I recently spoke to the lovely Alfie from Irish folk-pop duo Hudson Taylor, about the Battles EP, the joys of technology for bands today, and artichokes. TAT: Hello! Hudson Taylor: Hello!
For the record, who is Hudson Taylor and how did you get into music?
Hudson Taylor is myself, Alfie and my brother Harry. [How] we got into music? I suppose, it was in our family all our lives. We were on a family holiday in Italy and Harry brought a guitar along with him and we ended up playing on the beach to a group of German people, we had around six at the surf night and then we were on holiday for two weeks and that kinda turned into like sixty people and on the last day we had a gig, so we set up a Youtube. Yeah, we just love playing for people and love performing and everything like that. That kinda spiralled into writing our own songs, and then spiralled into us moving to London and, yeah, here we are now.
You released the Battles EP on August 27. So, how was the whole writing process for you? Was it quite organic considering you came from the busking background or was it a big, professional process?
It was actually very, very organic, like we recorded the whole EP, which is based around myself and my brother Harry, sitting in a room. [We recorded] the main take live, I suppose. There’s four songs on the EP; Battles, Drop Of Smoke, Hideaway and Left Alone. We did pretty much all those takes live, just myself and my brother and two guitars, or one guitar and one piano, and then we had a sound and the band added to that, I suppose, because we have drums and bass on it aswell, and some little bits and bobs on top. So, that’s how it came around, and [with] the writing [of] the songs, I remember the tracklisting changed around a few times to see what songs suited best and we actually recorded the EP twice, [the] first time was unsuccessful, it didn’t really catch the vibe we were going for, it was a little bit bigger, and we just wanted to keep it kinda low key. So, the four songs are songs that had been written in the last six months.
A lot of people have commented on how mature the lyrics are, and how you sound a lot older than you actually are. So, what’s the inspiration behind your lyrics, what do you choose to write about?
Well, a lot of it like, when we started out writing [sic], I’m only eighteen now and Harry is twenty, so when we started writing I was fifteen and Harry was sixteen, so I suppose, it was more about teenage heartbreak, and little things, y’know, not doing your homework and all that kinda stuff, and then we left education, Harry was doing a computer science degree in Dublin and I was in my second last year of secondary school, we left education, which isn’t usual in Ireland - we were brought up in Ireland, as you can tell by my accent. Then we moved to London and I suppose we had to grow up a little bit, we were then dealing with rent, and dealing with lots of other stuff, like trying to pay for travel. It’s a very expensive city, so we had to get jobs again and all that stuff. So, I think that made us grow up a lot more and start writing about grown up things rather than homework and teenage heartbreak.
There was a lot of buzz around the release of the EP. Did you expect the amount of popularity that you managed to garner in such a short period of time? I mean, you were writing with the likes of Danny O'Reilly in such a short time, how did you react to that?
Well, we’ve kinda been developing our online audience for the last four years. Before Hudson Taylor, we were Harry & Alfie, which is our names. We had things on Youtube and did a lot of busking. [We] directed the people who saw us live to our online following and that helped a lot. Our manager runs a studio in London and Danny happened to be in the studio, and so we got talking to him, obviously we love The Coronas and all their writing in their songs is just brilliant, and then so, we met him in the studio and we said yeah, we’d love to get writing, and after that happened we did a video with him, and that helped. I suppose [it’s about] keeping really, really active online, live and we give away a lot of free songs as well. I dunno, people were really, really good to us and did buy the EP, it was amazing, absolutely amazing. We didn’t expect it. We were in Denmark doing a festival the night it was released and didn’t expect it to do as well as it did, it’s just absolutely lovely. Also, it’s still going, that’s the great thing.
You sold out the London Borderline. How was that for you? How did it feel? Was it pretty crazy?
