There’s a reason why everybody loves them
You remember APRE, don’t you? They’re the London duo who’ve somehow managed to crank out some of the best indie-pop songs of the last year while remaining – for the most part – completely under-the-radar. Like this one, for instance:
They’re not bad at all, are they?
Now, as you may well have noticed, one of our absolute favourite things to do is to attempt to get inside the heads of the bands we love. Naturally, seeing as we flippin love ’em, we’ve been trying to grab APRE for what feels like a lifetime; but, as luck would have it, we managed to corner the APRE boys – or, Jules and Charlie, as they’re otherwise known – for a chat at this year’s Barn on the Farm Festival.
So, read on, dearest one, and find out what happened when we had a chat with APRE about their (eventually) forthcoming debut album, their love of Coldplay, and the introspective nature of touring the world:
First things first: when the hell are you guys going to put an album out?
Jules – I think it’ll either be the end of next year or the beginning of the year after. Just because, nobody’s going to listen to it if we put it out any time soon. I mean, some people will, but you know… That’s why we did the EPs. If you’re a new band and you put a full album out, fans will listen to two or three songs and then switch off; so, we’d rather get a bit of momentum behind us so that people pay attention to us.
Do you have enough material written for an album?
Charlie – ‘Oh God, yes. I think it was done ages ago.
Jules – ‘We’ve written about three albums!
Charlie – ‘I think we’ve got about eighty songs recorded and ready to go. Everything’s done, but choosing between them is going to be tricky… It’s a nice position to be in. We’ve been writing for four years, but we’ve only actually been a band for one. We were just writing for fun. We were in another band before – a band called Only The Poets – and I played drums and Jules played guitar. We did that for a couple of years, and we were just writing alongside that the entire time; then, our stuff got picked up by a couple of labels, so we just thought that we’d attempt to put together a band from there.
Do you have a usual writing process?
Jules – It’s all done in my Nan’s front room. That’s our writing room. We just have a laptop and a bunch of our gear there.
Charlie – We generally just start with loops. I really like choirs – I found this website with, like, a hundred thousand choir loops, and I just spent a day going through them all, so we’ve been working off those quite a bit. It’s really cool because the way that the choir is split into different harmony sections means that you get some really interesting chords, which can lead to something cool.
‘In terms of producing the tracks? We produce as we write. Jules can play bass, drums, guitar, and keys, and I can do the same; so, it’s generally very quick. I think if it takes more than an hour to get something going then it’s probably not worth it.
‘I mean, some people might argue that it is, but I don’t see it. Personally, I’d like to keep it fairly straight forward. It’s easy to overcomplicate it. ‘You know all that shit about ‘I need to go to the Bahamas on a writing trip?’. Bollocks! Just write a good chorus and get on with it. I’ve never gone away to write, and we’ve got eighty tracks in the bank: I never need to write a song ever again…
Who do you guys usually listen to?
Jules – ‘I mean, we kind of bonded over Bombay Bicycle Club, Bon Iver… I was always into Eighties stuff, like Peter Gabriel and Tears For Fears…
Charlie – ‘I was always a massive Led Zeppelin fan. I just loved the drums so much. So, I listened to that – and pretty much nothing else – until I was about fifteen, which you definitely don’t hear in our music! But then, I found Foals, and was like ‘oh, this is really cool – I can go and see a band who are, like, still playing, and all the members are alive!’. So, it’s nice that Foals are all still alive and that I can go and see them.
‘From there, that kinda led me onto the mid-Noughties guitar scene, bands like Two Door Cinema Club… I was just obsessed with that. And then, I did have a little phase of – ahem – The 1975 when I was eighteen… But, now, I can’t stand it.
‘To be honest, I’m obsessed with Coldplay. They’re my favourites. Their songs, and every album… They’ve just been great. What other band’s done six albums’ worth of good, quality songs. The Beatles?
You’re doing a headline tour, as well…
Jules – Yes! That’s going to be fun. The end of September. We’re doing Scala in London, which is… Urm, quite big.
Charlie – It’s a bit longer than our last tours, too. When they sent the dates through, I was like ‘are you sure about that?’. It’s three weeks long, but it’s going to be fun. We’ve never really done that before.
Jules – ‘We did spend basically the entire month of March on the road, though. We did the Sea Girls support tour, then had two days off; then we did South By South West in America; then we came back, and we did our headline tour, and then we went back out to support Bloxx.
Charlie – But that was nice because those were all different things. I think if you’re doing the same thing every day for three weeks, it might get a bit… Well, a bit too much.
‘We had people singing along to our tracks at South By South West, too, which I got really excited about. The Internet is a powerful tool, eh? I think it must’ve been mad for bands before the Internet to go that far away and have people there who know your songs, because that means that they’ve actually gone and bought your record, y’know?
‘We’ve done about eighteen festivals this summer, which has been great. It’s weird, because you get into it, and you’re constantly with people, and playing to lots of people every night; when you get home and you’ve got nothing to do, it can be a bit strange. When you get into the routine, it’s quite a nice place to be in.
It seems like you guys are enjoying the ride, then.
Both – Yes. It’s just the most amazing job, really.
Charlie – It’s quite psychological, too. I think you learn a lot about yourself. You’re just around people all the time, so you learn what your positives and what your negatives are. I just don’t think you maybe get to explore so much otherwise, but when you’re dealing with people all the time you get to know ‘oh, they’re not grumpy, they’re just a bit tired, so maybe I’ll leave them alone’.
‘You learn that space is important, and I feel like I’ve learned a lot about how the human brain works; especially when you’re knackered as well.
Jules – You can’t be drinking as well. That doesn’t work. You do a gig, you have a day off the next day, and so you get battered; then, you realise that your bus call is at nine o’clock in the morning, and then you’re like… Ouch. Then you have to sit on a bus for eight hours, and there’s some cheese in there that’s melted a long time ago, and it’s… Yeah, that’s not the best of times. You’ve got to look after yourself.
Describe each other in three words?
Charlie – Kind, sexy, and organised.
Jules – Hectic, hyper, happy.
Charlie – Oh, and another two: arse hole.
