English Teacher fly flag for Independent Venue Week

Now the post-punk four-piece, who recently signed to Island Records, home of fellow Leeds group Yard Act, get their chance to say thank you to the small venues who have supported them on their way up.

“It’s unreal that they want us,” says a beaming Nicholas Eden, the band’s bass player, talking to The Yorkshire Post via video call.

“It’s an honour,” adds Lewis Whiting, English Teacher’s lead guitarist and synthesiser player. “It’s such an important thing, so it really does mean a lot that they’ve picked us.”

Huddersfield-born Lily Fontaine, the band’s singer and guitarist, agrees. “The people that have done the ambassadors’ role before the names are just huge and obviously the cause is really special.”

English Teacher already have an association with IVW – during last year’s event they performed at Hebden Bridge Trades Club, a venue that Fontaine describes as “one of our favourites” and a place she visited herself when she was growing up in Colne. This time they will be playing at Hull’s Polar Bear Music Club on February 1. The band will also join Steve Lamacq and Huw Stevens on their BBC 6 Music show that day.

The “passion” of people who run independent venues was something that the band “really noticed” on their tour last autumn, Whiting says, adding: “There’s more of a personal investment in it, the people who run them are really dedicated to ensuring that there’s a community there and that they stay open and provide that kind of space.”

“Every one that we went to, it was the personal touch that made the experiences different, that created an environment, an atmosophere to the venue,” Fontaine says. “It was not just about putting on a gig.”

Eden feels that more could be done by local and national government and arts funding bodies to help out small venues. “When we’ve played in Europe before we’ve really seen quite a stark contrast between how arts gets funded,” he says. “There’s obviously a lot more funding there, in the Netherlands and France especially. It would be nice for us to follow suit in this country eventually.”

Whiting believes that councils could provide more “help and exceptions” for venues due to their cultural contribution to towns and cities. He cites the example of his home city, Preston, where the local authority stepped in to prevent local venue The Ferret from being turned into flats by formally recognising its cultural status. “That enabled them to get funding to help buy it and keep it open,” he says. “I’m sure it’s really complicated and it’s different everywhere, but where that’s possible I think it’s really important. They’re more valuable than just if they’re making a bit of money. Without them it just makes the city a bit dead.”

As for English Teacher themselves, the past 12 months have proved remarkable. Fontaine instantly picks out their appearance on Later...with Jools Holland as her highlight. “That was an ultimate life goal,” she chuckles.

Whiting loved playing at the Brudenell Social Club in Leeds on their headline to tour. “That just kind of summed up the year,” he says.

For Eden, “selling out a tour with us as the headliners” was a big achievement. “It was unbelievable.”

He feels the band have evolved “in so many ways” since their early days. When they first formed, five years ago, they were known as Frank. “Physically, with the line-up, a lot has changed,” he notes.

Fontaine recalls that “things got a bit more serious” after a temporary hiatus and change of band name. “The songwriting got better, that had a knock-on effect. Creatively we had more options,” she says. “But I don’t think we’ve completely changed. Hopefully we’re still kind and humble.”

Whiting says they still have “no system” when it comes to songwriting, explaining that “some of them are Lily completely and some are a mash-up of everyone”. The lyrical department, though, is very much Fontaine’s. She says she doesn’t like it “when writing songs that people have heard before, when people overuse idioms or turns of phrase”.

“George Orwell talked about how he hates writing where people use common phrases, it’s all a bit lazy and I think that it can be used in a funny way, but also I really like new ways of saying things.”

Orwell remains one of her touchstones, as is John Cooper Clarke, but in terms of songwriters she also admires “people like Alt-J, who tend not to get mentioned, they’re not people like Leonard Cohen, but I really like their music, it’s all quite non-standard things but quite cool”.

After a string of EPs and singles such as The World’s Biggest Paving Slab, Nearly Daffodils and R&B, the band report that their debut album is “done”. It was mainly recorded at Pony Studios in Hackney with Marta Salogni, who Eden describes as “a great mixer and producer”. Fontaine suggests people can expect “a couple of piano ballads and then there’s some rock songs”.

Independent Venue Week runs from January 29, with 205 venues across the country involved. For details visit https://independentvenueweek.com/uk/