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Reece Bibby. Blake Richardson. George Smith; three names, three rising stars that ultimately make up the United Kingdom based band, New Hope Club. Having been mates in Manchester for years, the three eventually began their professional music career in 2015 when they signed with their label Steady Records. Over the past seven years, the band has certainly made a name for itself having since toured around the world performing with heavyweight artists like BTS. Coming from small English towns and entering the industry at a mere fifteen years of age, the band shared their amazement at how their music has spread worldwide to countless different cultures. Bibby, the band's drummer explained that in order "to go viral in our towns you only had to play at one pub, and then everyone was booking you for their weddings." As one can imagine, the juxtaposition of weddings to world tours over the course of their careers has certainly been nothing short of surreal.
With the recent release of their new single L.U.S.H. the band sat down with us to share some details about their past, present, and upcoming work. It was said that the the song's signature opening riff was said to have "written itself." The new single's music video is unexpected, given the love song takes place in an old folk's home. The band was eager to share how much "[they] love [their] humor" and wanted to deviate from the standard love story video, mentioning their enjoyment of the overall irony explaining how they didn't want to take themselves too seriously. The band's typical writing process presents a lack of process itself, as many of their best sounds have come from pure experimentation and stumbling upon them a lot of the time. Comically, but expectedly as Manchester natives, the band claims a decent part of their inspiration was derived from the FIFA video game soundtrack, one that allegedly contains a sound they believe represents the energy given off when they have the opportunity to play live.
A central topic of discussion was the band's sound, as many were curious as to how it's progressed over the years and where they'd like to take it moving forward. Richardson shared the group's collective efforts to "always keep making steps forward into something like a new world." Looking up to the Beatles, the band held their ability to challenge themselves in high regard. Bibby highlighted the importance of remaining out
side the lines and in a state of constant development claiming how they "don't want to put [their] sound or [them]selves in a box." The band collectively considered their development as musicians to be not a change in their sound, but a movement back to who they are regarding their upcoming 2023 record as more "real and more personal than ever" as it was written solely by them, devoid of any external artist collaboration. "Everything (in the album) has a purpose and a meaning to us," said Bibby explaining how good it felt having the ability to make every decision themselves and create something made entirely by the them.
On the matter of the Club's future plans, Richardson shared his excitement about their unreleased song 'I Like Your Face,' a song that was audience tested live that "really captures [their] relationship with each other." Smith regarded their song 'Getting Better,' as their favorite as it "encapsulates what this whole album, the new album is embodying." As the band managed their ever so fast skyrocket to stardom we naturally wanted to hear advice they had, as their streaming platform success rises indefinitely, having amassed over 1.4 million monthly Spotify listeners. Richardson left us with an ultimate message to younger musicians warning of the countless opinions of others about what they do but in an attempt to counteract this, reminded us that "at the end of the day, it's your art."