Yeah, that was absolutely amazing. We actually decided we do it pretty late, so we had a week to let go some of the tickets and get it all going. I think it was [in] six days or something that all of the tickets went. It was a lovely, lovely gig. Loads of people knew the words, I was very emotional at that gig and my mum was there. [She] stood in the front row and was singing a song of ours called ‘Won’t Back Down’, which is quite a slow piano ballad and I ended up cracking up a little bit because my mum, ah I dunno, yeah, it was really emotional. It was lovely, because we’ve been working really hard at it for the last few years and that was a sign of it all paying off, if you know what I mean.
Obviously, you guys are quite a modern day story, with a lot of your popularity coming from the initial Harry & Alfie Youtube videos. What advice would you give to bands starting out and utilizing the internet? Do you think that maybe you should focus on using the internet or do you think it’s good to have a balance between touring and working online?
It’s very, very good to have a balance. For us Youtube has been an amazing platform to put our videos up, get our followers and people who are into our music, familiar with our music. Then it means when you do play live, they know the songs and all that stuff and you can get a really good buzz going when you’re live. Writing songs is really, really important and putting them up on Youtube. We are partners of Youtube, so if you put up enough creative content and Youtube sees that it’s doing well, they have a reward system so you can actually make money off Youtube. I mean, it’s quite little at the start unless you’re Rihanna or someone, getting millions and millions of views and you’re not going to make that much, but it does help. I suppose, it’s a lovely extra from them, every month or every two months. Just, you get a little bit of money, it’s lovely. Yeah, I would say [the main] advice is to put up as much original content as you can and I suppose, be yourself. And, also, try to keep up the live side of it as well.
You recently played the Boardmasters Festival. What was it like to play? There was acts such as Ed Sheeran and The Ting Tings on the line up, so it was quite a big deal. How was it for you?
It was a lovely, lovely festival. I took a holiday the week before to go down to Cornwall and I stayed in a caravan, I got to write some new songs and things and Cornwall is just a generally, really cool place with surfing and all that stuff. The festival itself was really really lovely. I mean, I think surfer music has changed a little bit, it’s gone a little bit more heavy, and a little more dubstep. Which is fine, it’s lovely and it was cool. The festival is amazing, a really, really great festival and we played on a staged that was like an old bullet caravan and the audience were looking over the cliffs of Cornwall. It was really, really nice.
What do you guys hope to achieve by the end of the year? Obviously, you’ve played some big festivals, sold out the Borderline and released an EP, but do you hope to do any more before the end of the year? Put out any more music or any more tours?
Yeah, we’re going to play live as much as possible. If there’s some support slots available that we could do around UK or Ireland, we’re going to play live as much as possible. We may do another release, I mean [with] the success of the EP, we’re absolutely delighted with it. The whole process is just lovely, making an EP and recording it, was just really, really nice. It’s not as hard as you think it is because of modern day technology and everything, it’s quite cheap to do, so we may do another release, we’ll play as much as possible, possibly join with a label at some stage and that’s as far as we’re thinking now.
What bands have an influence on Hudson Taylor? Who do you guys personally listen to?
Well, I listen to a lot of old music, oldies like The Beatles, Johnny Cash and Elvis and all that stuff. If I was cleaning the house, or cooking the dinner that’s what I’d be listening to, I don’t know why, we kind of grew up on that. I do listen to a lot of modern music as well, I suppose you have to listen to everything these days, like Rihanna, The Vaccines, Maccabees, Ben Howard, Ed Sheeran - all kinds really, but mostly the ones named there.
Final question, if Hudson Taylor was a sandwich, what would be the filling?
Laughs. Oh wow, where did that one come from? Wow, okay, ham. Just one filling or many? (TAT: As many as you want!) Okay, ham, cheese, artichoke - we’re big fans of artichoke, avocado - a little bit of that, olives, and I think that’s it.
Final words?
Could I thank anyone [reading who's] bought the EP? Thank you so much for doing so, I mean, it’s really, really helped us out, we just love making music and playing live and putting it up on iTunes and putting it up online and everything. So just a big thank you all round, and thank you so much for the interview.
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Kelly Doherty
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