Interview with Enfers: ‘I like to manipulate sounds so that they sound different’

Leeds indie-pop quartet Enfers released their debut EP ‘Come When They Call Labour’ earlier this month, giving us four contemporary pop songs replete with catchy hooks, gorgeous piano melodies and honest storytelling.

The band comprises Sam Donley (lead vocals and piano), Jonny Martin (guitar), Aaron Evans (bass) and Luke Smith (drums).

Donley and Martin, who are both originally from York, met at a council-run music club as kids and went on to play in other bands together. Donley, who is studying music production at Leeds Conservatoire, met Evans and Smith on his course. Initially, they were called Cannulas and I ask them if ‘Enfers’ is a reference to the French word meaning ‘hell’: ‘Jonny came up with a list of names and, from the list, I said “I quite like Enfers”, so it’s not pronounced like the French word at all and it doesn’t really mean anything other than my inability to pronounce anything,’ Donley joked.

Donley describes their debut EP as ‘a collection of songs that encompass many of the ideas, lyrics and melodies that we’ve been gathering and holding onto for a while now’: ‘Some songs stem from ideas that were written years ago, whilst others were written only very recently. In many ways, the tracks which we chose for the EP are the ones that most represent the journey from when we first formed the band to where we are now. Each one is quite different to the next but all of them live somewhere along the spectrum between commercial pop and indie rock.’

‘Come When They Call Labour’ comprises ‘Awake’, ‘The Circuit’, ‘Waiting Rooms’ and ‘Heaven In A Wild Flower’, all of which differ quite dramatically sonically. ‘Maybe the reason they sound different is that we were going to just release singles but then releasing an EP made it feel like a package, or a phase, so it was a case of picking songs we were most excited about at the time,’ Donley explained. ‘We describe ourselves as ‘indie’ but the only way that’s relevant really is that we’re independent. Sonically, I’d say pop or rock, even though we’re not popular on the popular radio (laughs). We’re into Queen, Fleetwood Mac, The 1975 and The Killers, so genre-wise, I think we’re whatever they are!’

‘I feel like as a song, it’s our best one yet’

I say that my favourite track on the EP is ‘The Circuit’ and he looks genuinely pleased: ‘That’s my favourite as well, I’m on it a lot, it’s piano-led. I feel like as a song, it’s our best one yet but we all disagree about what the best one is. I’m studying music production, I mix all our songs, and I handed in ‘The Circuit’ and ‘Waiting Room’ as coursework modules.’

Essentially, ‘The Circuit’ is taking a gentle dig at the music industry. ‘It was taking a little poke at indie bands even though we’re one ourselves,’ he said. ‘I feel everyone’s a bit too self-aware, promoting ourselves is a bit cringey. It references a few bands in Leeds that we like, including Alleyways, they went to the same uni as us, and Askies. I don’t know whether they know they’re in the song!’ The song charts the journey that many artists can relate to and its upbeat nature and bouncy guitar and drum lines add a fun and inspiring take on the tricky conversations about trying to get heard.

As the chorus goes: ‘We’ve played this club too many times now. For you, the moon, I’d give a lot. But I can’t, no. Never blow the roof off the Brudenell.’

I ask him what instrument they’ve used in the opening section and also around a minute into ‘The Circuit’: ‘We do it a lot,’ he laughed. ‘It’s a plug-in called ‘Vocal Synth’, it’s an effect you can use. We chopped up pieces of the vocals. I prefer to use it to a synth a lot of the time. The song tends to write itself when you chop it up a lot. People like classic guitar/drum sounds but I also like to manipulate sounds so that they sound different.’

‘We wanted to do a track like that with distorted guitar and screechy!’

It transpires that the opening track on the EP, ‘Awake’, was inspired by Sam Fender’s song ‘The Borders’: ‘He’d brought it out the day before we wrote it,’ Donley said. ‘We wanted to do a track like that with distorted guitar and screechy! We did it really quickly. We put a lot of effort into the riff which sort of continuously rises and falls through the key of E major, Jonny and I came up with that and I did the lyrics. We wrote it just before we moved to Leeds to go to uni, it’s about anticipating meeting new people, I find it quite hard.’

As the song kicks off: ‘Face to face. Do I look older than I mentioned? You might say that I’ve been away. Watered and fed in her majesty’s pleasure.’ 

‘Waiting Rooms’ is a more wistful track and it turns out to have been inspired by Donley’s own experiences of hanging around waiting rooms: ‘The cringey story is that I was meeting my girlfriend at the time I wrote the lyrics. In tandem, I went to uni quite late – I’m 26 now – and I was thinking of all my time waiting. I’m often ill, so I spend a lot of time in waiting rooms thinking about my life. We’d had it knocking around for ages but I went and did the vocal on it pretty early on, so I wrote it and sang it in the same week, which maybe adds to it sounding more heartfelt. We didn’t know what it should sound like, should it be stripped back or more bombast, soft rock (laughs)? Ok, that sounds horrible! We’re so influenced by the 1975 and we don’t want to rip them off the whole time but they definitely influenced it.’

As the track kicks off: ‘Think I’ve figured out why I’m stacking shelves, 24. And cry on the floor sometimes, I hide it so well that I took so long to find just what I had in mind.’

‘It changes time sections, there’s a lot going on, a lot of parts’

‘Heaven In A Wild Flower’ is actually their oldest track and is the perfect closer for the EP because it feels as if all of their influences have seeped into it, with Beatlesey undertones. ‘It’s Jonny’s song, he wrote the lyrics, other than the middle section. It was one of the first songs we showed the lads. We did it as a closer at a gig, it works really well. It changes time sections, there’s a lot going on, a lot of parts. We tried to tame it down a bit, haha! It’s really different to the others.’

Martin describes the track thus: ‘The song is about someone’s desperation to change who they are, and the feelings of hopelessness when they are unable to: ‘I can change in the next day, in the next week, whatever you want me to be. A policeman or a scumbag, anything other than me. And I will hurt myself until you love me like you loved him.’

Next up will likely be their single ‘Burden’: ‘We’ve played it at a gig, it sounds a bit country, a bit bouncier. It’s about me being a burden, I wrote it (laughs),’ Donley said. ‘It’s about that feeling everyone has sometimes that they’re a burden. The lyrics are sad but the music’s happy. We’re aiming to release it in some form before the end of the year.’

Donley has discovered some new favourite artists since the onset of the pandemic: ‘Marnie Glum, she’s from Leeds. She has a voice like velvet. She recently got a band together and when I saw them they did a cover of ‘Love It If We Made It’ by The 1975, which I loved. Another good band here is Harry Moon and the Cardboard Rocket. They’re a new band, they haven’t released anything yet but they’re pretty Springsteen-like and definitely one to watch out for.’

He’s understandably thrilled that gigs have started back, also as a gig goer. ‘The last gig I saw was The Covasettes,’ he said. ‘They’re sooo good at what they do. Jonny knows their bass player. Jonny was the fan, I’m new to them. We left that gig thinking we have to up our game! They’ve nailed that indie rock sound.’ If he could tour with anyone, he picks Sam Fender: ‘He seems like a swell guy. Or, from the past, it’d have to be Queen but I don’t know if I could cope with the parties!’

(Photo from left to right: Luke, Aaron, Jonny and Sam.)