East India Youth: “It's good to work against your instincts”

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William Doyle, or, to his rapidly expanding legion of fans, East India Youth, has started 2014 pretty darned well. His debut LP, Total Strife Forever, has been making enormous waves (probably more like tsunamis), with many heralding it as the record to beat this year. We at Best Fit were definitely fans, naming it our album of the week, and having many a kind word to say: “Total Strife Forever is breathtaking. It might get tough sometimes, lonely and desolate even, but Doyle’s catharsis will hoist you by the bootstraps into lusher pastures.”

We managed to grab a few minutes with him on the day of Total Strife Forever‘s UK release – it’s tough to imagine the special kind of hectic release day is for the artist, but there’s surely some line drawn between being on the edge of your seat in a maternity ward waiting room, clueless to whether your sister/cousin/whoever has given birth yet. “I’m relieved! I think…” – says Doyle, bursting with energy despite the early hour. “I’ve been nervous all week. There’s been lots of tension during the past few days over the time it’s taken to get from the bedroom to the shelves, and it’s hard to connect the two in your mind, from such a private thing to the amount of exposure it’s had.”

The record has had a lengthy gestation period. Since his first EP early last year, Doyle’s been hard at work sculpting Total Strife Forever – in fact, he’s had most of the record, or at least the skeleton of it, done for yonks. “I was doing bits and pieces on the side messing around about three years ago – late 2010, November I think – when I was in another band . It was completely different: I was songwriting with a guitar and we’d all work on it as a band… but this new stuff was a lot more sonically detailed. It was exciting. After about eighteen months, the band broke up, and I decided to focus on my own stuff. Within a short amount of time, something like two months, I had the first draft finished! Since then, I’ve had an EP out and remastered and remixed the record so it sounds beefier.”

Considering Doyle was hard at work on a guitar band when East India Youth was conceived, there were a few changes to be made, and a learning curve to undertake. “It’s good to work against your instincts. Total Strife Forever goes where it does because there’s lots of instrumentals; the ratio between those tracks and ones with vocals is skewed. It’s a product of going against my instinct – singing is how I cut my teeth. One of the conclusions from working differently is that the emotional content is stronger. It widened my scope of my capability.”

For most people, going against your gut seems like less-than-awesome idea, but for Doyle, it’s worked spectacularly. “It’s been wall to wall positivity!” He says, a genuine surprise lurking under the excitement. “It’s made me incredibly nervous! It’s great, don’t get me wrong, I’m unbelievably appreciative of every good comment… But I just wonder, is it going to turn ’cause of all the good stuff? I think when people all agree on something, others feel they’re forced to like it and that builds resentment. Some reviews have been so well written though, and reading things from writers I admire is genuinely great.”

Photograph by Sébastien Dehesdin
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In those reviews, aside from the sheer calibre of the record, most critics have agreed on one element: it’s flippin’ hard to pin down. Doyle’s unsure if that’s a good or bad thing though. “I don’t think it’s either, really. I think a frame of reference is good, and there’s so much conversation that people kinda need one. Without a genre it makes it difficult to jump on board. Maybe it’s good, but without one maybe people will make up their own mind?” Surely, as the man behind the curtain of East India Youth, he’d be able to label his own sound? “I don’t know what I’d describe it as. There’s lots of different flavours, and I don’t see why they have to collate necessarily, but I’m not working like: “I’m so new you can’t even describe me!” You definitely see influences. I like the eclectic nature of the record – I like stuff like that and wanted to make stuff like it. There’s no pressure to go down any particular path.”

Contrary to what most people have viewed the album as, Doyle sees a lot of hope. “I’ve got memories of it being a summer record, really really early in the morning. Calm, reflective moments where it’s quite cool and the sun’s coming through the window. It’s very reflective, but more optimistic than it sounds. I’ve stopped thinking of it as this bleak night-time thing, but rather as a record to wake up to. It’s refreshing.”

Perhaps the most striking feature of the record, before you’ve unwrapped it and got into the musicky goodness, is the moniker it goes by. The astute will remember a small release by an underground act that few know about (Foals, if you’ve heard of them), that goes by a similar title: Total Life Forever. “It was just a working title that stuck to the extent it completely encompassed the record.” Doyle giggles between words in the way someone does when they’ve been caught placing a whoopie cushion as their nan’s about to sit down. “My instinct was absolutely not to do a punny title. Before we released it, I had planned to change it, but I couldn’t make up my mind, and I asked everyone close and they didn’t think it needed changing! I’m really not taking the piss – it’s the sentiment of the album itself. It’s opposite to parody.” Will he follow up Total Strife Forever with Holy Liar any time soon? “No,” he laughs, “I think my career would be short!”

It’s not just the album’s title though – there are four tracks that appear also named “Total Strife Forever”. Are they intrinsically linked or are they separate entities? Fortunately, Doyle sheds some light. “It’s four tracks. They all feature the same notes, which are a recurring musical theme – the white lines on the album cover are all MIDI notes drawn into a program to make noise, and that pattern is what recurs throughout the “Total Strife Forever” tracks. Number three came first and I just couldn’t get it out my head! I thought it would be good to explore where it could go, and I did all these variations on the one theme. The theme is musical more than anything thematic.”

Live, East India Youth’s a different beast: “It’s a guy in a jacket bobbing his head frantically, usually to a beat people cant hear. Sometimes it’s so frantic the Macbook’s flying off the table…I like to be physical with shows…perhaps too much! I think I was so nervous about it looking like a bloke with a laptop checking his emails that I sometimes overegg the physicality. I kinda like that though. I feel like a show was a success if I’ve got a good sweat going.”

Musically it’s different too. “I try to segue tracks into each other, so it can confuse people who don’t expect it or aren’t familiar with my music! There’s always lots of nervous bursts of clapping… I’m still working it out, I’ve only been playing live for a year, so I’m still figuring out how it works. I’ve made it sound better sonically by learning how to make it like a well oiled machine. When I started I had the original mix, and when playing live I started to change things just to make it interesting for myself, but I actually then went back to the actual album and reworked some bits!”

And how about the perfect setting for Total Strife Forever? Seeing as it’s such a cinematic, atmospheric anthology filled with soundscapes that beg for visuals, Doyle must have at least pondered a dream venue. “Let’s think… maybe in the Grand Canyon? Some massive hole in the ground, some ridiculous geological marvel… I think that would suit it, like a huge reverberant space… an asteroid crater!”

Finally, what does 2014 hold for East India Youth? Aside from fame, fortune and critical darlinghood, of course. Surely festivals are on the agenda… “I’ve just started booking… but… I can’t say right now! It’s going to be a busy summer. I’m looking forward to it all: lots of shows and touring for a while. That’s just the way the machine works isn’t it? I hope to sit down in late autumn to make more music. I don’t think the album cycle will last more than a year. I need a sit down. I’m excited and I’ve got lots of ideas and ideas for directions where it might go… it’s always good to keep focused on the next creative goal.”

Total Strife Forever is out now on Stolen Recordings.