The White Lakes Discuss Oceanfest, TikTok, and The Best UK Gig Venues

The White Lakes Discuss Oceanfest, TikTok, and The Best UK Gig Venues

West Midlands-based indie rock band The White Lakes are blazing through the alternative scene, with their distinctive sound and dynamic live show, their performance had a chokehold on me. Having performed with rock icons such as Razorlight and Jaws, their live performance was destined to be incredible.

Their newest single, ‘Tomorrow’, released on 19/03/2024, is a certified headbanger and their strongest release yet, with hints to an accompanying music video coming soon. I sat down with Matt and Archie to discuss their newest single and delve further into the behind-the-scenes of the band, unravelling the intricate tapestry that makes The White Lakes stand out against the backdrop of the heavily saturated Birmingham music scene.

 

Matt, you produce and write your own music. What’s your song writing process?

Matt: So, with this one we did some work with Jack from Fickle Friends on the last two singles that we dropped; ‘Love Drunk’, ‘Complicated’, and the new single ‘Tomorrow’ as well as a song that’s gonna be dropped called ‘Don’t Call Me’. I sent him over the four tracks I was thinking of doing and he liked three of them but then he was like, you need another song that’s better than the one you sent. Not in a nasty way but he was like “if you’re dropping them as singles you need like a single song”, do you know what I mean? So I spent a day quickly writing ‘Tomorrow’ and I sent it over to him.

How long did ‘Tomorrow’ take you to write?

Matt: Like… seven hours. Just did it in a day! It was fun!

Does any of your music take inspiration from things outside of music? Things you may have experienced or mperhaps from the news?

Matt: 100%! I mean, most of the music probably comes from just experiences I’ve experienced myself. So, ‘Tomorrow’ is basically just about a wild night out that I went on probably a couple of days before I wrote it. So yeah, it’s just about sort of going out with mates, getting hammered and you should be going to work in the morning, but you’re probably going to call in sick.

What’s one song written by another artist that you wish you had written first?

Archie: That’s a tricky one… I’ll probably have to go ‘Comfortably Numb’ by Pink Floyd.

Matt: Yello Submarine by The Beatles. Ringo Starr… what a champ.

Matt, you have said before that you wanted to go into career in medicine and now you’re fronting a band! How did that career change come about? 

Matt: A lot of angry conversations with my parents, I can tell you that. So I was like just finished GCSEs, was doing my A -levels. I went to Reading Festival as like a celebration from finishing my GCSEs, realised how much I liked like bands and music and stuff so ended up teaching myself like guitar, bass, drums, and all that stuff and then just decided after I’d done my first year of A -levels to drop out and go study music. Mum and dad were pretty scared but it’s just worked out. They’re proud now.

And how did you both meet?

Archie: We met through a friend of mine at my uni. The White Lakes were doing the Birmingham Music Awards and they needed a guitarist last minute so I get a message the day before the show saying ‘Oh we need a guitarist – do you mind filling in?’. So I went over to Matt’s, learned the parts, and did my thing.

Matt: We fell in love.

Tell me about your favourite performance venues. You’ve done some huge venues but you’ve also played some smaller venues, I saw you just a week ago at The Sunflower Lounge in Birmingham. Do you prefer the bigger venues or the more intimate gigs?

Matt: I do like the small intimate ones to be fair because you’re a lot closer, you can see people’s faces. I think my favourite Birmingham venue is probably The Rainbow because it’s like an underground basement, cool groovy lights across the whole of the ceiling… I just love a basement venue. There was one in Oxford called The Cellar which is where the band did our first ever show and, again, little dingy basement, I don’t think you can beat them. But the big shows are fun.

Archie: My favourite Birmingham venue would be The Mill, which is now XOYO, where we supported Sundara Karma. I just think it’s such a good venue because you’ve got the bottom floor, top floor, the balcony with people looking down. Outside of Birmingham, my favourite would be Oceanfest in Devon. That was something special.

Based on your vlog at Oceanfest I saw you had quite the experience!

Matt: Yeah! We had no clue… because at most festivals you can go and you can camp and it’s fine. We didn’t realise it was like a caravan park where we had to pay to pitch up a tent. So we were planning on staying there that night and then travelling to Oxford for another festival, and we just ended up being like “right, well if we can’t sleep anywhere we’re just gonna have to get on the sesh”, just party until the some comes up and then drive. But then we were in one of the fields where the car was parked and we were vlogging… really drunk… and a guy just kinda wandered up and got in the background. So we just interviewed him and were chatting to him and realised that he owned the field and let us sleep there for free.

