Californian group Local Natives have spoken about their popularity with British fans.
Local Natives released their debut album ‘Gorilla Manor’ earlier this year, winning widespread acclaim. The Californian group has rarely left the United States, but found that they had won fans across the globe.
Travelling to Europe, the band arrived to sold out shows and overwhelming praise. Recently arranging a British tour, Local Natives spoke to ClashMusic about their surprise at their sudden success.
“London has been a great town for us,” said Taylor Rice. The singer enthused about the band’s experiences in the UK, with a recent secret show in London spiralling out of control with hundreds of fans turning up.
“It’s the first city to really embrace the band and we thought it would be cool just to film us playing a couple of acoustic songs in the park” he explained. “Then any fans who were really into it would catch on – but it just grew – it was nuts.”
Drummer Matt Frazier claimed that since the show was totally acoustic, there was little chance of fans being able to hear the material. “We walked up and all these people were just sitting in the park drinking,” he said.
“We brought all our stuff into the middle of everybody and started playing. There was no way everybody could hear us either – there was no amplification”.
Returning to the UK for a series of tour dates, Local Natives are beginning to headline substantial venues – an experience the band admit takes some getting used to.
“The first week we ever came to the UK we played super small shows at places like The Lexington,” he continued. “Then we supported Of Montreal at Shepherd’s Bush Empire, and this time round we’ve headlined there – in literally a year this week, it has been so fast.”
Meanwhile, Local Natives have confirmed the following shows:
November
12 Manchester Club Academy
13 Glasgow King Tut’s Wah Wah Hut
15 Dublin Academy
17 Portsmouth Wedgewood Rooms
18 Bristol Thekla
23 London HMV Forum
