10 Things...

10 Things We Never Knew About… The Humour

Small waves, big pond… but when a rock quartet from Wakefield called The Humour start popping up on both sides of the Atlantic, having just a self-titled EP and a single release, One More Drink, to their names you begin to suspect that some pretty big fish must have have taken a liking to their music. We dug a little deeper and uncovered a little of the mystery surrounding vocalist James Taylor, drummer Daniel Fahy, bassist Luke Richards and guitarist Matt Bagley.

What things do you think helps your band stand out from the crowd?
James: We try not to do “gigs” but do “shows”. We always try to make the crowd feel like they’re involved whether we’re playing a house-party for 20 people or playing in front of 5,000.

In what ways has playing live shows helped you develop the band dynamic?
Dan: We’ve learnt how to interact with a crowd of any size now, I think, and when writing songs we tend to think of how they would be played live.

What would be your dream line-up to play alongside and why?
Luke: We’re all massive Muse and Lostprophets fans, so if we ever got to share a bill and a few drinks with either, a huge dream of ours would be realised! So Matt & Ian, if you’re reading… GIVE US A CALL!

Describe your band’s greatest achievement?
Matt: Getting the reception we did at Reading Festival.
Dan: When we played Leeds we knew we’d have a decent crowd regardless, but down south we are a little more unknown, so it was amazing to see all these faces singing back words to songs they’d never heard before!

Describe your band’s worst screw-up?
James: Dan tends to muck big things up from time to time.
Matt: We had a huge gig at The Cockpit in Leeds. We’d gone all out in decking the venue with all these expensive lasers and white sheets and he came on stage and started playing the wrong song, completely destroying the intro!

What currently influences your music and why?
Dan: At this present moment in time we love the new Muse album and are all excited at hearing Lostprophets new material.
James: It’s good to see these British bands still delivering the goods after so many years and we hope we can prolong our careers to the lengths of theirs and even longer!

What were your musical influences growing up?
James: We all were lucky to come from quite musical backgrounds. My dad introduced me to rock music at an early age and I grew up listening to the likes of Led Zeppelin.
Dan: My dad was in a pretty successful New Romantic band in the 80s called Guido. They did a big European tour with Commodores and opened Leeds Xmas lights!
Matt: My mum is a great piano player and my dad bought me my first guitar at a young age and they’ve always supported me since I started playing.
Luke: My dad brought me up on Metallica. And took me to my first festival when I was only 10 and I still remember it clearly.

If you had the power, what things would you change about the music industry?
Luke: Get rid of boring bands who go on stage, don’t move and put no energy and thought into songwriting or performance. We spend hours preparing every aspect of our live performance and feel lots of bands just go through the motions.

In what ways do you, personally, like to relax outside the band?
James: Matt likes to go to karate, he’s really good actually! He once did a roundhouse on Danny at practice and we were all in awe.
Matt: James likes to sculpt his guns at the gym, we all try to go from time to time but he’s the fit one of the group.
Luke: Dan helps a few local kids with drum lessons and also plays cricket! Very unrock&roll so we like to tease him about it.
Dan: Luke is an awesome artist (and does all our artwork!) so he spends lots of time honing his skills.

Any good advice you would like to share for aspiring musicians?
Dan: Enjoy what you’re doing!
Matt: Put thought into your live show and put on a performance every time you play live.
James: It’s not easy getting noticed, but be persistent, listen to criticism and take it on board.

Band Link:
The Humour

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