Stealing Sheep
Stealing Sheep’s infectious nature is immediate when they walk in the Band of The Wall dressing room. At first, Lucy (drums) and Emily (guitar and pretty much everything else) arrive, before Rebecca (keys and most of the vocals) join us.
Rebecca sits right next to me and eyes me cautiously, ‘You look like so many people I know, you’re not a relative of Emma or Sam are you?’ ‘No, no I’m not,’ I say, trying to deflect the attention back to them. Then they are bewildered by my shorthand, Lucy’s eyes bulge significantly and all of them come for a look, seemingly they are more interested in me than talking about their new album or their first show of the tour. That’s a first.
They have just released their new album, ‘Not Real’, with its glorious new sound and its hypnotising front cover, where different coloured limbs in leggings swing around each other and manipulate themselves into near impossible positions. Tonight is their first show on their UK tour but they don’t seem nervous, they seem confident in their new clothes and more than ready to showcase them for the first time.
How do you feel, ahead of playing these songs to a UK audience for the very first time?
Emily: Well, we’ve had a bit of practice because we played Paris at the weekend. That was quite a good warm up.
Rebecca: We’re excited. It’s just good to be gigging again, you know.
Lucy: I suppose we haven’t had much first-hand experience of how people respond to the music. We played a little show in Hebden Bridge and people were dancing. The new music is more upbeat, it has more direction.
Would you say, these new songs were made with a live audience in mind?
Rebecca: A little bit, actually. Our last record, at times, was a bit over complicated. This was more about connecting with individuals, we tried to make our arrangements and vocals more direct. We made it support our vocals and made our arrangements far more direct.
I know it’s a song on the record, but was there any other reason why you called the album ‘Not Real’?
Lucy: It’s about the not real, real. We are all very interested in surrealism.
Emily: I think the whole thing of reality is a big question, I mean is this even a real job?
Rebecca: It’s interesting how one person can have a completely different perception of something to someone else. It’s quite hard to define. It’s just about these ideas of reality that surround us, you either believe them or you don’t.
Are you always nervous when the first reviews start to emerge?
Rebecca: Well, on the first record we weren’t really aware of it because we didn’t expect anything. This time we were more conscious of it, but you know, we can’t live by what other people say, because you just have to be happy with what you make.
Emily: I felt quite nervous when I was writing. This time, it was about disassembling it all and breaking it all down. There was a pressure to evolve, we wanted to evolve and be different and develop. We don’t feel nervous about the new songs now.
Rebecca: We know how to take criticism, you sort of just don’t take it personally.
Emily: It’s just a process, there is nothing to criticise.
Stealing Sheep
From your videos, it is obvious you are interesting in visual effects. Is this something you try and incorporate in your live performances?
Lucy: I think we are trying to incorporate it more in our live performance.
Rebecca: At the minute, we are quite focused on just getting the music right. It’s good when you can connect without any of the frills.
Emily: We are really interested in using the lights on the stage.
Rebecca: We need the right platform though, festivals lend themselves to it quite well.
Your music is often quite varied in style, is it hard to make that flow on a record?
Lucy: We are happy to have something that jumps out as a very different style. It’s our sound, so we have always found that it flows naturally.
I know the Kazimier, a venue important to yourselves, is about to close down in Liverpool and we have had a similar instance with the Roadhouse closing. Is live music now more important than ever?
Rebecca: It’s a shame to see these artistic directed spaces close down. These spaces are all about the community and getting people to know different people from the industry and it does worry you.
Emily: It’s the only place to go and see music in Liverpool, for me. But you know, one door closes and another opens.
So as the interview door closes, the gig door opens, you can read a review of the show HERE
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Hi all, my name is Paddy and I have a love for everything from African music to indie to house (basically anything other than heavy metal). Gigging and listening to albums are genuinely the things I most value and love doing.
