It’s less than a week until The New Colossus Festival takes over eight independent music venues on the Lower East Side of New York with over 150 bands from around the world and the Ditto X: NYC24 Music Conference, and we are extremely excited to be hosting our own stage of UK artists at Heaven Can Wait on Thursday 7th March. We’ve a fantastic line up featuring some of our favourite British acts, with headliners Shelf Lives joined by Scrounge, Langkamer, Hadda Be and Idle Hours.
Today we’re introducing you to London/Brighton quintet Hadda Be, who we first came across during lockdown when their mix of melodic post-punk and mellifluous indie pop bowled us over so much we asked them to do an online session. Since then they’ve played the online Balcony Festival which we organised with fellow independent zines and promoters, chatted with us about their debut album and continued to win hearts and minds with a string of singles and live shows.
We caught up with the band to get their thoughts ahead of the festival.
Who’s in the band and what do they do?
We’ve got Amber on vocals, Jago and Jake on the guitars, Tom on bass and Olly on drums
Give us a bit of backstory:
We formed in 2018 and released our first two singles that year. In 2019, we released our debut EP ‘Foundlings’ and did our first DIY headline tour of the UK in support of it. In the lead up to the pandemic, we were working on our debut album. We finally released ‘Another Life’ in May of 2021 and we were made up with the response to it. Over the last year or so, the band’s had a bit of a refresh and we’ve been working on loads of new stuff, which we’re proper excited to play at New Colossus.Â
What’s the best description of your music you’ve ever read/heard?
We liked it when Steve Lamacq described us as “Breathless indiepop”.
What can people who’ve not seen you before expect from your set?
We like variety in our set, to create a bit of a narrative that arches over the whole thing, rather than just playing the same thing at you in different forms. But you can expect high energy, melody, panache, excitement and perhaps even a decent song or two
Is this your first time playing in New York? How are you feeling about playing there?
It is! It’s our first time playing in the States in general. We’re ridiculously excited. It’s gonna be such a great experience and we’re very lucky to be able to do it. Pastrami on rye for me, please.
Who are some of your favourite NYC bands?
There are too many to list them all, but just for starters, we’ve got: Television, Blondie, Ramones, Velvet Underground, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Talking Heads, The Strokes, Sonic Youth. The list goes on and on and…
Anyone you’re particularly looking forward to seeing from the New Colossus line up?
Lots! There are quite a few UK bands we know coming over, so it’ll be great to see them. I’ve been listening through the bands I don’t know and King Bug jumped out – looking forward to seeing them. The brilliant thing about festivals of this kind is just wandering and seeing what you come across, so looking forward to discovering acts like that too.
What else are you doing while you’re over in the States? Other shows? Sightseeing plans?
We’re coming over solely for the festival. We’re doing three shows, so we’ll be busy, but we’re planning to do as much sightseeing as possible, as well as eating and drinking our way around NYC. We’ll be sticking around the festival too, checking out all the great new bands. It’s going to be a great few days.Â
Find everything Hadda Be on this handy LinkTree
Full festival details and tickets on The New Colossus website
Interview by Paul Maps
Photography by Saul Perryman
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