Pretty Vicious - Interview

Pretty Vicious have been tipped as ones to watch this year which is not surprising when you hear their swaggering, attitude-drenched melodies. Having toured extensively over the last year, next month’s set at Victorious will mark the start of more live dates throughout September, we caught up with them to find out more ...

It’s been a pretty meteoric rise for you guys, you’ve already played the major festivals and supported the Manics, how has your journey been so far? 

It's been incredible. We only formed 2 years ago and we were invited to every major festival in Britain just 8 months later! Last year was our 'getting used to being in a band' year, we played all over the place and did lots of shows outside of the UK. This year has been more of a 'behind the scenes' year, we've been doing lots of recording with different producers and getting loads of artwork and set-up done in preparation for a truly massive next year.

You are also working with Owen Morris who worked with Ash who are also on the bill for Victorious, how is that going?

After trying out loads of other great producers we chose Owen as he was the first to actually "get" our sound. We're about half-way through doing the debut album now and it's sounding insane!

Who would you site as your musical influences ... your work seems to draw on a range of genres?

We all have different influences as musicians. But we all tend to listen to similar genres of music, mainly Punk, Grunge and your standard Rock. Iggy Pop is probably our biggest influence musically, although we also draw inspiration from bands like the Stereophonics, Pearl Jam, Nirvana, Oasis, The Smiths and loads more.

Is the band pretty collaborative, do you guys write together and share the same influences? How about your creative process, what really inspires you to create particular songs? 

All of the songs are written differently, but the main process comes through Brad writing a new riff and coming to us and we jam the full song out, all adding our own input into the song. After the song is finished Brad then goes off and writes the lyrics and we spend some time fine tuning the song to make it as good as it can possibly be.

Is there a story behind Cave Song? We love its bouncy energy!

Cave Song is basically the anthem of youth. It's based on what we used to get upto when we were bored on a Friday night when we were young teens, but the meaning behind the song is the freedom of youth and how the memories of fucking around in your younger years will stick with you for the rest of your life.

Is there anyone in particular you would say are so influential that if they didn't exist you wouldn't be doing what you are now? 

Lots of different artists were important in forming our music tastes and influencing the way we write but I wouldn't say there's any specific artist that was that important to us. It's more the culmination of all these separate artists that helped create our sound.

What’s next for 2016 ... have you got any new releases on the way, we see you are back on the road in September? 

There should be one or two new singles coming this year but really we don't kick everything off until 2017. That's when the album is coming and the majority of everything we're doing this year is the foundation for what we want to do next year. Our tour this September should be crazy though, we're proper up for that and everything that touring brings.

Is there a band /artist at the moment really inspiring musically, or that you think will go far this year / would like to see more of? 

Our favourite artists this year have been Drenge and Wolf Alice. We've played with Wolf Alice a few times now and they're reallygood people, proper cool like. Drenge are the biggest breath of fresh air we've heard in a while and we loved Undertow.

If you had to describe each band member (including yourself) in just three words, what would they be?

Brad - Rizla, Whiskey, Gum. Tom - Great Glorious Quiff. Jarvis - Hair, Sexual Deviant. Elliot - Chunky But Funky

Thanks for taking the time to chat to us, we are looking forward to catching you holding up the punkier end of the music spectrum at Victorious next month!