer days and emulate childhood memories.’

The EP will consist of five tracks, including ‘Courtney Love’ and what will likely be their next single, ‘Headcase’: ‘We’ve had so many discussions about what to call it,’ Gregory said. ‘One of the ideas behind the song is chasing a person who’s a bit nuts, forcing you to go a bit nuts yourself.’ Regan jumps in: ‘It’s about those mind games when you’re not sure if someone likes you back.’ At this point, Gregory interrupts him and says: ‘George, your hair looks MAGNIFICENT today!’ Everyone laughs and waxes lyrical about his hair for a while – with one of them calling it ‘hair advert hair’ until the attention turns to Knowles, who is stroking his impressive moustache, saying he’s going for the Tom Selleck look.

‘The songs in the EP are the best we’ve written as a group’

‘The songs in the EP are the best we’ve written as a group, the best songs I’ve been part of,’ Regan said. ‘It’s a completely new level, we’ve matured a lot in our sound. The other songs have a similar sound to ‘Courtney Love’ – the indie pop and indie riffs that we drive our songs along with.’

Surprisingly, ‘Courtney Love’ is not actually about the singer of the same name. ‘It’s about people who take advantage of other people in the music industry,’ Regan said. ‘We’ve all had specific things in our music careers where a promoter has promoted themselves, not the music. It’s a small music scene here but everyone has had those annoyances, those grievances, the finger up to it. The name ‘Courtney Love’ was said in the studio and we liked the ambiguity around the title and what it means to you.’

Their frustration is evident in the lyrics: ‘I hear you’ve been working on something new again, another person to bend the truth to over and over the same, to someone not used to the way you are, in the same old bar,
the next young star, fools that keep on playing the game.’ 

‘It’s a love song to our youth’

Another track, ‘Monday’, which came out earlier this year, is an ode to youth and lost weekends: ‘We have a collection of terrible Mondays,’ Knowles laughed. ‘It’s a love song to our youth and how great the weekends were, being out all weekend and then you wake up on Monday and everything’s terrible but it’s the weekend that will get you through the week.’ Regan jumps in: ‘You’re fighting the guilt, asking should I be doing that, have one more drink?’

It’s also the quickest track they’ve ever written, according to Knowles: ‘We wrote it a couple of days before we were in the studio, we got together and it just flowed out.’

Typically, their songs will start with the guitar part. ‘Or you’ll have a bit of it going around in your head at work and you’ll then show it to everyone and they bring their parts to it. It could just be a certain hook line. The best way to get the good ideas across is to get rid of the terrible ones!,’ Knowles laughed. Or as Regan puts it: ‘We smash every idea we have together.’

Other song titles, like ‘Caught Stealing’, are more ambiguous: ‘It’s not about stealing – even if the title suggests we’re a bunch of kleptomaniacs – it’s about stealing someone’s look,’ Gregory said. ‘It’s also about when you’re out and you meet someone and think you have a connection with them but wonder who will make the first move, who will initiate the conversation?’

They have a wide array of musical influences between them. Knowles says Nothing but Thieves ‘are huge’ in his repertoire, as is Freddie Mercury. Regan grew up listening to bands such as Arctic Monkeys and The Strokes. ‘Currently, I really like Vistas as well as Nothing but Thieves. My dad used to play a lot of Status Quo,’ Knights said. Gregory says his tastes are very similar to Regan’s: ‘I absolutely loved The Rifles growing up,’ he said. ‘Their lyrics are so underrated. I reference a lot of stuff that they’ve written. I absolutely love them. I’m a big fan of Sea Girls as well.’

We chat about Sea Girls’ frontman Henry Camamile’s amazing and unique voice and Gregory mentions that Camamile’s traumatic brain injury (he hit his head on a pub cellar door) influenced their debut album, Open Up Your Head (the song of the same name didn’t make the cut). ‘Maybe one of us should get a bang on the head to write better music?,’ Gregory mused. ‘I’d love to play with Sea Girls,’ Regan said. ‘Just that type of music, if we could emulate what they’re about.’

(Photo from left to right: George, Billy, Harry and Joe)