Aquilo on the Lake District

We come from a lovely little village called Silverdale in the north of England. Silverdale has always played a big part in our lives and especially in the way we make music. When we try to explain it, most people tend to picture an isolated, quiet community south of the Lakes, which yes, it is, but to us it doesn’t feel that way. There is this incredible sense of community there, and every so often, we will head back to gain a bit of sanity. Everyone knows everyone in Silverdale - quite a contrast from the big city. It’s where they film that thrilling action drama on BBC called Autumn Watch every year (note sarcasm).

We both grew up going to the same primary school. In some classes, there were only six or seven pupils so you can imagine how close everyone grew over the years. For some reason, quite a few of us started bands at a very young age. Sometimes it felt like one of the only things you could do in the village, apart from playing cricket for the local team, or play a bit of Golden Eye on the Nintendo 64. There wasn’t really a music scene in the village either, but there was a definite appreciation for music. We spent school days listening to Pearl Jam, Nirvana, Pink Floyd and Jeff Buckley. The early teenage years were like a tame take on Skins. Most weekends we’d spend down by the beach, making fires and doing what our parents hoped we weren’t. We’d take tents down there, have camp outs and maybe listen to that guy bashing out Wonderwall over and over again. It’s quite out of the way so we were pretty sheltered from police or anyone for that matter. A big sense of freedom. The worst you’d get is a telling off from the local farmer who was a legend anyway.

Next to one of our mate’s houses in Silverdale, there’s a nudist camp. (Yeah how exciting.) We can remember sneaking into it in camouflage when we were kids and at the time being so fascinated that there was even such a thing hidden in the woods. Speaking of woods, theres this pub in the village called The Woodies. It’s a pub you can go up to Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday and you are guaranteed to see people you know in there. They serve some of our favourite ales and it’s £2 a pint. The dark stagger back home is a good opportunity for a quick game of ‘knock-a-door run’.

Our parents had always been musical and it must have just rubbed off on us. Ben’s dad was in a local blues band and Tom often joined them at village nights playing saxophone back when kids could stay in pubs until lock-in. They’ve always been so supportive and used to drive our equipment to shows, when we couldn’t drive ourselves. They’d make sure we could get into the venues we were playing, because you’d be amazed how many venues would try to reject young bands. How could you run a music venue and not sympathise with children wanting to play? Surely they wanted to play music when they were kids…but hey ho.

There’s this place called Tarn Hows which has to be our favourite place up in the lakes. It’s a 45 minute walk around the lake so you’ve got just enough time to blitz an album or go on a family walk. We actually ended up shooting our music video for "You There" up at Tarn Hows with our school friends Evan and Tash. Something special about that place.

When we’d started Aquilo it was an odd time for the both of us. All of our friends had either decided to go to University, or gone and got jobs. It felt a little like we were the only two left in the village for a while. We both had day jobs in a factory and in a café but every evening we’d get together, hang out, and make some songs. Our jobs gave us space to breathe from the music we were making at the time.

We can understand how most people wouldn’t choose to live up in The Lakes or reckon they’d feel the longing to move to the city. We get that, but over the small time we’ve been doing this, we always find ourselves missing home, the local pub, all our mates, our dogs, the scenery and that sort of inspiration. Like we say, we’ll always go back and visit and try and relive those younger days that we’ve been so lucky to have.