Interview with Feral Family: ‘It’s a story of redemption, a songbird song; it’s deep and euphoric’

Bridlington, Yorkshire-based band Feral Family released their latest single ‘Cairo’ last week, a dark, haunting track about growing up.

They comprise Jamie Lowe (vocals), Oscar Woods (guitar), Daniel Wilson (bass) and Aidan Riby (drums). ‘I’d say our name is what we’re like as a band,’ Woods said. ‘We’re like family members but, like family, we can fight and be dysfunctional (laughs).’

Sonically, they’re one of those bands that defies definition because they encapsulate more than one genre. They describe themselves as having ‘a dark allure…seemingly calling from somewhere deep below, akin to Pennywise the clown, beyond any initial unease you may feel – you’d follow us down with abandon for the treats we have to offer’, which is fitting.

‘Cairo’ opens with a bass line powerful enough to rattle your teeth, with the drums and guitar immediately kicking in ‘to grind any displaced molars into powder’, as they put it: ‘Our music isn’t going to be clean cut and perfect,’ Lowe said. ‘It has to have the grit, anxiety and passion. It’s a complete reflection on what is going on with us right now. ‘Cairo’ is a banger, innit?!’

It is, managing to mash up rock and punk influences – think Joy Division – against a gothic, gloomy, dreamlike backdrop: ‘It’s quite haunting,’ Woods said. ‘I started to write it in February 2021, I started with some synth sounds but it changed five or six times (laughs). I’d been watching ‘Tenet’ at the time (a 2020 science fiction spy action thriller film directed, written, and co-produced by Christopher Nolan), the soundtrack to that inspired me.’ Lowe nods: ‘It’s Cure-eque,’ he said.

‘All our songs are cut from the same cloth but they all sound different’

Lowe admits that people find it hard to categorise them, as do they themselves: ‘The struggle for us is trying to figure out what genre we are,’ he said. ‘All our songs are cut from the same cloth but they all sound different.’ Woods and Lowe are the main songwriters in the band: ‘I’ll do the music and then Jamie will come round to mine and he’ll free flow on the mic,’ Woods said. ‘It’s about getting the first emotion out. For ‘Cairo’, we had five or six different melodies, I’m really happy with anything that Jamie puts down. When we were making the song with no name, I put ‘Cairo’ down because that’s what it sounded like to me.’ Lowe chips in: ‘One song might be super easy to write, others might be a slog to get out (laughs). ‘Cairo’ has an Egyptian twang. It’s not about Cairo, sorry to disappoint you, but the sound itself gives you that feeling. The song is about the journey into adulthood, which has been a right slog.’

The artwork for ‘Cairo’ is extremely striking; the photo of a lone palm tree against a pink sky is both cinematic and evocative and it transpires that they used the same photographer for their singles ‘Fractured’ and ‘Midnight’: ‘It’s from a guy in Spain @quadura ; we’ve started using his artwork this year,’ Woods said. ‘When I’m looking at the photo, I’m hearing a song form in my head. All his photos are very inspiring.’

They’ve been described variously as ‘a perfect blend of haunting vocals mixed with the in-your-face sound of The Killers and Foals’ and ‘like Joy Division wrestling Bauhaus down a flight of stairs’, both of which are neatly put and go some way towards explaining why they’re difficult to pigeonhole. ‘Fractured’, which they released as a single in April, is bleaker than ‘Cairo’, opening with a dark, looming synth before a hooky guitar line and punchy drumming enter the mix: ‘It has a dark feeling to it, it was how I was feeling at the time, some emotions to get out,’ Woods said. ‘I had the verse for quite some time, a two minute loop. I knew what I had to do to push myself, I was actively thinking how I could take the song somewhere new. It’s all emotion based.’

