@alpaca.presents
by Brandon van der Berg @vdb.brandon
I had a great opportunity to sit down with the entirety of AVA before their headlining set on 31.05.23 at The Crofters Rights Room 2. They were absolutely lovely, a very close-nit and smiley group and hugely entertaining to watch have chaotic group discussions. There’s Frontwomen El, Drummer James, Lead Guitarist James, Rhythm Guitarist Lissy and Bassist Reuben. Find them on Instagram or Spotify. Here's the chat we had.
Your last show was at the Victoria in Swindon, how was that?
(Reuben) Well, we played Keynsham Festival last summer and played with a band called Cosmic Ninja @cosmicninjaband and they’re the ones that got us the gig in Swindon, so from there they emailed us and we were like yeah that’s fine that’ll be ages away, and then it came to the day before and I was like oh my god I’m going to Swindon tomorrow!
I know all of you went to BIMM Bristol, tell me a bit about how you met.
(El) Yeah, we all went to BIMM at one point or another, we were all in different years except for me and Reuben
(James Drummer) – And me
*Lissy Laughs*
(El) What? I was in the same year as you at BIMM?
(James Drummer) I’m the year below you three
(El) Yeah?
(Lissy) I’m the year above you
*Group chaotically organising their band history*
(El) *Dramatically* Okay! I’m Sorry! I’m Sorry!
(James Guitarist) It’s confusing.
(James Drummer) We were all in BIMM for four years, yeah.
(El) Me and Reuben met because we ended up living together so we got randomly placed together.
(Reuben) I was like “Ohhh she’s a pop singer, Ugh!”
*Group Laugh*
(Lissy) I think I met James once, we were both working on a project somewhere and it was merry. Yeah, he was all of a sudden he was there in my building. And then the world gave us the other James.
(James Drummer) Yeah, I had an email recommending me from a tutor at BIMM who was like “Do you want to play in a band?” and I was like “Yeah!” I really did, it all just sort of came about randomly really.
Your song “Red Hair” was performed under your, El, solo name about 4 years ago, is there a reason you kept the song for so long?
(El) When I originally wrote the lyrics, I was 17. And it started off on Ukulele, then I went to BIMM and did the songwriting course so it kind of moulded itself from there, I met other musicians and it started off as more of a- I was doing more Pop-Vocals and it was kind of jazzy but had this underlying eeriness to it as it’s about a Stalker. Then obviously I met these guys and we were doing all our own music and I was like “Could we try doing this? I feel like this could work really well and James Guitarist came up with this riff, and I was like “That’s really cool”.
(Reuben) This was like a calculated song, we spent ages on a whiteboard like “Right! So this goes to there! This intro goes to that! The verse goes into tha-“
(James Drummer) It’s quite interesting you say that because with that one we spent quite a while writing that, figuring it out. But others just come super natural like, under 20 minutes.
So, it’s about a year on from the start of the band, do you feel much pressure to change or evolve the longer you’ve been around?
(Reuben) I think it's just natural really,
*Collective yes and nods*
We never thought we’d write anything like “Victim” which is just, Riff. Even when we wrote ‘Pin Up’ we were like “This is the best song we’ve written and ever will write, we just started all bringing ideas in and mixing it together”.
(James Guitarist) ‘cause ‘Pin Up’ just came from me writing a lick that I really wanted to start the intro with and then I just made that lick slightly longer and chords went to it.
It's about a month on now since your single “Narcissist”, released on April 29th, how’s the reception been for you guys?
(Lissy) Absolutely really cool.
(El) It’s been really cool, with the second single it’s always kind of a shot in the dark. ‘Pin Up’s done quite well, but we’ve recently been recording potentially a new EP so we’ve got more stuff in the works.
Tonight, I’m getting Hannah, who’s supporting us, to duet on it so we can spice it up a bit as well.
(James Guitarist) Narcissist was the first song we wrote. We wrote that in drop-D and it was sometime after Covid I said that we should play it a step lower.
(Lissy) I remember the first time when AVA started it was more that El had a load of songs in a backlog and I’d listen to them and think “Oh what if we did this to that song” “And ‘Narcissist’ was one of those songs where I was like ‘I want to write that’.”
It was a good song anyway but you know like-
(El) Now it's spicy.
(James Guitarist) spicy.
(Reuben) Spicy.
You guys played Keynsham Festival, Durrie Festival and a big Punk against Homelessness event has there been anything particularly challenging about playing bigger stages and events?
(El) I suppose it’s different for all of us individually, for me Keynsham was the biggest stage I’ve played on.
