We caught up with Pleasure House ahead of their Edinburgh tour date at Sneaky Pete’s.
Read below as we talk a new EP, band bonding time, Don Broco and more…
So, How did you guy’s form? Where does the name come from?
*Queue Laughter*
James: Well!
Alex: We formed out of a love of making music, we just wanted to like make a project that everyone wanted to get involved in and everyone wanted to make something happen with and it just so happened that we started rehearsing in this lock-up in Hockley in Birmingham. We didn’t have a name at this point but we’d been jammin some songs and really all we wanted to make was like good vibes tunes, just like y’know upbeat, dancey stuff and so we were rehearsing for a couple of week and we were getting pretty high in the lock-up one night, we stayed till about two in the morning. We were playing some tunes and uhm then we did a bit of googling on the building we were in cause there was some creepy stuff going on and I didn’t know what was going on.
James: That place is scary!
Alex: It is a scary place, at night time especially, we did a bit of googling and we actually found out that the Hockley Street Studios which is where we still have our lock-up now, it used to be like in the 17th century, it used to be a whorehouse, used to be a brothel which is where Pleasure House came from.
James: It’s got ghost prostitutes in it. Cheap Rates!
Alex: Proper cheap rates. Although the rent is kinda high but
James: Evens itself out
Alex: So that’s how we came to be
So is this your first headline tour?
James: It is!
How is it comparing to other live experiences, what are your anticipations for it?
Jon: Oh well we’re having a smashing time, travelling up and down the UK. Being lads and having a laugh
James: SMASHING TIME!
Alex: We’re seeing beautiful cities, meeting nice new people, it’s so much fun. A lot of bonding time as well. Jon’s touched my bum too many times already
Jon: We’ve had a lot of fun in the van, let alone playing the gigs
You’ve released a couple of tracks recently ‘Dreaming Slowly’ and ‘Save Me’, are these part of something bigger or….
*Badly Imitated Yorkshire Accent* “Save Me”
Thanks Guy’s! I’m Sorry!
Alex: Sorry can you finish your question please
James: Yeah, you’re allowed to finish your question now
Are these part of something bigger, have you got an EP or anything?
James: That would be telling wouldn’t it
That’s kinda the point of this. All the exclusives
Alex: There is an EP in the pipeline, we can’t say exactly when it will be but it should be before the end of the year. We plan to have something out, it may or may not include the new tracks that we’ve just released but if you’ve been to one of our shows then we play a new song called ‘Mind Control’ which I think is quite relevant to the current climate of politics and stuff. We’ve taken a bit of a turn with this song, uhm and that will definitely be on the EP and yeah so that’s something to look forward to.
So apart from this secret EP, what do you guy’s have planned for the next coming months?
Alex: The next months will pretty much just be solely writing. Writing, rehearsing, recording. Getting as many tracks down as possible.
Jon: I think after this tour, we’re just gonna get back and try and uhm
James: We need recovery time
Jon: Yeah! Recovery time
Abbas: We’ve got so many musical ideas. I think we just need to go back and think about what we’ve learnt, what we’ve experienced and then put that into an EP or a collection of songs that work well together.
Alex: We have like a collection of 50 demos to get through. Abbas has aptly made a lovely little spreadsheet for us to control all of this cause it’s difficult to like y’know. You start one song and you’re in love with it and then the next week all of a sudden you need to start on the next track so the next couple of months will definitely be about refining the tunes that we’ve got. Choosing the ones that we like out of what we have and the inevitability of that will be what appears on the EP.
James: It’s gonna be a lot of work as well because we record and we do everything ourselves. It’s completely D.I.Y
Abbas: Probably get a lot more like off the back off this tour we’ll experience a lot, spend more time in the music bubble and just really get into it
Alex: It’s kinda hard when you’re on the road, you don’t really have time to just sit down with each other and just play tunes, y’know like feel the songs, so that’s gonna be nice, once we finish this just getting back in the room together and just have a drink and sit with some tunes, jam it out and see how it goes.
Jon: Throughout the tour we’ll get the acoustic guitar out in the van and try and work on a few of them
Alex: Work on some harmonies. Always needed!
Quickfire!
What’s the first gig you ever went to?
