Interviews (218)

• August 11, 2016
• Colleen Johnson
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• 1411
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Fall tour season vibes are in the air. It feels like every two days a new tour is announced and a band that will be coming to the Middle East Club on September 22nd is one of the ones you most definitely need to be looking out for. That band would be Southampton’s Creeper who just completed their first short but sweet run of the US. The band was coming over for the APMA’s for which they were nominated as best underground band despite the band never stepping foot in the US and so of course, they had to plan a tour around the show! Lucky for us, the band come to Boston and we took this opportunity to sit down with Will Gould, vocalist, and Ian Miles, one of the two guitarists, to talk everything Creeper. These two gents have been playing in bands together for seven or eight years despite only starting Creeper two short years ago. Find our new interview below and we hope to see you in the pit when they come back next month!

This is your first US run and you’ve been a band for about two years now, right? Maybe for a soft one to start. Three things you had to bring with you while coming to the states?
Will : Three things. Can we have a joint three things or does it have to be separate? What have we brought, what are our essentials for this tour?
Ian: Half of my suitcase is taken up by a sleeping bag and a pillow. Just because I didn’t know where we’d be sleeping. We kind of just came over here and didn’t really plan anything so we’re hoping to sleep on people’s floors. So I needed to be prepared for that I guess. You just ended up going to Walmart and grabbing one, didn’t you?
Will: Yeah, I brought some hair oil with me.
Ian: That’s one.
Will: But it’s been so dry, that I’ve used that whole bottle of hair oil already and it keeps going like this (gives his hair a shake). So my hair looks awful every day now and what’s our third thing? I can tell you what I didn’t bring. I didn’t bring enough clothes. I’ve only got one pair of jeans and they got ripped on the first day and I’ve been sewing them up and it rips off every day.
Ian: A sewing kit.
Will: A sewing kit.

A sewing kit, very crucial. Then like I said, while it’s a short run of dates, you have been traveling long distances in between . How have the shows been going so far?
Will: They’ve been really cool. The coolest thing about being in a punk band for us is making friends and hanging out with people in different places and different scenes and things. So we’ve been really lucky to get to do that I think. And the shows have been great. Like a bunch of kids that come to the shows were fans of Ian and I’s old band. We never tried to come over here and so that was wild. So things like that. After the first show we did, someone proposed to their partner on stage. So yeah, some of the shows have been a little touching. This is our first time over here as well. We’ll always remember this tour because it’s our first time. People have been going out of the way to make it special for us.
Ian: I couldn’t believe that people know the words to our songs. Because it’s so far away from home, we never expected our music to really leave England. But it’s incredible that people are singing our words.
Will: Yeah it’s kind of been up and down but this is really just us gauging what it’s like over here and dipping our foot in the water. We’ve been going in Europe for so long because it’s so easy for us. It’s just a ferry. So coming on like a plane and playing somewhere else, it feels like we should be on holiday. It feels like we should be going to Disney or something but we’re not.

Your holiday was a day with the APMA’s.
Ian: Yeah it’s true.
You played right?
Will: I sung with Neck Deep.

I saw that on Facebook with you guys hanging out at Warped the day after which I just covered and there was a really strong UK representation this year with like ROAM, Sykes, Young Guns to name a few.
Will: Yeah it’s cool. I don’t why, because I always feel like all of our favorite music comes from America. So a lot of our influences are very American but it seems like at the moment, America really has got a taste for what we’re doing in the UK. But if you imagine all the bands that you’re seeing out on Warped Tour, basically all those bands you just mentioned, they all exist on a very small island that’s a size of a whole state over here. So a lot of those bands all know each other really, really well because we all play together all the time at like festivals and things. Like Moose Blood is over here, we’ve toured with Moose Blood a bunch of times. Neck Deep, they play here a lot.

Then speaking of music for you guys, the last EP came out in February, “The Stranger”. You’ve been steadily releasing new music. Is a full length in the works for the band or do you think you’re going to continue the EP route?
Will: I don’t think it’s really been discussed just yet really.
Ian: We’ve been working on some stuff.
Will: Like other things, you know. I think we’re not the sort of band that is like desperate to jump into the next project straight away after everything. It’s got to feel like the right time like to write songs together. So I think the full length will come but I just can’t guarantee when it’s going to be.

