Easy Life: ‘Nothing good was ever written in a comfort zone’

“Live At Leeds is one of my favourite festivals,” says the Leicestershire-born singer songwriter in anticipation of the annual celebration of emerging talent, returning after a two-year Covid-enforced break.

“I have an affinity with Leeds,” he explains.” My brother has lived there for 12 years now, so it’s a bit of a home from home. Every time we go there it’s a good one for us.”

A year on from the release of their debut album Life’s a Beach, Matravers’ band find themselves very much on the up. Having thrown down a marker with their genre-hopping first LP, which shot to Number Two in the charts, the five-piece have already got its successor in the bag and a summer of outdoor events awaits.

They’ve been limbering up with a month of dates in Europe followed by an introductory tour of the US at which some of the venues were 150 capacity – something, Matravers says, that they found “a different kettle of fish”.

The UK shows will be first time Easy Life have been able to take production with them. “It feels so weird taking a stage set and all of that kind of stuff, which for us is very exciting,” Matravers says. “We’ve spent five or six months on the creative side, designing it with our designers. It’s going to be fun to take it out and see what people think.”

Releasing Life’s a Beach in the midst of the pandemic restrictions was a peculiar experience for a band eager to prove their credentials as one of British pop’s most exciting new acts. “We’d been building up to releasing our debut album for years and then all of a sudden the pandemic happened so it definitely took the wind out of our sails,” Matravers says. “As a band, our favourite thing to do, and probably our best asset, is touring and we just finished the US tour for the first album two weeks ago which is almost a year after the release date. There was quite a significant delay from releasing the album and being able to tour it.

“By the time we did end up touring it we still love it but it wasn’t as fresh or exciting and when you come to trying to put it across live it wasn’t as convincing because of that delay. It was definitely difficult but I try not to think about it too much because out of everything we’re still healthy and we’re able to tour now, but it was a shame.”

To make up for lost time, the band intend to tour their second record, Maybe in Another Life...., “pretty much straight away”. “I think it will feel a lot more exciting for us as a band,” Matravers reckons. “It was strange having to sit on songs for six months and then take them out on the road; it’s a lot more satisfying to just write something and then play it to an audience (straight away). To keep that timeframe as small as possible really is the key.”

Playing live is “why we do this in the first place”, he adds. “It’s not a vehicle to play the recordings, it’s as much the other way round. I think we make the recordings so we have something to do when we play live. We just enjoy it. Everything makes sense when we play live. It’s probably one of the only times that I’m truly in the present, when I’m not stressed about the future or all those other things that can ruin days when I’m anxious or all those other things that people get. Live we’re truly in the moment and when you have hundreds or thousands of people singing and living presently in that moment it’s a very magical, visceral thing.”

Life’s a Beach had a loose concept about a day at the seaside. Growing up on a farm in landlocked Loughborough then moving down the road to Leicester, it was something that Matravers had thought about a lot over the years. “There’s a romanticism and a nostalgia about the seaside, and being from Leicester made it even funnier because we couldn’t be further from the seaside if we tried,” he says. “But I think because of it, that’s why we lusted for the seaside. We wanted something that we couldn’t have.

“This record was written during lockdown when we were all stuck inside and I was so sick of my bedroom and I just started fantasising about how when you were a child your parents took you to Skegness or something and it was magical. That sort of feeling of nostalgia was what I was drawing from. It wasn’t necessarily the sand, the ocean and the ice cream, it was more just the feeling that can provoke.

“We’ve always been very British as a band in terms of the lyrics or the humour. The way that we put things across is distinctly British and I think anyone from Britain can understand the (pull of) the ocean. Certainly when I was a kid, we would just go to the seaside and that was the escape that you would look forward to all year. I kind of wanted to capture that feeling in the record.”

As a songwriter, Matravers has often addressed mental health issues. “I think it’s important, especially post-lockdown,” he says. “The lockdown really solidified this problem of mental health, particularly where young people were glued to their phones and social media. All of a sudden they couldn’t have face-to-face interaction...because of that anxiety and depression and all of those things, particularly social anxiety, has just exploded among young people. I think it’s important to talk about that, particularly with males.

“Women are just superior in every way, they’re able to talk about their emotions much more candidly traditionally. I’m trying to break that stereotype (among males). I think men are sensitive and delicate...This idea that we have to be robust and rigid I think is archaic and stupid. I’m trying to talk about being vulnerable and insecure. It’s important to be authentic and real with people, I’m just trying to do that as best I can.”

Matravers believes insecurity is actually something of a gift. “It’s just a very human emotion,” he says. “I’m constantly doubting myself, if I wasn’t I don’t think I would write anything worth listening to. I think people go to Easy Life to share their experiences and their shortcomings, being insecure helps me pick them out and write about them. Also nothing good was ever written in a comfort zone. If you’re really happy and content maybe you could write a song about being happy and content but I don’t think it would be half as provocative as writing a song about not being content because I think most people fall in the latter category.”

Easy Life evidently feel very close to their “very strong group of fans”. “We have various groups on various platforms, we call it the Easy Crew,” says Matravers. “It’s essentially like Facebook pages with only the die-hard fans and ourselves and we speak directly to them, they get to know things before the masses.

“I’ve got loads of friends who are artists and not many of them have that direct link to their fanbase. We’ve very lucky to have an extremely active fanbase. I don’t want to sound arrogant but I think if you like Easy Life then I think you love Easy Life, we have quite a passionate fanbase and that really shines at our live shows. At those moments you have all these people living in the present and it’s really special. Our fans are amazing, particularly through lockdown. We all experienced loads of dark times through our lives in lockdown and we were there for the fans and all the fans were there for each other too. It was a really nice community and support network.”

Easy Life play at Live at Leeds on Saturday June 4. Maybe in Another Life... is due out on August 12. www.easylifemusic.com