Interview with sweethearts: ‘I’ll write it like a folk song on the acoustic and then Josh will sprinkle the magic!’

Hull-based indie pop band with a punky heart, sweethearts, are mixing it up with their upcoming two singles, sprinkling a bit of punk into the mix with their next release, ‘Communication’s Gone’.

The band comprises  Niall Tennison (vocals and guitar), Toby Needler (lead guitar), Josh Drury (bass), Kitty VR (vocals) and Danny Griffin (drums). Tennison and Needler met when they were eleven years old, going on to play acoustic guitar in different bands before meeting Drury and forming sweethearts last autumn. Initially, Tennison had mulled doing a solo project that he planned to call sweethearts, with Drury producing. ‘It’s a good name for our 90’s soft pop sound,’ Drury said.

‘Communication’s Gone’ will be released on 13 August and gives us a few surprises: ‘We like to keep things weird,’ Drury laughed. ‘We might do some punk, lo-fi or instrumental.’ For Tennison, ‘Communication’s Gone’ is his favourite so far: ‘Normally, when I write a song, I focus on the first verse-bridge-chorus but on this one, I focused more on the flowing lyrics, like Bob Dylan,’ he said. ‘It’s kind of talking about the world and that kind of shit – I like people listening to say for themselves what it’s about. It’s definitely a bop, with a constant bounce throughout and another catchy hook! Think early Weezer.’

Essentially, the song takes a hard look at what is wrong with the world: ‘Oh, I saw a man get beat to death and you, my love, you filmed the rest. There’s massacres in different lands but they don’t have computers, man. I try to do the right thing but no-one knows the right thing. I second guess the world of men, I’d rather fall in love again.’

We chat for a while about how open to interpretation many songs are and how wrong you can be in terms of what they’re actually about: ‘YES!,’ Drury laughed. ‘I thought I found a song, a love song – ‘Ginger’ by The Front Bottoms – but it turns out it’s about him adopting a cat!’ I tell him I’ll have a listen to it after our chat. ‘You’ll listen to it and say it’s definitely about a cat,’ he grinned. (I did.)

‘They’ve got a similar 90’s vibe to our other songs but they’re more slacker, more Pavement and less punk’

They’re also heading into the studio to record two further singles: ‘wish we were like we were’ and ‘she called me a sweetheart’, which will both be released later this year: ‘They’ve got a similar 90’s vibe to our other songs but they’re more slacker, more Pavement and less punk,’ Tennison said. ‘We can’t give much away about these two but one is a little ballad of sorts and the other, well that’s just an all round vibe. Something you’ll definitely be able to nod your head to!’

They released their enormously catchy debut single ‘do you love me?’ in February, a fuzzy, grungy slice of indie pop that came together almost by chance: ‘We were going into the studio to record and a couple of days before, I wrote the basic structure and lyrics on acoustic guitar,’ Tennison said. ‘The night before, we had one jam of it, Toby added the riff and we thought “Fuck, this is really good!”,’ he laughed. ‘It’s a banger, a perfect mix of edgy and poppy. All of the lyrics are inspired by real life events.’ Drury nods: ‘It’s an all out pop song. We wanted to capture that 90’s sound of Teenage Fanclub where it’s borderline cheese, but retains that attitude of punk with the instrumentation and angst.’ 

As the song kicks off: ‘It’s all nocturnal with you. It’s hard but somehow easier to. It’s awful, I miss you. It’s normal, to drain you.’

Tennison wrote ‘never liked you anyway (little olive)’ two days later: ‘It was one of those songs where it just clicked,’ he said. He and Drury are the main songwriters in the band: ‘Me and Josh write most of them, I’ll write it like a folk song on the acoustic and then Josh will sprinkle the magic!’ Drury laughs: ‘Yeah, I’m the seasoning!’

Drury jokes that they’d like an October number one and a Christmas number one: ‘Maybe we’ll write an anti-Christmas/anti-establishment song,’ he said. I tell them that I loved the anti-Christmas song last year by their fellow Hullensians, Late Night Marauders, called ‘Someone Stole My Bike This Christmas’, and they laugh: ‘It’s commonplace in Hull that your bike gets stolen,’ Drury said. ‘Someone on Facebook will be saying “Have you seen my wheels?” In fact, our Griffin’s bike was stolen not too long ago!‘

‘Punk’s about wanting more and Hull’s been the edge of the road’

I say that I’ve interviewed several brilliant bands from Hull and am blown away by the music scene there. What do they attribute the city’s vibrant music scene to? ‘The only way out is to go to uni or to tour the country and say how shit it is,’ Drury said. ‘Everyone here is really friendly, we’re all in the same boat. We all carry a punk attitude about wanting more and Hull’s been the edge of the road, it’s like getting a pie that’s all crust and no filling.’ Tennison is mulling his answer: ‘Hull’s bands, there are a lot of them but no-one breaks through the ceiling,’ he said. ‘There’s a lot of sameyness.’

If he could go to any gig tonight, Tennison picks Scarborough shoegaze band, Pleasure Centre, with whom they might soon play a gig. Drury picks his hometown’s infectiously good indie band, The Hubbards: ‘It really annoys me that they’re not massive,’ he said. ‘‘Seven or Eleven’ (2019) by them was one of my favourite songs. Me and Niall listen to as many new albums as we can – it’s been about 50 so far this year – and we rate them, we might give something a 7.8!’ I ask them what their favourite albums have been recently. ‘I adore Viagra Boys’ new album (Welfare Jazz, 2021), it’s sublime,’ Drury said. Tennison says his number one is For the first time, the new album by London rock band, Black Country, New Road as well as Nick Cave’s latest album, Carnage.

I ask them which TV show they’d like to hear one of their songs on. ‘Love Island,’ Drury joked. Tennison picks Netflix show Love, created by Judd Apataw, which is about the world of dating: ‘I think our music would suit that show really well,’ he said. Drury describes the show as being about ‘a guy who breaks up with his girlfriend and starts going out with a girl who is her complete opposite’. Drury gives me his real answer: ‘I want to be on Soccer AM, not just to hear our music but to kick a ball!,’ he said. (Soccer AM is a British football-based comedy/talk show, produced by Sky Sports.)

They cite artists such as Pixies and Weezer as having been hugely inspirational to them. ‘We also like 40’s, 50’s, 60’s and 70’s stuff, for example artists like The Cranberries, whose influence can be heard throughout music today,’ Drury said. Tennison is a massive fan of American singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist, Elliott Smith: ‘He was huge for me, for the songwriting, the chord changes, his melodies,’ Tennison said. ‘I’ll take a bit to Josh and he’ll say “That’s an Elliott Smith part” but he nicked everything from The Beatles! I copy shit all the time, Josh is the one saying “You can’t use that!” Listen to The Kinks’ ‘Wonderboy’ and then Oasis’ ‘She’s Electric’ – it’s a total rip off of it!’

If they could tour with anyone, they pick Pixies, Elliott Smith and The Beatles. Drury is still thinking about the line-up and looks at Tennison: ‘I reckon we could get The Band to be our backing band and get rid of our other two!’

(Main photo from left to right: Kitty, Niall, Josh and Toby)