The Wholehearted: 'We thought, let's just go back to basics'

“After the whole lockdown we wanted to get the original line-up back together,” he tells The Yorkshire Post. “But the other two (members of Carnabells, Nathan Francey and Mitchell Wright) went their own way. We’d always written songs acoustically, just me, my brother Mitch and Jack on the keys. Even when we were doing the previous bands we’d always written as that sort of outfit then taken it to the other guys and made them into something bigger in the rehearsal room.

“But we always loved the way we used to write so we thought, let’s just do it this way and go back to basics a little bit. Keep it rootsy and a bit more authentic, keep the bones of the song and try to make them special in that way. It’s been working really well, it’s really organic, it feels really natural, we can really work on the harmonies and the guitar melodies and the keys intertwining with things...so we thought we’d give it a whirl.”

Up until the album’s release, the trio have kept live shows “super minimal” with only a two intimate gigs in their home city and a couple of support slots. “We’ve all got our own stuff going on as well now, we’ve not been driving it like we used to when we were much younger,” says lead singer Luke.

“I’m a self-employed painter now, I do portraits and landscapes and I do a lot of teaching.

“My brother is a guitar teacher but he’s got his own instrumental stuff that he works on as well and that’s really great, and then Jack is a digital graphic designer.

“We’ve all got these other avenues but we’re piecing them together now within the band which has been really nice. It’s been a more humble, chilled-out sort of thing, but it’s been working really well. We’ve been getting some good feedback from the gigs that we’ve done and the snippets of songs that we’ve put out, so we thought, let’s just do an album.”

The band managed to raise £4,000 to record From Life in three days at Greenmount Studios in Armley, and press 100 copies. “It’s been really nice to have that connection with everybody involved in it,” Luke says.

To round things off, they will be playing a launch gig at the Belgrave Music Hall in Leeds on December 21, with folk singer-songwriter Chris Brain. “Hopefully on the night it will be like a celebration of the whole campaign.”

Luke feels his landscape painting has influenced his songwriting “in terms of my perspective of the world and the way I see things”.

“Previously I was fairly inward-looking and a bit self-indulgent at times, typical things that you write about when you’re younger. Now it’s got a more outward-looking perspective, looking to nature and trying to understand the importance of that.

“There are a couple of songs in there – English Fields and Swallow – that almost describe what a painting would be like in some of the lyrics.

“There are a couple of songs from the Carnbells days too. If Only The World Would See Me we wrote about eight years ago but never got the chance to release it, and I think it works really well in this outfit.”

From Life is out now. The Wholehearted play at Belgrave Music Hall, Leeds on Thursday December 21. https://www.facebook.com/thewholeheartedmusic/