[Published in The Student newspaper 21/01/14]
“Guitars, Irish and harmonies”. When asking duo Hudson Taylor to describe themselves in three words, these were the words they felt were the most fitting. Though perhaps restrictive, they do a good job of labelling the pair, also known as brothers Harry and Alfie Hudson-Taylor, within the nu-folk scene, and hinting at the image they have built over the past few years. Elder brother Harry provides the fingerpicking and impressive falsetto in the pair whilst Alfie enhances the sound with his rawer, nasal vocals, none too far from Mumford & co.
2013 has been a big year for Hudson Taylor, supporting established folk-pop acts like Jake Bugg and fellow Irishmen Kodaline, but also earning a support slot for none other than the Rolling Stones.
I had a chat with the two Irish lads about their hopes and aspirations before their gig at Edinburgh’s music haunt Sneaky Pete’s. Due to the venue being relatively small, and there being no adjacent and quiet room, the interview was conducted in the ladies’ toilets. It goes without saying that it was a first for everyone involved.
LC: You’re on tour currently promoting new EP Osea. How would you say it compares to previous EPs Battles and Cinematic Lifestyle?
Harry: It’s our first EP that we’ve released with a record label. And it’s also the first one that seems to have got a lot of attraction. It got played on BBC radio and stuff.
It’s a different type of approach. We wrote all the songs in one place, on this island called Osea. Battles and Cinematic Lifestyle were kind of written over a space of a few months.
Alfie: And we worked with different people as well.
LC: Was it quite strange making that transition from uploading videos to Youtube to being signed to an important record label?
A: It was strange.
H: We were already fairly well established before, we kind of knew what we wanted. That helps a lot because some people might sign a record deal and they don’t really know or maybe the record label wants to shape them a bit. But we were left to our own devices, which was really cool.
A: We were put out with some people that it didn’t really like work out with though.
H: We’ve got our own instincts. That was pretty good.
LC: Which composition are you most proud of and do you ever go over songs and think you should have changed a lyric or used a better chord?
H: What we tend to do, more so, is leave a song for ages and not finish it.
A: I don’t think there’s anything we would have changed. I mean, my favourite in terms of writing it and everything behind it is probably our song “World Without You”. I’ll go with that.
H: I really like that song. I like “Care” as well.
LC: What’s the song writing process like between you? Alfie, do you write a half-song and then Harry writes the other half?
H: We’ve got many different ways but mainly we sit down in a room, even if it’s a bathroom like this. Bathrooms are good actually because they’ve got good acoustics.
A: And we just jam. Harry will start playing something awesome on the guitar and I’ll play it and then I’ll just start singing some words. I have a little book, so I write it down in it.
H: Sometimes it’s bits of poetry, sometimes it’s just a scrap, like rap or something.
A: Like “Care”, for example. That was all one go. So, we’re sitting down, singing it, going over the chords.
H: We go over the chords like five minutes, listen back to it and then just transcribe that.
A: Sometimes that happens, and you can get very lucky. I have all these recordings we’ve made. We’ll listen back to them and Harry will just be singing the words with the vowel sounds in harmony. That always gives me a boost. Sometimes it happens like that. These are the ones we enjoy the most because they’re so…
H: Spontaneous.
LC: I was at a gig the other day and I noticed that many people were filming with their camera phones. I was wondering what your views were on this and if it annoyed you as musicians?
H: I think everyone is guilty of it. I do it myself. I think the best thing is to go to a gig and if there’s one song that you film, then just film that one song, but don’t do it all. Otherwise you’re basically watching the gig through it.
LC: It sort of hinders your enjoyment, doesn’t it?
H: I think it does.
A: Well, if you’re paying for a ticket… I’m probably guilty of it myself. Yeah, I wouldn’t film the whole gig.
H: Nobody in 1969 at Woodstock had a camera phone. It’s interesting because we play at a gig and then someone, that night, has already uploaded the video online. It’s nice to see, but I don’t know…
LC: Where would you ideally like to be in three years time?
A: Well, we’d probably have two albums out by then! The first album will hopefully be out by the middle of next year. We’re cracking away at it now, getting the singles in and just recording really.
H: In three years time, I would love to have been to all parts of the world, every continent would be nice. It’s more of an ambition. By the age of 25, if I’d seen every continent in some form because of music, that would be pretty cool. I feel like we’re achieving quite a lot anyway. Music as a career is pretty hard, having to sustain ourselves next to the label and all that.
A: Touring and doing some albums.
H: I still want to be able to go busking as well.
LC: In Dublin?
H: Everywhere.
Hudson Taylor’s new EP Osea is out now and available on iTunes.
Cultural ponderings 