You start an interview with some empty questions, and if you’re lucky you come away with new ideas about all sorts of things. Especially about music.
Long term 4 piece Leeds band NIKOLI are part of a permanently new (and nearly invisible) feature of contemporary music. I'm thinking of the bands outside the commercial whirl who are musically light years ahead of many of the ones on the inside.
NIKOLI and I met up so they could tell me about this Summer's EP release "Stay Safe Tonight", with the long term aim of me telling you.
NIKOLI are releasing the EP this September and you probably won’t be able to buy it. When I say "releasing" I think I mean "making available". Cash won’t change hands, but you will need to get in touch to have a copy. At a gig. Or maybe, maybe, through the interwebnet thing if you’re resourceful and cultured enough and you really are interested. NIKOLI haven't really planned this in full market research detail, and it certainly isn’t some kind of arch ethical pose. I suspect that a modestly intelligent offer from a distributor, label or publishing company would be welcomed and thought about. But only if the general drift was going to help the music. And I am guessing, They weren't very interested In talking about such things.
And so we come to the interview. Tim Hann, the writing energy behind NIKOLI is explaining how he can’t bear to listen to NIKOLI recordings. "Why would I want to listen to NIKOLI, when I've just spent three months going over and over it? There's so much other music to listen to! I'm really into I AM KLOOT at the moment and listening to a lot of Americana. I think it could be interesting if we wandered down that road someday. Maybe." James Brunger, drummer and (it seems) master of the recording process adds: "I enjoy the process of getting things right. It can be draining though. But when a recording is done and dusted, after a couple of weeks I actually find myself listening for pleasure … of all things! I also quite like the business of getting to gigs early, setting up, sound checking and meeting other bands. Though it’s not everyone’s cup of tea." Spencer Bayles, inscrutable and watching, listening, listening, takes a neutral position in the wings and sips his beer.
The thing is, when pushed, NIKOLI, as individuals and as a group, are really only interested in the music. "We get it all right at the end of a long day" says James. "But then we come back to it in the morning and we find that there are things to do again." Tim and Spence talk about the vocal harmonies (a big part of NIKOLI's appeal). "I start of with a strong melody, and probably sing the lower part myself. That will tend to stay the same. But then we work out other parts to put on top, and it all shifts around. If the tune itself is quite strong, then there are lots of possibilities and we just go over and over it till it works. We don’t have formal training … it’s just what sounds right." Spence wistfully mentions THE BEACH BOYS. His sharp eyes reveal some more intense intelligence that he doesn’t (just yet) share with us. It’s probably something to do with the futility of talking and writing about something whose mystery only clears when an audience connects with the song being performed.
Because when it comes down to it "We just want to make the best music we can, and we want people to listen to it. Simple." Explains James. Tim adds: "We already have a lifestyle that suits us. Pandering to trends and being cool is all very well, but we’re not about to make that the most important thing. Having said that, we don’t take ourselves too seriously!" There's a little spluttering and shaking of heads about one or two of Leeds' frenzied young starlets. It's not disdain or wounded professional pride … more a kind of mutually suppressed hilarity that such musical incompetence can be taken so seriously by some of us pop music buffs. We're all much too polite and respectful to name any names.
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Spence has a multiple life as part of NIKOLI, LAST NIGHT'S TV and more besides. "I get a lot out of playing with different people. I learn a lot and it keeps things interesting." All three (new keyboard player Simon Miller is not present tonight) are full of enthusiasm for the new Leeds live scene. "For us it’s fantastic that there are nights like the Tea Time Shuffle (a hugely popular monthly live showcase at the multi-award winning HiFi Club in Leeds) where the music is what matters. Bands are put on there because they're good, regardless of who's cool or not cool. And we have a big gig coming up at The Wardrobe, which is another great place to be heard."
And so the EP will be given away to the people at the summer gigs who ask for a copy. "There's no point just giving them away to hundreds of people in the street. We want people to actually listen, and to want to listen."
I try various tacks on this. But I have to admit that NIKOLI are sincere that having their music heard really is the motivation. This process of creation and distribution is not a means to some other fantasy – it actually is the realisation of their love for music. They love it. They are amateurs in a very old sense of that word, [amo, amas, amat : I love, you love, he she or it loves] and so can afford to be more protective, more careful and more spontaneously creative than most professionals. NIKOLI don’t do Latin verbs, obviously. But love of music is their thing.
They're aware that the vibrant music scene in Leeds gives them a stage, and that the eerie pervasiveness of the internet offers a wider distribution for the recordings. And I think that some occasional touring would suit them very well too. As long as it fits with the music, their other bands and projects, and the lives they already have. This all makes a lot of sense somehow. Not everyone is ready to throw their frail identity into the trash can of fantasy excess and celebrity fame addiction. So I start to understand their initiative in setting up interviews as part of a serous invitation for a dispersed audience to take their music as seriously as they do. The quality of the output certainly merits it.
"We haven’t thought about it like that" says James. But somehow, there's a goodness of fit here. Make the music. Have people listen and enjoy,. End. Repeat. If this works, then the delusion, jealousy and sheer destructive wastefulness of the "Music Industry" can just mutter away to itself in another part of the universe. I sense that many other music lovers feel the same, and would like to simply enjoy what they enjoy, while (like Spence, Tim and James) gradually shift onto new styles, new bands, new places without being harassed into it today's money-making sound.
Being polite, I don’t mention the fact that what they have actually does sound highly marketable and could sell in taxable numbers.
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