When we heard the stonking ‘Forty-Rod Of Lightnin’‘, we knew we had to find out more about wife-and-husband duo The August List. And now that they’ve been kind enough to give us an exclusive first look at their new single ‘All To Break’, from their upcoming High Town Crow EP, we like them even more.
Hello, please introduce yourself and your music to the uninitiated.
Hello, we are The August List, a boy / girl two-piece who play ‘backwards country / porch folk’ with a rock ‘n’ roll attitude. We deploy acoustic guitars, kick drums, harmonicas and voices on songs that take in life, love, death and making merry.
Tell us a bit about your new EP…
High Town Crow focuses more intently on a particular mood, sound and space. Taking its cue from where the last EP left off, the new EP builds more on our folk side, less frenetic than Handsome Skin but more intense perhaps. One song concerns nature and how it knows all your deepest darkest secrets, another is about someone who finds that living a life with the wrong crowd leads to a more rewarding and fulfilling time and there’s also a song about singing and how great it is! We used a harmonium and melodica along with our usual palette to get a more eerie sound and Graeme Rawson, who produced the EP, tried to get weird saturation effects on our voices to give it all a slightly off kilter feel that we love.
What was your best ever gig?
Errrr, here’s three. Playing Towersey Festival this year fulfilled an ambition. Also The Oxford Punt festival this year and any gig we play at The Rising Sun Arts Centre in Reading.
What’s the worst thing about being a musician?
For us it’s moving our kit around. For a duo we carry a lot of stuff! We’ve tried various forms of boxes and trolleys, but so far none have allowed us to park and get to a stage in one go. Three trips is average.
What inspires you?
Seeing a great band play / The moment a song reveals itself to you after many many days of working on it / Playing in front of a crowd who’s in it with you / Jack White, Harry Crews & Jenny Lewis.
If you won a billion pounds what would you do with it?
Spread some around, buy some guitars, build a studio, get a panda, spend the rest on bamboo.
Which of your songs is your favourite and why?
At the moment it’s ‘High Town Crow’. It’s fun to play, we usually close our sets with it, we both sing on it and it builds and builds and builds.
What are your plans for the future?
Keep gigging, keep writing songs and maybe get an album together next year…
Finally, we’re always looking to expand our musical horizons. Do you have any recommendations of bands or artists we should be looking out for?
Right now we’re listening to Neko Case, John Murry, Houndstooth and Diana Jones.
High Town Crow is out on October 26 on Ubiquity Project Records.