Interview with Giant and the Georges: ‘You might not always want to write an indie song, you might want to write something heavier’

​Dudley, West Midlands-based indie rock band, Giant and the Georges, have blended thundering bass lines and screaming lead guitar in their moreish, surfy debut EP, ‘Don’t You Know?’, out today (25 June).

Giant and the Georges comprises brothers Sam and Ben George, drummer Kristian Hohn and the ‘giant’, Luke Best and have been playing together for around four years. Sam and Luke typically switch it out on lead vocals. ‘Luke was our sister’s boyfriend at the time and we were all living together for a while, so it was easy to rehearse,’ Sam said. ‘We met our drummer via a charity gig because our sister was going to work in Calais with refugees and we were raising money for that.’

‘Don’t You Know’ comprises four tracks: two new tracks – the title track and ‘Duck Egg Blue’ – as well as ‘Sunflower Girl’ and ‘Mexico’, their most recent singles. The title track has Luke on lead vocals and kicks off with the zingy hooks and tangy riffs that formed the backbone to their last two singles. ‘It was written by Ben about a year and a half ago about struggling to make it in the music industry,’ Sam said. ‘The lyrics also reflect the pandemic and the frustration about it. Me and Ben do most of the songwriting, although Luke has also started songwriting recently. He writes bangers!’

As the track kicks off: ‘Sometimes I feel we’re on a wheel that’s going nowhere fast. It’s hard to keep, the hill’s so steep, we’re only ever past…’

Typically, Sam sings the tracks that he writes, which include ‘Duck Egg Blue’, ‘Sunflower Girl’, ‘Butterflies’ and ‘Just Another Day’:’ We try and share vocal responsibilities to stop either of us developing an ego,’ Sam joked. ‘Ben sings on some of them, he sings on ‘World of Opportunity’.’

‘My friends were working 9 to 5 jobs and I was massively unemployed, I was bored’

‘Duck Egg Blue’, on which Sam sings, opens with an incredibly hooky riff before Kristian swoops in on drums. The intro riff – D, D, F#, F,#, B, G, F#, B, F# – has been my earworm for several days. The track is grungier than songs such as ‘Sunflower Girl’ but packs no less of a punch. ‘I wrote it when I came back from uni in Chester,’ Sam said. ‘I loved it there but back home, my friends were working 9 to 5 jobs and I was massively unemployed, I was bored, there wasn’t much to do.’

His frustration is clear from the lyrics: ‘My friends they never want to play, no one to blow my blues away. I’m straight and everyone is gay. Come home and hide my face away and I’ll tell you everything’s okay. Oh yes, it’s such a perfect day.’

‘Sunflower Girl’, however, is a gloriously jangly, ukelele-led, endearing love song laced with humorous lyrics: ‘Sunflower Girl not a care in the world, with hair as red as orange juice and a taxidermy squirrel. She’s got big blue eyes that she always tries to hide. Had to look a little deeper to see through her disguise.’

‘I played the ukulele part in ‘Sunflower Girl’ but it was actually the idea of our producer Liam Radburn from Magic Garden Studios (where we recorded the EP),’ Sam said. ‘Both Liam and Gavin Monaghan (mixing and mastering) were full of great ideas that really helped our songs come to life.’

It turns out that Sam wrote it about his ex-girlfriend; ‘It’s probably the only happy one I’ve written,’ he laughed. ‘It’s an upbeat one, quite dancey. We might finish our set next week with it. It has to be socially distanced, so there’ll only be about 90 people.’ I say that in the current climate, that’s pretty good. ‘Yeah, that’s true,’ he admitted. ‘So far, I’ve only played it to two people – my mum and dad!’

Politics feeds its way into their songs

Politics has also found its way into a couple of their songs, notably ‘Mexico’ and ‘Just Another Day’. Ben wrote Mexico – but it’s sung by Luke – about migrants from Mexico making the arduous journey north to the US in search of a better life: ‘Issues like that are very important to us as a band,’ Sam said. ‘It ties in to our sister working with refugees.’

‘Mexico’ makes me think of the novel, American Dirt by Jeanine Cummins, which tells the fictional story of a Mexican mother and son on the run to the US after a cartel murders the rest of their family in Acapulco. As the song goes: ‘The sun in the morning burns it into my bones, I never been to California but I sure know the road. I heard it on the wind about the freedom they sold. Woo ooh, woo ooh…’

Equally, ‘Just Another Day’ – and the accompanying video – is about the Syrian crisis. I tell him that the song would make a great Bond theme and not just because of the fitting title. ‘That’d be awesome!,’ he said. ‘I can’t imagine anyone turning that down!’ I say that I like how all of their tracks so far are very diverse, both lyrically and musically: ‘Butterflies’, for example, the most ballady of their tracks, could not be more different to ‘Duck Egg Blue’: ‘We try to do songs differently on purpose,’ Sam said. ‘I find myself getting bored if songs sound too similar. You might not always want to write an indie song, you might want to write something heavier.’

‘Butterflies’ is a lovely, nostalgic track to which they filmed an idyllic video at Himley Hall and grounds in Dudley and which evokes long, lazy summer days. The song is essentially about falling in love but, as is customary with some of their songs, has a darker undercurrent and I ask him what the ‘poisoned butterflies’ in the chorus allude to: ‘It’s about the butterflies you get when you’re falling in love with someone but the ‘poisoned’ is a reference to the relationship not working,’ he said.

‘I’ve been listening to a lot of Nirvana recently’

If he could collaborate with anyone dead or alive, he picks Kurt Cobain: ‘I’ve been listening to a lot of Nirvana recently, today my favourite song of theirs is ‘Polly’. Actually, ‘Duck Egg Blue’ was inspired by Nirvana, its bass line and the grungy chorus.’ He’d love to hear one of their songs on Never Mind the Buzzcocks, a British comedy panel game, themed on pop music, that aired between 1996 and 2015. ‘They’d have to sing it and guess what it is,’ he laughed.

In Birmingham, he’s a fan of psychedelic rock, post punk band, The Novus. ‘I grew up with his brother, he was in my class,’ he said. ‘We love bands like Pixies and Radiohead, we’re massive fans of The Beatles. Ben’s a massive Hendrix fan and of the Red Hot Chili Peppers but we also like Oasis, Arctic Monkeys and The Libertines.’ One singer he’s got into lately is American-British soul singer, Celeste, who he deems ‘amazing’.

They all have an unusual hobby among musicians: they are all trained in martial arts. ‘Ben does Thai boxing, I do boxing and Kristian and Luke do martial arts as well.’ Nonetheless, both brothers are very attached to their guitars: ‘I’ve got a Fender Telecaster, I’m overly attached to it,’ he laughed. ‘My brother spends all of his money on guitars and pedals but he’s selling a few to get married.’ Musical ability clearly runs in the family, though, as their dad also plays the guitar. ‘Mainly Bob Dylan and folky stuff but we have a jam sometimes, especially when Luke was living with us. Dad will jam along to our songs as well!’

(Photo from left to right: Ben, Kristian, Sam and Luke)

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