I sat down with the boys from Goldhawks before their show at Cargo, East London. I was only a little familiar with the five piece but I was quite interested to speak to them after I did some research. There seemed to be a little bit of controversy surrounding them, lead singer Bobby had once been a part of the London folk scene (you know the one with Ruckus favourites Johnny Flynn and Laura Marling). Bobby then decided to break away from acoustic folk and opt for more electric Indie Rock, and Goldhawks was formed with Graham (drums), Nick (keyboard), Jack (guitar) and Colin (bass). The controversy reared its head when the band was quoted as being less than positive toward the London Folk scene, and I wanted to get to the bottom of this. We love Indie and we love Folk, so colour me intrigued.
Goldhawks played the Twilight Saga: New Moon launch party, last year. They are to play Bestival in September, support The Courteeners in March and play Club NME at KoKo this month. So what did Goldhawks have to say?
In some of the other reviews on Goldhawks, I noticed there have been quite a lot of comparisons to U2, how do you feel about that?
We don’t mind it, because early U2 is actually really good, we know currently it’s a really bad image, Bono’s a bit of a knob, but Joshua Tree is a great album. Early U2, yeah I think that’s what we sound like. Or [we sound like] Echo and the Bunnymen. I don’t think we sound like [recent U2] like ‘Vertigo’ or any of the current stuff. There’s no shame!
Can you tell me some of your musical influences?
I’d say Tom Petty. We’re all pretty big Tom Petty fans. The Boss as well, Bruce!
Yeah I noticed that a lot in the reviews as well, a lot of comparisons to Bruce Springsteen...
It’s weird ‘cause we don’t actually see it, because lots of people say it and we think our sound is different but it’s probably just the energy, the energy of The E Street Band. We’ve seen him play a couple times over the years, at The Emirates Stadium and Glastonbury.
So venue wise, what’s your ideal venue to play?
Bobby: There’s dream world ideal and then there’s realistically...It would be great to play The Shepherd’s Bush Empire as that’s down the road from us, more realistically. Also, I think Brixton Academy would be great. Dream world? Wembley Stadium.
Fellow Ruckus blogger Sheena and I saw Jamie T at Brixton a few weeks ago and it was awesome, we had such a good time...
Yeah it’s a great venue, we played Brixton last year as part of XFM’s Winter Wonderland with Razorlight, and it’s an amazing venue.
Why is Brixton such a good venue to play?
It’s not too big and it’s not too small. When you’re there, you’re never too far from the audience or bands. As an audience member, you can always see the stage because it’s slanted. All the history as well, everyone who has been and played there.
Okay, so I want to talk to you about being involved in the Twilight Saga: New Moon launch party last year. We’re familiar with some of the music related to the films; we’ve reviewed and interviewed artists from both the launch party and from the Twilight soundtrack. How was it for you guys?
It was pretty surreal, I mean, I don’t quite know what we were doing there. We got it through a friend of a friend. It was great. It was like Beatle-mania. It was slightly psychotic. A lot of nice psychotic people. Fans offered us £500 for one of our tickets!
How did you deal with the screaming fans?
Nick: I felt the vibrations and heard the crowd reaction to the stars, it was like white noise.
Graham: It was like Jurassic Park. (at this point Graham demonstrated the iconic scene in the film where a T-rex’s footsteps make a water glass vibrate) It was pretty mad.
Is there any artist you feel is underrated?
A band called The Veils. They’re a brilliant band, also from West London. They’ve done two albums and never really broke into the scene. They deserve to break through. We share their gear at the studio, they’re really good.
Nick: Every time I listen to them, I think ‘I don’t know why this band hasn’t broken through’.
Overrated?
We have to be careful what we say... But, honestly Led Zeppelin, I don’t think they have enough good songs. You know, I think White Lies are a bit overrated.
I thought you were going to say a London folk artist then.
Graham: Don’t believe what you read.
This is why I asked you, to let you have your say...
Bobby: You know what, that interview was taken out of context. I think Johnny Flynn is good and he played one of my songs ages ago. I don’t hate anyone! We think he’s the best of his genre. We don’t know why that’s been said really.
So tell me your top played tracks on your iPods.
We like the new Grizzly Bear and Wild Beasts albums. We like Roy Orbison and Everything Everything too.
If you could cover any one song, what would it be?
Possibly a Boss song, maybe ‘Dancing in the Dark’.
Nick: A-ha, ‘Take on Me’.
Bobby: Yeah, A-ha ‘Take on Me’.
Okay, so I used to live near Shepherd’s Bush. Although I think I know the answer to this, East or West London?
Graham: Oh West, fuck East!
Okay so North or South?
North. Come on, in the North you have Camden and Islington. Nick has love for South London though.
You all have a day off, what do you do?
If we had a day off, we’d go to the pub (Nick said they’d go to the pub for opening at 11am). We’d go to our favourite pub just off Goldhawk Road, in between Hammersmith and Shepherd’s Bush.
I used to go to a pub on the way to Westfield Shopping Centre...
Jack: Yeah we have Westfield’s now. East London got that? No!
Who would play each of you in a movie?
Johnny Flynn would play Jack (‘We’re actually twins, don’t know if you know that’). Jackie Chan would play Colin. The guy from the Hangover would play Graham. Ross Kemp would play Bobby. Ewan McGregor would play Nick.
Thank you very much for spending time talking to The Ruckus.
That’s alright, it’s been awesome.
Goldhawks, live.
Cargo is a small, intimate venue. It wasn’t too busy but I have to say Goldhawks put a great deal of energy into the show. In fact, keyboard player Nick was giving everything he had.
I could definitely see the early U2 comparison but also a touch of the Foo Fighters. ‘Running Away’ was one of my favourite tracks played, the guitar riffs and upbeat tempo had me tapping my rather restrained feet along, although others were enthusiastically dancing. The crowd at first were slow to get involved and Bobby interacted with them, encouraging them to move nearer to the stage.
One thing I noticed about these guys is that though they are pretty young, but they are incredibly talented. They took the stage, provided excellently played tracks and strummed their guitars with passion and enthusiasm. So the folk scene didn’t work for them, but their efforts, elsewhere, have paid off. The Indie Rock genre they have settled themselves within does work for them; Goldhawks have enough energy and raw talent to do extremely well and I look forward to seeing them live again.
Catch Goldhawks at their website or their Myspace.
Photo credit: Ruckus blogger, Liz
