Be bold and mighty forces will come to your aid,” so said Goethe, Basil King and/or Francis McDormand in Almost Famous (depending on your point of reference). Halifax’s Heavenly-signed indie trio The Orielles offer their own translation:
“Fill your boots!” enthuses guitarist Henry Wade. “We live by it. It means taking every opportunity you get because it will pay off.”
Fill your boots! We live by it. It means taking every opportunity you get because it will pay off
The trio, completed by siblings Sidonie B and Esmé Dee Hand-Halford (drums and bass/vocals) met Henry in their early teens and they have been gigging ever since, morphing years of shared experience, crate digging and word of mouth into a string of lauded surf-rock-meets-post- punk singles.
Their central philosophy, first mooted by the sisters’ dad [Adam Halford of The Train Set, indie fact fans - Ed] paid off last year when the band summoned the courage to hand new label-mates The Parrots a copy of their Jobin EP, setting off a chain reaction that led to their album deal.
Fill your boots
“If we hadn’t done that, we wouldn’t be having this conversation,” reflects Henry. “So leave nothing in the tank - in every sense.”
Recent single Sugar Tastes Like Salt, produced by Marta Salogni (The XX, M.I.A.), proves they walk the walk, sounding in equal measure minimalist and like they’ve quite literally thrown the kitchen sink at a recording console.
Their usual Ramones-like attention span is focussed into a weird and wondrous eight-minute, 24-second safari through the band’s record collection while Henry ably folds in everyone from Mark Day to East Bay Ray - setting off our ‘indie hero in the making’ klaxon in the process.
“There’s a flute in there, too,” adds Henry. “And a gong! We’d been tracking since three o’clock in the afternoon and it got to like half two in morning. It was just like, ‘Ah, fuck it - put a gong on it!’”
Fill your boots, indeed.
- For fans of: Ty Segall, Happy Mondays
- Gear: Eastwood Airline Bighorn, WEM Dominator, Boss GE-7, EHX Holy Stain, TC Electronics Mini Corona, Ibanez Tube Screamer, Zoom G2