And like you guys said, you have played in a band together before you started Creeper together. How do you guys go about the songwriting process for Creeper? Do you feel it changes or has it become a pretty steady rhythm?
Will: I think it’s been the same thing for a number of years hasn’t it really?
Ian: Yeah! Since we were in a band called Our Time Down Here and when me and Will started writing together, was for that on a record called Last Light. And since then, it’s pretty much been the same formula for how many years, like seven, eight years?
Will: It’s been really funny actually because our old band was a band before I joined and then I joined and then Ian joined as well. So the name, Our Time Down Here, we had no say in it at all and the early music. So Creeper has been the first band that we’ve had our hands in for all the parts of it. We’re in charge of it and it’s just our own. So it’s been really nice. It’s very much the same process but this time, we’ve been able to choose the name. Choose how it looks. Choose everything really because we began the band ourselves.
You’ve had the creative control.
Will: Absolutely.
Something you’re starting fresh versus coming into an already formed idea.
Will: One hundred percent, yeah.

Perfect! Then you guys obviously, while this tour is a short run with the last show being on the 29th, you’re going back overseas and you have so many festivals. You’re coming back for Riot Fest. Reading and Leeds coming up. Kind of for Creeper in the next few months, what’s the plan? Is this kind of like a testing the waters tour in the US, do you think that’s something you’ll do again in the near future? Kind of what’s the plan.
Will: We’re going to be back sooner then you know it. We have Riot Fest but we’ll be back around that sort of time as well. Actually by the time this is out, the announcement will be out. We’ll be coming back around in September with Tiger Army. We’ll be opening up for them. So that will be three weeks that we do with them. So we plan to come back a bunch of times. We’ve really enjoyed being over here. But we’ve got commitments back home as well. Back home is so different. Doing this here in the states is kind of starting over again for us. People that know the band are a lot fewer here then in the UK. So we want to get over here and play as much as possible. It’s really fun but at the same time, you can’t really not play to the kids in the UK for too long. So we’re going back. In fact the day we land from this tour, the same day we drive up and do a festival that same day.
Ian: We’re going to be jet lagged. We got our guitar tech to rent a van, drive all the gear from Southampton and he’s just going to meet us at the festival. Get on the flight back, drive to the festival and then set up and play.
Will: It’s crazy. It’s so silly.
Clearly from hearing that, I know things have been really picking up for you in the UK. Maybe how is that considering Creeper, this project, has only been a band for like two years. Maybe what’s been the best part of it so far?
Will: I feel like what’s happened with Creeper has happened so quickly and it was so unexpected. How well everything went and the opportunities that we had. We tried to get just a small portion of these opportunities with our old band and we never could break out and never did anything like that. So I think we haven’t really had too much time to reflect on what’s really happened. Like I said to you a minute ago, we’re coming back and we immediately start again. We don’t have much down time to really reflect on things but every now and again you get a moment where you think, wow that’s crazy. The other day we had a festival in the UK and we were on the main stage. We were really rushed because I was working on something else for the band. I was just pressed on time and I had to meet them all there. I met them and kind of put my jacket on and we went on stage to play. I remember looking through the curtain and just seeing all these people and suddenly I realized then the significance of what was happening. We’re playing to so many people out here, screaming for us. It’s crazy that we’ve been allowed the opportunity. We’ve been privileged enough to the amount that someone has given us some rope to play with. I remember thinking that was a real moment that really hit me.
Ian: Yeah you don’t realize til you’re in that moment.
Will: Yay, we’re a real band.
Ian : That’s what it felt like. It’s like Pinocchio. I’m a real boy!
Will: Often I don’t feel like we are because we played for so many years to nobody in our old bands and some awful old bands. So yeah I just thought it would never come off. You get to a point in your life where you’re like I just can’t see this happening to us now. We planned this band for fun. Like to open up for bands when they come through Southampton. Didn’t think it would be like this. I never ever thought we’d get to come all the way out here. That’s like a head fuck for us.