Left to Right: Dan Robinski, Sydney Southam, Andrew Hoey, John Bolton
You And Others Around You have already built up a substantial following on the gig circuit of East London and Camden.
The music on their eponymous debut EP comprises haunting lyrics and complex melodies against an up tempo, electronic background to create a classic, post-punk sound.
The band are: Dan Robinski, lead singer and currently the main song writer; lead guitarist Andrew “Hoey” Hoey and drummer John Bolton who previously played together in Coventry band The Illchemists; and Sydney Southam on synth and backing vocals, also artist and blogger, who previously sang with electro rave band Private Lives.
NGID caught up with the band on the roof of a converted warehouse in Hackney Wick where they record and rehearse.
NGID: What music has inspired you?
Hoey: More recently Taio Cruz. Think he’s got some big bangers. Past all sorts. I just listen to good songs- I listen to all kinds of music. But yeah- Taio Cruz- he’s the boy. John: On a personal level, my friend Tom Sutch. On another level any pop music really. I don’t really have a record collection. I like music of any periods of time. I don’t have a very good memory for music but I like music.
Sydney: Motown, Marvin Gaye, Stevie Wonder, Lauren Hill, Daft Punk, Cinematic Orchestra. I just saw Bonobo in
Berlin and it was a-maz-ing. I mean- I have varied tastes.
Dan: Talking Heads. David Byrne for his facial expression. I’m heavily influenced by his stage performance. If you keep your eyes big it improves the quality of your voice. David Byrne does that really well because it doesn’t look or sound too forced. As soon as I realised there was a reason to have crazy eyes on stage I’ve tried to develop that.
NGID: Would you say you generally prefer older music?
Dan: No I like modern music. I like Nicki Minaj, she’s good. She’s really good at freestyling. I actually started out as a rapper and only began making pop music later. I think because I’d had a background in writing rap I found it a lot easier to say what I wanted and to make the rhymes maybe slightly more intricate. I think a lot of lyric writers don’t pay enough attention to the actual sounds that the words are making. It doesn’t have to rhyme the way a rap does but it’s important that you have assonance going on. You know- where a word sounds like another word. Like- ‘heart’ and ‘far’.
NGID: I’ve seen some really bad live hip hop-
Dan: I was all right actually. But I realised it just didn’t really ever feel quite real enough being a white, middle-class rapper. It’s not like you can’t be a rapper if you’re white and middle-class… but whereas your swagger’s got to be genuine, you can’t imitate the way other rappers sound. It’s quite difficult to come up with a slogan that’s not only genuine, it’s also good- you can end up sounding a bit gimmicky or just fake.
NGID: So now you tend to write about heartbreak…
Dan: Heartbreak, isolation, addiction... that’s about it really. It sounds happy though. Bit of a cliché- dark lyrical content with a happy soundtrack. It’s been done millions of times before. What’s more interesting is a band like Radiohead- early Radiohead- where a lot of their lyrics are actually jokes. Apparently ‘Just’ is actually about w*nking. Like (sings) ‘You do it to yourself, you do and that’s what really hurts’- it sounds like it’s about self harm or suicide. I like the idea of writing a really depressing song about something that’s actually quite light-hearted. Maybe that’s what we should try next.
NGID: Would you agree there’s a strong 80s influence on YAOAY’s sound?
Dan: I think some of our music may sound a bit 80s because of the way the melodies are structured. In a lot of our songs, you have a lyric and then you have phrase of music with no singing. Then you have a lyric and a phrase of music so it’s like… de de de. Music. De de de. Music. This was a very popular style in the 80s.
John: And also the music on the EP was effectively a demo- it’s just Dan singing and playing on his own. With more people it’s taken on a new life.
Dan: When we play live it sounds very different to the demo because everyone’s got their own take on each bit of the song.
John: We’re also working on new material…
Dan: Yeah, we started writing together, which is exciting. We just wrote our first song which should be ready to be played live in about a month. Before that, I had written all the music and lyrics. With more people involved, I think you end up with a much fuller sound.
Hoey: I think if you have a creative input you have much more of a connection to what you’re playing.
NGID: How have you found the response to the band has been so far?
Dan: Very good. I got on Twitter last week- I’ve only just worked Twitter out- and we had 300 followers within a week. Which is pretty good, I think. Lots of people said ‘I really like your music’ which is encouraging. But right now all we have to offer is the EP, which as we’ve discussed I recorded on my own…
John: We don’t have a product to promote.Dan: So the promotional side is fairly limited because there’s not too much point in selling it too heavily just because it’s not actually what we’re going to be selling if you see what I mean. It’s literally a demo. But still- the fact that people like that in its amateur-like state means that when we do have a professional EP or album, hopefully the response to that will be even bigger.
