Influences: Warm Brains

Rory Attwell on the sounds that inspire...

Rory Attwell is one of British music's most fascinating figures.

Operating from a boat moored on the Thames, the producer has overseen countless records by everyone from PAWS to Veronica Falls and countless more besides.

Making music under the name Warm Brains, Rory not only wrote the songs, but he played each instrument and produced the material as well.

New album 'Big Wow' is out now, and it's a fascinating piece of indie rock. Stepping out from behind the mixing desk, Rory proves to be just as adept at working on his own music as he is with tinkering in other people's.

Intrigued, Clash invited Rory Attwell to name some Influences…

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Bob Hund – 'Omslag: Martin Kann'

Bob Hund are, to me, the perfect example of an indie band. When people describe a band as indie-pop that normally says to me that it's likely a bit twee, drab, introverted and unadventurous, but Bob Hund always manage to nail being 'pop' while throwing in numerous devious changes and riffs. I think my own downfall will always come from trying to do too much at once, trying to throw too many parts and changes into songs, one minute having a nice melodic bit then a noisy and/or dissonant bit, or both at the same time. It alienates the people who like the pop bit and vice versa. But it's the way I like it.

Bob Hund are indie but with no compromise, which might not sell a lot of records but is very inspiring to listen to. They also sing in Swedish and it sounds nice (I've been assured that their lyrics are brilliant too).

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Built To Spill – 'Keep It Like A Secret'

I went through a phase of listening to this album A LOT, not recently though, and weirdly when I first heard it I found it a bit winey, annoying and a bit cheesy in places but it completely won me over. I played it for the first time in a while recently and actually made me chuckle a bit as I definitely hear similarities in what I'm doing and this record. The riff from 'Bad Light' isn't actually a million miles away from my riff in 'Happy Accidents', but I guess that more of a general 90s emo playing style that I somehow acquired along the way.

As I said, I wasn't listening to this when writing recording my album but something from this Built to Spill record must be ingrained in me I reckon. Or maybe it's just that it's a very good example of 90s alt indie guitar rock, which is probably a reasonably good description of Warm Brains. Right place, wrong time as it were.

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De La Soul – '3 Feet High & Rising'

Don't you hate it when people with guitars make a second album and start talking about how they've been listening to a lot of hip-hop recently and that their new album is influenced by that? A ham fisted attempt to show how eclectic they are in a really trite way, then you listen to the aforementioned record and turns out it just sounds like a bunch of white guys with guitars again. Seems to happen a lot.

My dad bought me this LP when I was 11 and I never get bored of it, I love everything about it but is there influence of it on my second album? Almost definitely not, but I bloody wish there was.

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Siouxsie And The Banshees – 'Juju'

I really love this record, I'm not sure if a lot of people would put the Banshees and Warm Brains together though. A lot of folks throw the word 'Blur' around when they describe my music (less so this time around which is nice), don't get me wrong, I like Blur, their self-titled album is a great record, but I think the comparison is mostly because of my accent when I sing which is a bit of lazy comparison as the music isn't really close to my ears.

The only other likely reason for this comparison aside from any South-Eastern England accent generalisation is probably that myself and Graham Coxon are massive fans of John McGeoch's guitar playing and are likely both influenced a lot by him. When he was in the Banshees they were in their prime. I even bought the same Yamaha SG-1000 he played, what a saddo!

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Papa M – 'Whatever Mortal'

I feel a kinship with Mr. Pajo, maybe partially because he seems to be someone who really enjoys playing guitar but isn't a natural singer, when he released this record and he'd decided to start singing I was really impressed by the difference it made. You can tell he's not a comfortable vocalist but it really works with his songs and brings a lot of intimacy to the album. I know it's not necessarily the popular consensus but I much prefer this to the previous album, 'Live From A Sharks Cage', as it feels a lot more personal. It's interesting that he's taken a lot from traditional songs too, some tracks being 'covers' of sorts.

Anyway, it's very interesting to see from this to his later albums how Dave grew and become more comfortable as a singer. As someone who likes playing guitar lot and has become enthused about writing lyrics but never wanted to be 'the singer' it's quite inspiring to see a musician I admire tackle this odd vocal/music dichotomy that a lot of musicians I know find themselves in ("can you turn my vocals down some more in the mix please").

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Stream Warm Brains' new album 'Big Wow' below or buy it HERE.

Catch Warm Brains live at Rough Trade East, London on December 10th.

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