Turin Brakes singer Olly Knights believes being distanced from fashion has been key to the band’s enduring success.
For Olly, an enduring connection with a hard-core audience has kept the band both relevant and vibrant – free from fickle fashion.
More than 20 years ago Turin Brakes were one of the buzz bands in the UK following the release of debut album The Optimist.
It was shortlisted for the Mercury Prize and achieved gold status.
The follow-up, 2003’s Ether Songs, maintained that momentum and yielded top five hit single Pain Killer (Summer Rain).
Olly realized being an ‘It band’ is fleeting but knew they had secured loyal fans that would stick with the band.
Olly anticipates that strong fan connection at The Lemon Tree, Aberdeen, on Sunday when the four-piece headline to promote new album Wide-Eyed Nowhere.
He said: “When we started off the first and second albums were fashionable records, there’s no getting away from that.
“However, I think we became suspicious of the fashionable part of that whole experience.
“It seemed so fickle and so obvious you couldn’t rely on it at all. That it would just go away.
“We joke about how there is only really one crowd and every fashionable band is renting time with it. Then eventually, when you fall out of fashion, you pass that crowd on to the next young band.
“Then they get to be under the spotlight with the same fashion-orientated crowd.
“After that you hope to have connected with real people strongly enough for that fashion element to become moot.
“We were lucky that we connected with enough people to have a hardcore audience.
“I guess that’s one of the reasons why we are still going 23 years later.”
An idyllic summer of recording
Turin Brakes recorded new album Wide-Eyed Nowhere in the relaxed setting of Olly’s Twin Palms garden studio during an idyllic summer last year.
Working at their own pace in South London, the four-piece – Olly, Gale Paridjanian, Rob Allum and Eddie Myer – allowed the record time to grow.
Recorded without time constraints or pressure associated with a commercial studio, Olly believes it is a true representation of the band.
He said: “It was just after all the lockdowns so technically we could have made it in a commercial studio.
“However it just felt like a big risk to book one and assume it could all go ahead.
“So we used my home studio and treated it like we were hanging out in my garden for the summer. We are blessed with pretty mild weather down here in South West London and it was a really nice summer-long project.
“It allowed the time to layer the project and you don’t get that luxury when in a commercial studio.
“We ended up with a different kind of album, one that is truer to who we are. It’s not a record that is trying to be impressive or fit in.
“Instead it is just the sound of what the band are really like now and I love it for that honesty.”
‘You take your chance every time you put a record out’
As relaxing and calm as recording the album was in the pastoral surroundings of Olly’s garden – he admits to concerns about how it would be received.
He needn’t have worried.
It was acclaimed by critics and embraced by fans.
He said: “Luckily our fans seem to have really picked up on the honesty of the album.
“That’s really good because you never know when you go into these things if you are making a terrible error.
“You take your chance every time you put a record out.
“So it’s lovely when it connects.”
So lovely to come home and read all your responses to the shows, never fails to re energise us all for the next push! 😊 back at it from Thursday…. pic.twitter.com/6jENueuGU9
— Turin Brakes (@turinbrakes) November 15, 2022
Turin Brakes’ connection with Aberdeen fans
Turin Brakes will headline The Lemon Tree as part of a mammoth 45 date British tour.
Olly is relishing a return to Aberdeen having felt a strong connection with the fans in previous shows in the Granite City.
He said: “We have played Aberdeen quite a lot over the last 20-plus years.
“One of our earliest gigs was up in Aberdeen supporting Stereophonics.
“It is a city that we associate with the most exciting period of our career.
“So there is definitely that connection with Aberdeen.
“The last few shows up there have been really lovely and connected.
“Hopefully it will be another one of those and everyone is buzzing.”
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