Review Fix chats with Speak Easy Circus’ Jack Avison, who discusses the origin f the band and their unique sound.
Review Fix: How did you get involved in music?
Jack Avison: We all started playing music at an early age, be it piano lessons or saxophone lessons and music was an incredibly important part of all of our lives. Jon (saxophone) ended up studying Jazz and popular music at Hull University, Chats (bass) started his musical career in Malawi and has played virtually every genre of music including a Blues Brothers tribute act at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, Jack (guitar/vocals) and Frazer (drums) played in rock and indie bands (and Jack once played in a Radiohead tribute act) – until eventually we all ended up in Glasgow at the same time and decided to start playing songs together that had originally been written as a Jack solo act called Speak Easy Circus. And thus the full band was formed.
Review Fix: What’s your creative process like?
Avison: Our creative process differs from song to song. The project initially started as a solo project lead by Jack so lots of our early songs came from Jack and then were fleshed out and made better by the whole band. As we are writing more together that process has changed to a more collaborative process. We will typically start with a loose idea or a home demo and then everyone will bring in their own musical influences as we work on the song.
Review Fix: What inspires you?
Avison: Music is such an important part of all of our lives that for all of us it has become second nature to express ourselves through music. Whenever we see a band play an amazing set, we want to write music. When we feel down, we want to write music. When we have a good night out, we want to write music.
All of the films and music and tv shows and books we like eventually find themselves in our music.
Review Fix: What does music mean to you?
Avison: Music means everything to us, because we have spent so long doing it that at this stage it’s too late for us to change our mind and do something else!
In all seriousness though, we have spent so long doing it because it is what we love to do, and regardless of where we find ourselves in our lives we will always express ourselves through music.
Review Fix: How would you describe your sound to someone who has never heard you?
Avison: We would best describe our music as experimental indie/funk. But when people first listen to our music the initial thing we would like them to think is that this is something different and unique, something that they might not have heard before. We want to make music that we would listen to, and the music that we listen to is eclectic, exciting, meaningful and doesn’t take itself too seriously all at the same time, so if people went away from our music thinking anything like that then we would take that as a win!
Review Fix: How are your live shows different from your studio work?
Avison: Our live shows differ a lot from our studio recordings. One of the main aspects of performing live that we enjoy are the unexpected moments that occur when we play together. We are greatly influenced by jazz and blues music, styles that emphasise improvisation., and there are moments in our sets in which we have a starting point and an ending point but we allow space for individual instruments to experiment and try new things.
Review Fix: What inspired your latest single?
Avison: The inspiration for ‘Lions Should Hunt’ came after seeing another advert featuring a busty blonde model. We felt sick of being pandered to and sick of excuses for men and by men. If you expect to live in a modern day society then there are no excuses for being a misogynist piece of shit.
Review Fix: What are your goals for 2021?
Avison: We have many plans, some ridiculously ambitious and some more realistic! Really we would like to be able to keep developing as a band, playing bigger shows and hopefully reaching more people.
Review Fix: What’s next?
Avison: We have plenty of music coming in 2021, the first release will be ‘Lions Should Hunt’ on the 22nd of January. This will be followed by more singles and potentially an EP at the end of the year.
Hopefully we will have the opportunity to continue to play gigs in Scotland and further afield, however at the moment with so much uncertainty we are happy taking things as they come.
Review Fix: Anything else you’d like to add?
Avison: Ultimately we want to make music that is interesting. We don’t our music to be one dimensional, we want to make music that can be serious as well as tongue-in-cheek, music that make you dance as well as make you think.
We would also like to shout out all the people working in the music industry that have done an amazing job and allowed us to keep making music and keep talking about music during this pandemic.
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