With larger than life indie-pop anthems born of small town boredom, coming-of-age, big nights out and young love gone wrong, modernlove. are becoming a bright new hope. They’ve already established an ever-growing following, resulting in much of their debut UK and Ireland tour in November being extended with additional and upgraded shows with many sold-out weeks in advance. Now modernlove. share their new single ‘Take Me Far Away’ and prepare to embark on their autumn tour which sold-out months in advance.

Who were your musical influences growing up?

“We listened to a lot of early 2000’s emo as teenagers, bands like Blink 182, My Chemical Romance, Taking Back Sunday and Brand New. We only got into more indie pop stuff as we got a bit older”.

Tell us about your new single Take Me Far Away …

“Take me far away is definitely a call back to our earliest influences as a band, sonically it’s definitely in the same lane as a blink 182 song from their self titled record, and lyrically it deals with a lot of mental health struggles associated with being from a small town where nothing much ever happens”.

When did the band first form and how did you all meet each other?

“Barry and myself met when we were in primary school so we’ve know each other for 20 years pretty much. Then we met graham when we were all about 12 and the three of us just kind of fell into playing music together. We never really thought of ourselves as a band at the start we were just three kids who shared an interest in the same bands and wanted to make as much noise as possible. It wasn’t until we met Danny when we were about 16 that we decided to really take the band seriously”.

Describe your music in 3 words 

“Painfully sub par”.

What other artists are you listening to at the moment and if modernlove. could collaborate with any other artist – who would that be?

“Artists like Black Country new road, Floating points, Charli XCX, Grouper. There’s also cool Irish artists like Henry Earnest, Ev Carm and Passersby that we’ve been really into.

I’d personally love to collaborate with Grimes just to see what would happen”.

Where do you get your inspiration from when writing songs?

“Lyrically the inspiration comes from life experience and an insane amount of time spent over thinking and over analysing situations. Musically I think whatever music we’re most influenced by at the time is what we’re going to sound like sonically”.

If you had to be remembered for one thing apart from your music what would you want it to be?

“Our excellent posture”.

You’re about to set out on your debut tour of UK and Ireland – how are you feeling? What can you tell us about the live shows?

“We’re feeling really humbled honestly. We still can’t really believe that we’ve sold out our first headline UK tour, I don’t think it’s going to hit us until we’re actually playing the gigs and seeing all the people in the crowd. The shows are definitely going to be full of manic energy because I don’t think we’ll be able to control ourselves with the excitement”.

By Sian Parker

Spotify