The Lines are a four piece indie band hailing from the sleepy lands of Wolverhampton. With a sound best described as classic indie hooking up with dancefloor hooks, the band are destined to continue their slow rise with their latest album featuring the gorgeously melodic new single ‘Rivers’. Following support slots for the likes of The Killers, Pete Doherty, Ocean Colour Scene and The Maccabees, the band is due to play a thousand person headline show at Wolverhampton Civic Hall on 15th December. The Lines are: Alex Ohm (Vocals and Guitar), Dean Bate (Lead Guitar), Dave ‘Paddy’ O’Connor (Drums and Samples), and Danny Pease (Bass Guitar).
We spoke to the band about their slow rise to the top and their approach to creating their catchy tracks. They were also kind enough to play us two gorgeous tracks from their upcoming album, new single ‘Rivers’ and the amazing ‘After All’ in an exclusive acoustic session for Hit The Floor coming soon!
HTF: How would you go about describing yourselves to a newcomer?
Alex: I guess we get put in the bracket of indie and alternative but it’s a bit of a mixture really. I mean we’ve got some pretty upbeat dance tunes influenced by people like the rapture and gang of four and then we’ve got some slower stuff influenced by Sigur Ros and Bob Dylan so it’s hard to put it in a category. A mix of everything, charity shop music even.
HTF: If I’m right in saying it’s been a fairly quick ascension to where you are now, how have you found the change?
Alex: We’re still trying to break out of Wolverhampton really, it’s been good to us but it’s been a little bit of a gradual progression. I think I can speak for myself when I say I never expected us to be going out doing the big tours we do just playing guitar really. I never expected to be playing towns like Bournemouth (I’m from there so queue the joke)
HTF: Just Bournemouth in general
Alex: Yeah just Bournemouth!
HTF: Good old Bournemouth!
Alex: Well Bournemouth or Liverpool, well it just happened naturally really, it’s not like we’ve shot up suddenly.
Paddy: Well you find most bands who rise suddenly fall just as quick so we’re happy for it to take it’s time just a little bit.
Alex: Not too long though!
HTF: Have you found it hard to break through or has it just been gradual steps here and there?
Alex: I think it’s been difficult at times
Paddy: I think it’s been difficult for everyone, at the moment there’s not much money in the music business so they only really bank on the easy options. So for anyone who’s trying to push boundaries in any way it just doesn’t really register with anyone which is a shame as there’s loads of good bands out there who are in the same space as us, trying to break through.
HTF: Was there a moment in your careers, touring on the Wolverhampton circuit, where you suddenly felt “We can go somewhere with this”?
Alex: I dunno, we were always like that weren’t we! It was always “this time next year”
Dean: well there was no one really doing what we were doing and we were great as a live band as well. There weren’t many moments but when we started gigging further afield, like Manchester. And then we were in Austria playing with all these bands and stuff. It’s all happened naturally I think.
Alex: Also when we started supporting bands like The Maccabees and from there it was step after step up.
HTF: Is there methods you use for writing your songs, is it a group effort or very individual?
Alex: Every song is different really, sometimes I’ll have ideas, there’s been times where pad’s had a beat so we’ve decided let’s use that. Every song is different.
Paddy: I mean there’s times where you’ll bring in demos and the like but even then it can change completely. It always starts with someone having a bit of an idea about something then the rest of us chipping in.
HTF: Do you get any moments where you feel you might have accidently cribbed a song off someone else?
Alex: Yeah, you can if you listen to other artists too much but we try not to.
Dean: There’s also been times where we’ve started with a good idea and it’s veered into another artist’s ether so we have to bring it back in.
Alex: It’s not like I suddenly start sounding like Morrissey though!
HTF: There’s been many occasions where you’ve been said to blow a support act off the stage, Little Man Tate once said you blew them off stage very night, do you feel there’s a secret to playing a good live gig?
Alex: erm, I think we just try and give it all we’ve got really because there’s always that daunting task when you’re a support band of playing to people who aren’t really there to see you. So we just try to give it all we’ve got and put in all our energy. I think there are a lot of bands who just play the songs.
Paddy: If you’re gonna go up there and play songs you might as well make it entertaining. If we’re onstage and that comes over then it makes it easier for people in the crowd to get into it.
HTF: you’ve been compared to The Verve by the music press in the past, I don’t know if you’ve seen this yourself, but if you were to align yourselves to any bands who would it be?
Alex: Well I think that comparison comes from when we talk about bands that we listen to and someone’s gone “oh so you sound like The Verve”, not really! Perhaps there we moments were you could make comparisons on some of our earlier songs but we always try and sound not like any particular band.
Paddy: The Verve’s quite an easy one; we’ve got some others I don’t really mind. We’ve had people say we sound like Doves.
Alex: The Music was a good one. We also got compared to My Chemical Romance at one point (Cue Laughter)
Dean: we’ve been compared to lots of bands. We got compared a couple of times to U2 which we don’t necessarily like. But it’s tricky to align ourselves with anything as we’re all into different things.
Alex: I suppose they could say we sound like ABBA…
Dean: Especially with the puff out shirts and the Lycra.
HTF: Well does your mother know? Anyway, looking back on your career are there any changes you’d make decisions wise?
Alex: Yeah, we’d have probably done Dubstep or something. No not really as it’s been quite a natural progression. It’s not like we had a meeting and said this is what we need to do to become bigger. I mean the line-ups changed over time but that’s just the way it’s gone, but no, not really. We’ve had a good journey so far.
Dean: We’ve been to so many different places and seen so many things. So it’s difficult to turn around and say we’d change it.
Paddy: Maybe not play Leicester the day after our big gig in Wolverhampton. Twice!
Alex: Not that we don’t like Leicester, it’s just the venue.
HTF: When you support bands on tour are there certain things you pick up along the way?
Alex: Their rider!
Dean: That’s the thing we were talking about before with natural progression. I think sorta going from the small gigs where I didn’t have a clue what the monitor was and stuff like that. We have sorta picked up how they go about unloading, setting up and sound checking. Just little things like that.
HTF: Have there been certain bands that have taken you under the wing in ways?
Alex: Ocean Colour Scene, they’ve had us a few times on their tour. It gives you a bit of confidence in what you do playing on a big stage.
HTF: Is it generally a PR thing or do bands invite you onto support slots?
Alex: A bit of both, we got invited onto the dates with Ian Brown actually, that was good and he’s such a laid back guy. He supplied us with some good food afterwards as well.
Dean: He was really nice to meet, he just came up to us and said are you the lines? Pete Doherty was quite a good tour too; he went and bought himself a Lines t-shirt. I think we still owe him some money actually!
Interviewer: Martin Mcdonnell
