This Friday sees the return of Brixton Easter weekend staple Bad Friday, promoted by Sonic Tonic at The Windmill. Ahead of the event, Brighton quartet Breathe Panel, who are amongst the eight acts that will be performing, shared their thoughts with festival organiser Neil Walsh.
We read somewhere that the band name was chosen after scrambling the words “elephant” and “bear”.Were there any alternatives considered? (Herbal Ant Pee? The Arable Pen?)
To be honest we kind of landed on the Breathe Panel arrangement first and rolled with it. We see the name now as a description of the sounds we make. Herbal Ant Pee is just a fad anyway, the people will soon realise its not cool anymore and move onto something else… it also gave me the runs.
Your self-titled album had (for our ears) the dreaminess of Lotus Plaza, albeit alongside the whiff of an English summer – is Lockett Pundt / Deerhunter ever on the Breathe Panel stereo?
That’s a nice comparison and one we haven’t had before. We love Deerhunter and Lotus Plaza and they soundtracked a lot of our time before properly writing the album so that’s probably why you’re getting hints of that in there.
There were lots of references or allusions to travel in the lyrics, or at least “moving on”; was there a common thread or influence when composing the lyrics?
We like to make our songs travel and meander along. A lot of the music was written in a time of flux. A lot was going on, and there was lot of change in our lives so the lyrics came naturally from those experiences.
If Breathe Panel was, erm, a panel choosing music to broadcast across the country, what albums or tracks would you select?
We’d keep it pretty varied with no specific theme as we listen to a whole bunch of stuff depending on what we fancy at the time. At the moment Rozi Plain’s new album, Wilco, Cate Le Bon, Nick Drake, Kyle Bobby Dunn, Hannah Cohen and Sam Prekop have been frequent in the van among others…
What’s the plan for the rest of 2019?
Have a sit down for a bit. Enjoy the seasons. Enjoy writing.
Bad Friday takes place at The Windmill, Brixton on Friday 19th April – full details are available here. Advance tickets are available from We Got Tickets.
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