Echo Lake – I Actually Do Write Songs

Siobhán Kane talks with Thom Hill of Echo Lake ahead of their performance at The Workman’s Club on Wednesday 10th October.

London-based Echo Lake began life around 2010 when Thom Hill, who had been working on an instrumental project, met vocalist Linda Jarvis at art school. After one song was released, No Pain in Pop signed them, supporting them in their creation of 2011’s EP Young Silence, and this year’s sparkling record Wild Peace.

Their music benefits from a great love of shoegaze, and their intricate soundscapes take in psychedelia, ambient, pop and rock, emerging, (as their lovely song ‘Sunday Evening’ does), as if from the crystal waters of the echo lake they named their band after. Their beautiful, atmospheric music has been hard-won, and through losing bandmate, and friend, drummer Pete Hayes to a heart condition last year, it has become even more poignant. Siobhán Kane talks to Thom Hill.

There is such a dreaminess about the sound of Wild Peace, a sound that sustains itself over the entire record – how did this sound emerge within you as a band, as there are distinct differences between the Young Silence EP and the record.
I’m not really sure. I guess Echo Lake started as a sort of ambient solo project. Young Silence was a very raw record, it was us trying to find our sound and not rush into anything. The album was just the natural progression of that, in the space of 18 months we became more confident songwriters, musicians and producers, so I think there was always going to be a big difference between the two.

I also got the sense of hibernation with this record – it folds you up in its arms – how did the recording process go? Was it equally as immersive?
Yeah definitely. I wrote and recorded most of the album and the EP on my own in my bedroom and I think that comes across in the sound. It’s probably why it sounds so dreamy, because I had so much time to experiment and go mad with effects! Linda would come to my house every now and then and we would record vocals, it was easy. It didn’t get stressful until the mixing stages.

When you and Linda met, did you know instantly that you wanted to expand your ideas with her? I believe you had initially thought of Echo Lake as a solo project, instrumentally-led. Has it now exceeded your own expectations of what something solo might have been?
No, we just became friends because of similar music taste really. And we were both quite shy students who took cigarette breaks at the same time. We joked about forming a band for a long time, until one day she just said “seriously, I can sing” and I said “oh really? Because I actually do write songs”. I had been way too shy to show my music to anyone apart from my girlfriend and housemates until that point. She really liked what she heard and a few days later we had a song called ‘Everything is Real’. A few days after that, I posted it online, it went mad and now I’m answering questions about our debut album. So yes, it really exceeded my own expectations!

I was greatly saddened to hear about the tragic passing of your drummer, Pete, he was so talented. When I was listening to Wild Peace again, I thought of how poignant the record title is in a way, he would have been so proud. It also reiterated how frail everything else, and how it is so important to mean everything you do.
I’d known him for years since were kids and always played in bands with him. What we do is really important to us, and it was to him as well. It’s not the easiest thing to talk about, but thanks, I think he would have been proud too.

I remember reading that you had been in bands with Pete before. What kind of bands were they? It is a good apprenticeship, where you are teenagers, not relating to the future so much, just playing and being (mostly) carefree. Do you remember how you began to be interested in the guitar, what musicians inspired you?
We were mostly in post-rock/math-rock bands, it was really fun because it was quite experimental and there were about a million ideas trying to fit into the music at once. So yeah I guess it was pretty carefree and a good way to learn and develop your own styles as musicians over time. I think I started playing the guitar because of Nirvana or Radiohead. Both my Grandad’s and my Dad and Uncle all played music, so I was always interested in learning an instrument one day. It’s hard to pin down main inspirations but I guess at first it was stuff like The Stone Roses, Nirvana, Oasis, and then stuff like Sonic Youth, The Velvet Underground and The Beach Boys. Johnny Marr is a real inspiration too.

You seem like a band that believes in the DIY ethic, from printing your own t-shirts, to making videos – does it often feel more playful, and innocent doing it that way? It must draw you away in a positive sense from the less-interesting aspects of being in a band.
Yeah, we like to do as much as possible ourselves and if we can’t then we like to work with people close to us. My girlfriend Anita designed the EP artwork, Linda did the ‘Another Day’ artwork, and we worked with our friend Natalia on the album artwork and two videos. We’ve worked with several other friends on videos… it’s more a case of us knowing so many talented people, and being able to call them friends, and because of that we can work closely with them. And yes I think it is more fun this way, we mostly leave them to their own ideas and they come up with the goods for us, we’re lucky!

No Pain in Pop were a really nourishing force for you, and it came from such enthusiasm and authenticity – and I was wondering then how the wider musical community in London is? From an outsider it always seems so huge, what is the reality of the music scene like there?
No Pain in Pop have been great to us, again we’re really lucky. Since we teamed up we haven’t ever looked back. The fact they are so supportive and patient has played a big part in us moving at the right speed. We could have rushed things with a bigger label or whatever and then made a mistake, this way has been just right.