(James Guitarist) That was a big stage-
(James Drummer) Keynsham was a big stage.
(Reuben) I can't speak for everyone else, but I know it’s true for me like, at the start obviously like starting a new thing n that but once I knew everyone else had their sh*t together I was just like, I can trust these guys, we can pick up from anywhere and just go right back into it and knowing that means I’m not nervous about it at all now.
(James Guitarist) For me it’s the smaller stages, you’re trapped and sometimes the room doesn’t hold the sound as well. The biggest issue for me playing Keynsham, which I think was the biggest stage we’ve all played so far, the sound guy just wandered off and didn’t mention anything about monitors and then when we started playing, I couldn’t hear anything, I was deaf for the first six songs of the set haha. It was a nightmare.
(James Drummer) I completely forgot about that
(Lissy) I think it’s one of those situations where I rely a lot on James, drummer James and James relies on someone else
(Reuben) It’s a weird convoluted system, It’s not like if one link breaks then we’re all falling apart, somehow it manages to fit perfectly.
So if you make a mistake does everybody’s head just jolt towards one person?
(Lissy) Yeah, It’s usually James Drummer.
*Group Laughs*
(James Guitarist) It’s the one thing you’re not supposed to do, but we do it.
(Lissy) You can usually tell James Drummer has made a mistake because you’ll just hear a “RAH!”
(James Drummer) *Imitates something that sounded like Gollum when his ring is taken away*
And you guys played a show on the Hottest day of British history-
*Collaborative yes and laughing*
(James Drummer) Oh my goodness the-
(James Drummer and Reuben in sync like power rangers) THE EXCHANGE BASEMENT!
Did anyone take it particularly badly?
(James Drummer) I remember wearing a long sleeve red England jumper, proper thick as well like woolly or some sh*t, for some reason my brain was like “Yeah! I’ll wear that!”
I died, it was horrific.
(James Guitarist) You were onstage sort of just moshing it out and we were all just dripping.
*Group Laughs*
(James Guitarist) Reuben like swings his hair and just his sweat hits me in the face!
(Reuben) There was a nice puddle or two.
You’re all quite energetic on stage, being a 5 piece on smaller stages, how does that impact your approach to performance?
(Lissy) I mean this is the process of this band. Because we’re quite meticulous and you see Reuben being the monster he is on stage, he won't affect us on a smaller stage because the rest of us are way too short to be hit!
*Everyone Laughs*
(James Drummer) I feel like it’s important when playing on a smaller stage or a venue with not as many people or whatever, I feel like it is crucial we play the exact same set we would as if we were playing in front of 100 people
(El) Absolutely.
(James Drummer) Because every, single, band has done a gig and played in front of 4 people and a dog. It’s part of the experience.
(Lissy) There are people that pay money to see us, and I’m not gonna waste their money.
“If I’m my body, and I’m my skin, then why the f**k is it something, you keep getting involved in?” – taken from AVA’s song “Body”
You guys have a song called “Body”, as a frontwoman and as a band with a female Guitarist, how do you feel when it comes to talking about your experiences with misogyny? because there are a**holes, everywhere.
(El) Absolutely, I mean “Body” I wrote when Roe v. Wade was going on and I think everyone at the end of the day should have the choice with what they do. I was outraged by it.
(Lissy) Absolutely.
(El) So that song came together quite quickly, in a lot of the lyrics there’s that undertone of angst and being belittled from a women’s experience. But I don’t just want it to just be a women’s experience because anyone can feel that way as well. I like to think anything I’m writing, anyone can relate to it.
(Lissy) Absolutely.
Ever since the band started and we were getting down to the nitty-gritty of it and finding a name, AVA was really important to us cause as I wanted there to be an element of equality kind of some form of resemblance of just being balanced.
Coming from somewhere where it was quite wrong to be gay, to be a musician, or anything other than a doctor from my family thanks Mum and Dad haha. It was a little bit of a step up, so every single time I’d play a gig and spend money getting there or buying new equipment it was always like “Oh I shouldn’t do this cause that’s not what I’m told to do but being in this band completely flipped that the other way around. It’s made me a lot more comfortable with what I’m able to do and a lot more proud of what I can do.
Do you have anything you’d like to promote?
(James Guitarist) Yes, touched on it earlier. The week before last we spent the week recording a 4 track EP, planning to drop that in autumn that is the main thing for us right now.
Following that we feel like we’ve hit the next point, so what do we do now?
And that plan is to start writing an album to be ready for late next year. It’s got a long way to go but we’re starting to find out sound, ourselves.
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