James: The Darkness
Alex: Mine was actually the same, we didn’t actually know each other at that point. I mean technically my first gig was Boyzone. Uhm but I was like five so…
Abbas: I think mine was Foo Fighters
Jon: Mine was Red Hot Chili Peppers
James: That is a definite lie!
Jon: No it is not a lie! It was an amazing gig in Cardiff. I got pulled out of school to go see the Chili’s
What’s your musical guilty pleasure?
James: Oh god uhm guilty pleasure, I’m not guilty about anything I listen to and Katy Perry’s amazing
Abbas: Shit! Guilty pleasure. Maybe just like fucking someone like Calvin Harris. Something cheesy
Alex: I’m not gonna lie, I do actually really like some of Shawn Mendes’ songs
Jon: Abbas loves all of the radio 1 bangers
Alex: It is good tunes y’know
Jon: Definitely Don Broco
James: Jon Broco
Alex: We knew that!
If you could have written any song ever which one would it be?
James: This Charming Man – The Smiths
Abbas: Oh something by Mozart. I reckon that would be pretty cool
Jon: More than words
Alex: Yeah great song. I’d probably have to say, Let Me Entertain You by Robbie Williams
James: Ooooh amazing!
Your current ringtone? (If you have an interesting one)
James: It just vibrates in my pocket
Alex: I don’t have a ringtone either
Abbas: Mine vibrates in my pocket as well
Jon: Mine is like the epiphany noise from Back To The Future, Like when something happens it’s like *Imitates Noise*
Alex: There you go then
Abbas: Pretty Shit!
Worst gift you’ve ever given or received?
James: Terrible blow job.
That’s not the first time we’ve had that answer
James: Aw, I don’t want to be generic!
Not original sorry!
Alex: Think of something better
James: Uhm I don’t know, I’ve only ever given amazing blow jobs
Alex: It’s true!
James: So I don’t really know
Alex: Worst gift I’ve ever been given has probably got to be uhm and actually I think I’m wearing them right now but it’s a pair of minion pants. I got them for Christmas and like I just got back off holiday so I’m having to wear pants that like I don’t wear that often.
Jon: Is it given or been given?
Alex: It can be either
Jon: Uhm I forgot to get my dad a Christmas present once so I gave him half an eaten chocolate bar
Alex: What chocolate bar was it
Jon: It was like uhm one of those X big Galaxy bars but I’d like eaten half of it
Alex: So it was half an extra big
So just regular sized then…
Jon: Yeah!
Abbas: Bad presents I’ve given to someone else. Like a shit present I’ve got, you get a shit present and you pass it on. The classic pass on
Alex: The class on!
If you have one, what’s been your most embarrassing moment on stage?
Abbas: Oh there is a fucking few
James: Can’t think of one. Oh actually I was really drunk once and my snare drum fell over and uhm as it was falling, I was still trying to play it and then I went over on my stool.
Alex: I think that’s pretty endearing though to be honest
James: I was hitting the snare and like the snare started tilting so I did and then I just kinda fell over… really slowly!
Alex: Uhm probably for me I have a tendency to and there is no reason for this other than the fact that it just happens but I have a tendency to rip the crotch of my jeans, no matter what jeans they are. So this has now actually happened to me more than one time while playing live.
James: Alex goes commando
Alex: I know the question was what’s the most embarrassing thing but I’m not even embarrassed man.
Yeah just embrace it!
Alex: I’ve got great legs
James: Freshly shaven
Abbas: I was playing at a mates birthday party, playing guitar and I jumped on the amp and slipped, the amp went forward and I fell flat on my arse in front of all my peers and it really hurt. Tried to style it out but I couldn’t
Jon: I’ve got two, I’m probably gonna choose the best one. I was playing drums at a school concert and we were playing Master Of Puppets…
Alex: By Metallica?
Jon: Yeah by Metallica and uhm we were like a quarter of the way through it, smashing it and the drums were on a riser and the entire kit fell off the riser and uhm the whole school was laughing and yeah they just shut the curtains on us
Alex: That’s really sad
It is!
James: I never knew you even played drums
Alex: Is that the last time you played drums
Abbas: Crushed the dream
Alex: Yeah the drum dream
Jon: Yeah that was about ten years ago now…
Well Thank You So Much Guy’s!
Give their newest single ‘Dreaming Slowly’ a listen below…
Thanks for reading guy’s ❤
Thanks to Alice Hadden for the photos of Pleasure House ❤
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