It’s just a few days 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.
Last week we introduced you to Hadda Be, and today it’s the turn of South London post-punk duo Scrounge, a band who’ve been on our radar for several years now. They were guests on The Joyzine Radio Show, played the Joyzine Stage at Balcony Festival and have featured in most of our ‘favourites of the year’ lists since 2019. We caught up with Lucy and Luke ahead of their trip across the pond.
Who’s in the band and what do they do?
We’re Lucy (guitar and vocals) and Luke (drums, occasional other bits)
Give us a bit of backstory:
We formed a few years ago after leaving university in South London; we’d played in other bands together before and wanted to do something new that challenged us in ways we hadn’t explored before. Since then we’ve been really lucky to have found a place within a really amazing local DIY scene; we’ve also released an EP, a mini-album and various singles, and we’ve toured across the UK, Europe and the US.
What’s the best description of your music you’ve ever read/heard?
“Exhausting, exhausted, exhilarating and pugilistic”, from a review in Loud And Quiet, was pretty good (and very generous).
What can people who’ve not seen you before expect from your set?
We’re pretty aggressive live, so a lot of feedback, energy and sweat (avoid the splash zone near Luke) but we try and have a bit of a laugh too, as off stage we’re fundamentally two very silly people.
Is this your first time playing in New York? How are you feeling about playing there?
Yeah! We’re so excited. It’s a bit of a bucket list thing to be honest – a real honour.
Who are some of your favourite NYC bands?
It’s hard to know where to start really – in terms of more classic artists, we love loads of No Wave, so Suicide, James Chance, Lydia Lunch etc; but also more melodic stuff, Talking Heads being an obvious but brilliant one. In terms of more recent stuff, Show Me The Body probably jump out as real innovators in the kind of noisy aggro music we’re attracted to; cumgirl8 are really fun; and loads of new and old NY hip hop too – Wu-Tang, Junglepussy, Princess Nokia, Ratking to name but a few.
Anyone you’re particularly looking forward to seeing from the New Colossus line up?
Our good mates Hadda Be, who are also playing the Joyzine stage; Holiday Ghosts; La Sécurité; Ducks Ltd – loads!
What else are you doing while you’re over in the States? Other shows? Sightseeing plans?
Our next thing after New Colossus will be a session for Leesta Vall in Brooklyn, where they do direct-to-vinyl recording, which is really cool. More about that here. Beyond that, pizza, sightseeing, getting the tip etiquette wrong, all the hits.
Follow Scrounge on Facebook / Twitter / Instagram / Bandcamp
Full festival details and tickets on The New Colossus website
Interview by Paul Maps
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