‘There are so many powerful bits and Jamie just got it’

Lowe agrees: ‘I pick it up where he leaves off,’ he said. ‘I can’t make a happy melody out of a sad song (laughs) but we’re always finding new writing material. The new song we’re working on, Oscar said he had a few ideas. hopefully it will end up good!’ Woods laughs: ‘It was one take, I hit him with a song he’d never heard before. There are so many powerful bits and Jamie just got it. I’ve got about 70 songs and we’re working on 10-12.’ Lowe is grinning: ‘We’ve got them in a rucksack, we keep it at Oscar’s,’ he tells me.

This year, they plan to release another three singles around a month apart, the next of which will be ‘Wee Van Bee’ on 4 November, which was inspired by actor Lee Van Cleef, who played ‘the Bad’ in Sergio Leone’s classic 1966 spaghetti western, ‘The Good, the Bad and the Ugly’ starring Clint Eastwood: ‘It’s very Westerney,’ Lowe said. Woods nods: ‘There’s a bit of wah in it and Gorillaz-esque backing vocals,’ he said. ‘It’s the heaviest we’ve got so far – it’s a trip!’ Lowe weighs back in: ‘It’s about a certain thing we see in our home town, in Bridlington,’ he said cryptically. I ask what he’s referring to and Woods laughs: ‘We have a friend like Wee Van Bee, he was our drummer back in the day, it’s a homage to him.’ Lowe interjects: ‘Yeah but in our song he’s more of a devious character than he really is,’ he said. I say that if they make a video they could ask him to be in it: ‘I asked him if he’d be up for riding a horse or one of those horses on sticks (laughs) but he said no,’ Lowe said laughing. ‘We’ll find someone who looks like him to put in the video!’

Later this year, they will release their singles ‘Spice King’ and ‘Smother’: ”Smother’ picks up after ‘Wee Van Bee’, Woods said. ‘It’s telling a story, it’s trying to get you to picture a world. It’s got two different choruses.’ Lowe agrees: ‘It’s got a lot going on in it. It’s crystal clear in some parts but some parts might be hard to decipher. We don’t want to be obvious, it can be about a lot of different things but for us it’s about thinking you might be better or worse off in a given situation. It’s a story of redemption, a songbird song; it’s deep and euphoric.’

‘Everything you’re introduced to is an inspiration’

Musically, their influences are far-reaching: ‘Where do you start?,’ Woods said. ‘Everything and anything. I can be inspired by anything, it don’t have to be a song. DIIV, Soundgarden, Alice In Chains, The Stone Roses’ Second Coming album (1994). Dr. Dre, he’s the kingpin, isn’t he? He’s the king of beats.’ Lowe cites other influences: ‘Everything you’re introduced to is an inspiration,’ he said. ‘I liked oldie stuff as a kid like The Doors, The Who and The Kinks. My brother was into Red Hot Chili Peppers, Guns N’ Roses and Audioslave. Over the years, you have different bands you listen to in your different friend groups, don’t you?’

I ask them which musician they’d most like to go for a pint with: ‘I’ve got a few answers,’ Lowe said. ‘I would go for Chris Cornell, for his vocals. I was gutted the day he died, it was very emotional. Ol’ Dirty Bastard for the sheer energy. He’d do some crack on the way out (laughs).’ Woods is laughing: ‘They’d be some very questionable flashbacks! I think I’d go with Keith Moon. You say go for a pint but you’re not going for a pint, are you? It’d be seven days!’

They’ve had some hilarious moments together, most recently involving food, as Lowe recounts: ‘One of the funniest moments recently was when we was in Wolverhampton. Before the last day, we wanted to get a full English from the local Morrisons for all for of us. Something went wrong with the machine that led the woman to bring out nine breakfasts for us. She was adamant we bought nine, saying we had ordered these in, which we had not at all. We even had to check our bank accounts! We all only paid for one breakfast each, so we found ourselves trying to get through nine full English breakfasts at about nine in the morning, we gave it a good go, I tell ya!’

(Photo from left to right: Oscar, Jamie and Daniel.)