Nai Harvest

In signing a US record deal, heading out on a month-long UK tour with Gnarwolves and releasing a new single to unprecedented praise, Nai Harvest’s 2013 ended pretty well.

Sheffield-bred Ben Thompson and Lew Currie have found themselves as leading figures in the recent so-called ‘emo revival’, which is actually more just a case of the media catching up with and latching on to the brilliant things this community of bands have never stopped doing.

The duo’s debut LP Whatever, released in March of last year, received massive praise within the scene and hinted at them possibly breaking out of it. A new 7” EP, entitled Hold Open My Head, is to come in March, and it showcases a more straight-up indie rock element to the band’s sound, contrasting with the traditional ‘90s-influenced emo that appeared on Whatever.

With a 2014 set to be impossibly packed with releases, videos, UK and overseas tours as well as Uni modules and work shifts, we spoke to the pair about how they manage to fit this hobby-that-is-threatening-to-be-so-much-more around ‘real life’, writing music while living in different cities, and how they’ve stopped simply recreating their favourite bands’ music and started carving a path for themselves.

Due to technology being technology and our plan for a 3-way conference call failing, half the questions are directed at singer/guitarist Ben and half at drummer Lew.

The new EP Hold Open My Head is out in March – how long have these songs been floating around for?

Ben: We’ve had them since the summer, really. We had two months of solid practice in August and September which spawned six songs, one of which we scrapped and two of the others we merged into one of the four tracks that make up the new 7”.

It’s frustrating to have a new record written and then wait five months to release it, but that’s how long these things take. We had to think about artwork, a label to release it on, vinyl colours, pressing; so many things that take up time when all we want is for people to hear the new stuff.

Your debut album Whatever had a few songs from the very start of your career on it – do you feel like that was a collection of all Nai Harvest had done until that point and this EP is now a step forward and a new start of sorts?

B: Kind of, but the main reason we threw “Distance, Etc” and “Red Letter Day, On Play”, which appear on earlier EPs of ours, on the album was due to fear of people completely loathing the new songs we’d written. It was a safety net of sorts for us, so people we knew liked the first stuff we’d released would at least like two tracks of the album!

Do you feel completely confident coming up to the release of Hold Open My Head, then?

B: We were very nervous when the single (the new EP’s title track) was released, but the reaction has been amazing so I’d say we’re the calmest we’ve ever been in terms of our confidence in our own ability. It’s more excitement that we’re feeling now.

There’s a noticeably different sound on the new songs as opposed to your earlier work – was this a conscious decision or have things just simply progressed in your ideas?

Ben: Personally, I’ve changed how I write my guitar parts a lot between Whatever and now. My guitar tone is now heavier but the songs overall are softer, if that makes any kind of sense.

When we started the band, we had no aspirations whatsoever, so ended up sounding like every ‘90s American emo band we listened to, but now we’re our own band. After the first 7” came out, we thought to ourselves: ‘maybe we could actually make this work’, and since then it’s been less of emulating bands we love and more of creating a new path for ourselves. Whatever started to showcase that, and I’d consider that to be made up of about half and half of our abrasive, strictly emo beginnings and the new, more chunky indie that appears more heavily on the new record. Hold Open My Head is a good indicator of exactly where we are at this moment in time.

You’ve recently been touring almost exclusively on the weekends because of University and work commitments – how much of a hindrance are things like this to the operation of Nai Harvest?

L: Obviously we’d ideally love to be on tour all the time, but real life does quite often get in the way. I had to quit my job before our tour with Gnarwolves, so that wasn’t great.

Topshelf Records are releasing the new EP in the US – how did that collaboration come about?

Lew: Ben met those guys when he was over at Fest in Gainesville a few years ago, and we’ve just kept in touch, really. By that I mean we’ve been pestering them to release some of our music! They are home to some of our favourite US bands so to be a part of that community is amazing.

Does that mean some US shows soon?

L: We’re hoping so. The plan at the moment is to do a ten-or-so day tour ending at Fest in October. We feel like we owe the guys at Topshelf some shows in America after the faith they’ve put in us.

How does living in different cities affect your writing process as a band?

L: When we were writing Whatever, we both lived close to each other in Sheffield and could practice in my basement, so it was ideal. Then I moved house, and then Ben moved to Manchester, so it’s nearly impossible now for us to convene and practice. Most of our practice is done at shows now because of this.

How does the songwriting process differ as a two-piece in comparison with bands with greater numbers that you’ve previously been in?

L: It’s really great that there’s only one other guy to bounce ideas off, and even greater that almost all of the time Ben is on my wavelength. It’s a pain to try and have to please everyone in a massive band with your new ideas, so to just be the two of us is great.

So, with the whole of 2014 to come, what’s in store for Nai Harvest before the year’s out?

L: Until March it’s just prep for the new record, and hopefully a new video coming out, and after its release we’re trying to get on some big tours (that I’m not entirely sure if I’m allowed to talk about), and then the plan is America for Fest in October.

Hold Open My Head is released in March on Topshelf Records in the US and Dog Knights in the UK.