Interview with Still Life: ‘The core is about our love of music and making music but it’s also about two people falling for each other on the dance floor, in the heat of the moment’

Bournemouth-based rock band Still Life is gearing up to release their next two singles, which have the working titles of ‘Leave It’ and ‘Between The Lines’.

Fusing traditional indie rock elements with a blend of warm vocals and roaring guitars, the band consists of vocalist Alex Willmott, bassist Nat Harrop and on guitar and drums are cousins Josh and Charlie Ward. All members of the band live in Bournemouth and grew up together and have been playing together since 2017. Willmott met Harrop, Josh and Charlie Ward, who are cousins, at middle school, and they started the band when they were 17. Previously, they were called Monster Logic before changing their name this year to Still Life: ‘We spent a long time trying to think of a name, you know, 200 names you can’t agree on (laughs),’ said Willmott. ‘One day, we went down to a local bookshop to look for inspiration and the first book we picked up was called ‘Still Life’, I think it was a romantic thriller (laughs) but we thought it would make a good band name!’

They are currently trying to decide which single to release next but it’ll probably be ‘Leave It’: ‘It’s a slight detour after ‘Something in the Music’ but it follows on nicely,’ Willmott said. ‘One will come out in late summer and the other closer to the autumn. The plan is then to release an EP next year. ‘Leave It’ has got a little more of a punch to it, it’s a little pacier. I think people will go a bit crazy to it when we play it live! It’s about wanting to walk away from something but not knowing how to do it. It’s not as dark as it sounds (laughs), it’s quite tongue-in-cheek. A pal heard it and said that lyrically it reminded him of Red Hot Chili Peppers. ‘Between The Lines’ is a lot closer to ‘Something in the Music’, it’s slightly rockier – I hope it’s pretty dancey! It’s about a mishmash of feelings. When I listen back to it, I think it’s about trying to put aside certain feelings and looking at the bigger picture. It’s about learning to love yourself.’

‘It’s a big, bouncy song, it was very enticing recording it there, the setting has a very unique feel to it’

Earlier this month, they released ‘Something in the Music’, the first single under their new name, an infectious and energetic track that hooks you from the start: ‘We wrote it on the way out of the old project,’ Willmott said. ‘It didn’t fit with what we were doing then, so we sidelined it for a bit. It was a song we were all fond of, though. Josh, our guitarist, produced an instrumental demo, we thought it was amazing, and we wrote it quite quickly after that. When we were writing the song, there were a few different elements to it. The core is about our love of music and making music but it’s also about two people falling for each other on the dance floor, in the heat of the moment. We wanted to create a song that had that core indie rock element that people could dance to. We recorded it at Quay West studios with Nick Bowen. His recording studio is built inside a church, so we re-amped the guitars to create a natural reverb. It’s a big, bouncy song, it was very enticing recording it there, the setting has a very unique feel to it.’

For Willmott, ‘Something in the Music’ highlights just how their sound is evolving: ‘At our roots, we’re a rock band but as our musicality matures, we want to make music we love that is accessible to people and ‘Something in the Music’ is ten thousand times more than we could have hoped for, we’re really chuffed with it,’ he said enthusiastically.

As the song kicks off: “Can we keep this between us two? No-one else needs to know about you. Lay the rhythm, I’ll set the tune because I don’t think I know my limits and we drown, sink in hopeless minutes and when I close the door, I feel a fool. If I say I really like you, will I ruin the mood?”

Typically, their songs are written in one of two ways: ‘The boys will do a demo and we’ll add parts and play the song through or I’ll use the acoustic guitar to write a stripped back version. I typically start with the melody, the lyrics come afterwards. We want the music to get stuck in people’s heads, we want that ear worm!’

‘Rumour’, which they released under Monster Logic last year, is reminiscent of The Fray, replete with slightly grungier guitars. It has a similar energy to ‘Something in the Music’, with the same intensity of drumming that thunders along: ‘We wrote that and ‘Golden Cages’ towards the end of Monster Logic, we felt that they still resonated with us, so we decided to keep those ones around,’ Willmott said. ‘It’s helpful for people who are discovering us and want to hear more. We worked with Nick on those ones as well and it felt like the beginning for us taking the journey further. ‘Golden Cages’ was written a very long time ago. It started off as an acoustic song at gigs. Everything came together very quickly. It’s about that feeling of wanting to break free of a prison you’ve put yourself in, there’s love in there again, we’re wear your heart on your sleeve kinda guys (laughs). I was surprised we hadn’t explored making it a bigger song before! We layered it, added synths etc.’

The artwork for ‘Rumour’ and ‘Noon’ features someone holding a megaphone, with just the hand and megaphone in focus and everything else gently blurred and it turns out to have been done by Charlie Ward’s dad: ‘He’s a graphic designer, he’s worked on a lot of graphics for us. ‘Rumour’ is about rumours, really, and feeling suffocated by whispers that aren’t necessarily true, hence the megaphone on the artwork. It’s a very shouty song with a lot of aggression and anger in the chorus. Charlie’s dad is good at honing in on what we want. For ‘Something in the Music’, the artwork is a still image from unused footage for our music video, a friend of the band pointed out after we had taken the photo that it was a still life image and so we used it for the artwork.’

‘I looked at them onstage and thought: “That looks like the best job in the world, I’d love to do that”‘

Willmott first picked up the guitar when he was 6 years old but says he didn’t get on well with it at the time: ‘When I was 15-16, I got really into guitar music. I saw Catfish and the Bottlemen play in Bristol. I looked at them onstage and thought: “That looks like the best job in the world, I’d love to do that”. I went out and bought a guitar and taught myself over YouTube, that’s seven years ago. I’d like to be better than I am (laughs). When we started, I barely knew anything but I wanted to be in a band and I had Josh, Nat and Charlie at hand to help me. Josh likes using the most difficult chords! He uses a lot of barre chords, you really have to stretch your fingers. When I’ve finished playing, I feel the pain right here (he points to the base of his thumb). I’ve always wanted a Gibson SG, they don’t do a green one, I don’t think, but if I had all the money in the world, I’d pay them to make me one!’

Between them, they have a myriad of musical influences that feed into their sound helping to create the eclectic elements running through every song: ‘As a group, we’re all very fond of Nothing but Thieves (a rock band from Southend-on-Sea), we spent a lot of our teen years listening to them. Catfish and the Bottlemen have put a sprinkling on everything. Josh and Charlie are really fond of heavy rock and metal (laughs). In ‘Something in the Music’, that guitar line in the chorus could be metal. For me, big inspirations have been Billy Joel and Elton John.’

I ask him which musician he would like to go drinking with: ‘That’s such a difficult question,’ he said, looking deep in thought. ‘I think it’d have to be Bowie because the storyteller feel to his songs was very inspiring to me. Socially and sonically, he was very ahead of his time. It’d be quite incredible to sit down with him. There’s another band we draw a lot of inspiration from, The Amazons (a rock band from Reading). I saw them play an acoustic set locally and afterwards they signed records and had a chat. We got chatting about football but I completely forgot to mention that I was in a band! My memory’s terrible, we’ve had gigs where I’ve forgotten to say what we’re called (laughs). You get lost in the adrenaline a bit, don’t you?!’

Recording in a church has produced some funny moments: ‘Our funniest moment as a band has to be when we were recording ‘Something in the Music’ and the church we were recording in had been double booked with a christening, so we had to hide out in the priest’s office while they baptised someone’s child!’

(Photo from left to right: Josh, Charlie and Alex.)