Do you guys have any pre-show rituals?

Matt: Three beers? Haha, that’s probably about it to be honest.

Beer of choice?

Matt: Cheapest. Cheapest lager, it has to be.

Archie: Guinness.

Matt: Archie does love a Guinness. He’ll drink a Guinness in about three sips. It’s pretty impressive.

You’ve worked with some incredible artists, but what would be your dream support slot?

Matt: Yungblud would be fun, for sure, because a lot of his fans seem like our style of music. So, crossover wise to get the fans in, I’d say that. But I think Louis Tomlinson. He’s given the stage to a fair few small bands who are now massive, like Only The Poets. They were on like 3000 followers and now they’re on 100k coming off the back of Tomlinson’s UK/Europe tour. So I’d say him because I’ve seen what he can do with those One Direction fans.

Archie: I think, recency bias, it would probably have to be The 1975. It’d be pretty big to support them.

If you tour with The 1975 you can’t be on Guinness, it’s got to be wine!

Matt: Red wine. A pint of red wine.

Archie: Whole bottle.

Matt: I’ve seen a wine bottle where they’ve drilled a hole in a wine glass and stuck the bottle through it so they can just drink it through a glass, technically. So you’re still having a glass of wine it’s just attached to the bottle! It looks kinda smart and suave.

What’s your least favourite part about being a musician?

Matt: TikTok. Honestly, hate doing it but you have to do it now. I hate it because it brings it away from what artists should be focusing on. It’s not making music, it’s not perfecting your live shows, it’s just throwing trash out there because everyone’s attention spans are about 3 seconds now. I can vent on this subject for hours.

Matt: When you start off in music, definitely the money is a big struggle. Because you do these bog shows and get paid little to nothing so that’s a struggle. Especially with travelling, trying to find somewhere to stay, the equipment, etcetera.

How do you balance being paid next to nothing whilst trying to live, especially in a cost of living crisis?

Archie: I’m a student so I’ve got my student loan to fall back on but that’s something I have to deal with later on in life.

Matt: I have a job. I do some song writing, get a bit of money from there. And I work as a software engineer, building apps and solutions…

Will we see a The White Lakes app soon?

Matt: I actually have been working on something… for the future.

Not to bring up a sore subject again, Matt, but how has social media impacted your band and the music industry in general?

Matt: I think it’s good, in a way, the same thing as, like, Spotify, because everyone has more accessibility to artists. But I don’t think it’s benefited the underground live sector. Because everyone has such access to music online they don’t have a need to go and discover music live. Our forté is our live show… It’s been harder to build up a fanbase when people aren’t going to underground live music shows anymore. Because, you know, back in the day you see a cool poster and you don’t even know what genre it’s going to be you just buy a ticket and go.

Archie: I’m going to have to agree. It would be nice to be back in the day where people would go to see live music just to find something new. Now it’s easy just to scroll on TikTok or find something on Spotify and people don’t really go out themselves to discover new music. But, I mean, social media for us has been somewhat beneficial. You never know who’s going to come across you’re account and find your stuff and be interested in what you’re playing.

What up-and-coming artists are you into at the moment?

Archie: I found this jazz trio who are not very well known, and they should be more well-known called Moses Yoofee Trio. I came across the drummer on Instagram and he’s got some solo stuff on Spotify, and he was promoting this jazz trio so I IMMEDIATELY went on Spotify to find that and I just fell in love with their stuff. It’s probably my favourite band at the moment.

Matt: I listen to a lot of drum and bass and drill, believe it or not. I’ve got an eclectic taste, I’ll listen to anything. Archie got me into Moses Yoofee Trio as well. I just found the old drummer of Catfish and the Bottlemen’s new band called Hearts and it’s pretty cool. That’s what I’m non-stop listening to… until I hate it. I’ll find a song I love and then just non-stop listen to that song on repeat for a month and then I’ll never listen to it again.

What’s the song from your discography that people need to be listening to on repeat?

Matt: ‘Complicated’. That’s my favourite.

Archie: Yeah, ‘Complicated’.

I’m going to give you each some ‘This or That’ questions. You’ll have to pick between to options fast, whatever comes first to your mind.

Touring or Songwriting?

Archie: Touring.

London or Birmingham?

Matt: Ooh… London.

Festival or Concert?

Archie: Festival

Lyrics or Melody?

Matt: Melody

Pigeon or Seagull?

Archie: Seagull.

Matt: Pigeon…