NEWS
EVENTS
Free Money Are On The Move! Onwards And Upwards.
Indie | Monday 5th September 2016 | Alice
Free Money have been on our radar for a while. Since seeing them perform locally, it has been exciting to see the boys, Sam, Harry, Mark and Charlie progress and start to make real ripples in the music industry. All four have such bold and witty personalities, which are only matched by their incredible music.
We sat with the boys in the garden of their home in Dalston under a lamp bright enough to blind to chat music.
How did Free Money come about?
Sam: Me, Charlie and Harry met at Kingston uni in art foundation.
Harry: I met Sam at the Kingston interview.
Sam: We were stood outside the station a bit nervous not having a clue where to go with our big art folders. When I saw Harry with his folder I thought, clearly we are going to the same place. We ended up going to the campus together before chilling out, only for us to stay in touch until we started uni. We did meet up post interview before we started as well. We (Sam, Charlie and Harry) became close mates within the first week of uni.
Harry: We met mark because I knew him through a family member. We had a drink and got on straight away especially when we mentioned music. Mark then graduated as we started to put the band together.
Sam: Turned out Mark went to my school a few years above which was weird but cool. One night Harry was getting drunk and he had darker hair so he looked slightly like Mark. However, Mark got mistaken for being Harry that night and for Harry’s antics. It was funny as Mark kept getting approached over the next few days.
Mark: The next day someone noticed it was Harry instead of me.
Sam: I guess our bands that we were in kind of dissolved so we decided to form a band. We later went and jammed together in Seven Sisters, which was fun, and in the end we started doing it all the time. We played our first show after a couple of months.
Harry: Played some shows, wrote some music, played some shows and wrote some more music really. Before our first gig a few months ago.
Do you all aim to pursue the band full time?
Sam: Doing the band is our total priority and we want to sustain off the band.
Harry: It’s the reason I’m not looking for a proper “career”. I want to do our music.
Sam: It helps living together as it eggs us on, talking about it all the time. We can write together etc and it’s a whole lot easier.
Tell me about your debut show in May?
Harry: It came about as I worked at a pub called the Shacklewell arms and I made friends with promoters around London including a mate who is part of Lanzorote.
Mark: We sent him some tunes and he loved them and asked if we wanted to do our debut show.
Sam: He was our first point of call, as we hadn’t contacted anyone. We wanted to have everything in the bag before we went and began to make waves, like loads of demos to back our first move up with.
Sam: It was important to us that we had people backing us and that we were ready before we made our first move.
Charlie: The gig was absolutely packed.
Sam: Harry went onto invite everyone at the gig back to our house at the time so we ended up having about 300 people in this house and no one could move.
Charlie: It acted as a fair well to our old house.
DIY took a real interest in you so early on; this must have been a great situation to experience?
Sam: We didn’t expect it but we knew we were in the right place to get it so it was a great first move for us.
What made you decide to use Soundcloud to promote your first track?
Mark: Putting it on Soundcloud was really to ‘taste the water’ (everyone cracks up before mentioning to Mark it’s ‘test the water’)
Charlie: Yeh we wanted to make sure it tasted good…
Harry: Yeh drink the whole lake
Charlie: Originally we were going to be focused on one social media and a few shoots before deciding we actually want to do more.
Sam: We were making a video and we put up the first track “headful” which premiered with DIY with a video by (Janna). We then just decided to put the track out. We are very focused on visuals and the whole aesthetic of the band other than just having out songs.
Charlie: Soundcloud seemed the most appropriate place for it at the time.
Talk me through your writing process?
Harry: That’s an interesting question as essentially we are all song writers in the band, which I think make us pretty unique.
Harry: A lot starts out as personal experience lyrically.
Sam: It’s not particularly personal in the end; we are young in London having fun with it all.
Sam: It is very communal as we live together so we know what’s going on and are invested in that.
Charlie: Yeh, in the end it’s completely a collaborative process. “you gotta eat loads of omelettes to know what an egg is”
We all later lost count of the amount of time the word egg has been said alongside Mark’s new phrase taste the water.
You recently played at ‘So young festival’. How was that experience?
Sam: A big show.
Harry: The best bit was we were the first ones on and the room was packed. People were there regardless of who was playing.
Sam: There was literally no space to move and for an 8:30 start people were moving. We’ve played a few shows and they’ve each gotten better each time. After each show we’ve been like yeh that was great.
We’ve got a few more shows coming up which will be great including a few free ones. We love playing free shows to be honest, as it doesn’t bother us.
Harry: We want to have a good time. But some releases are in the pipeline too.
If you had the choice who would you love to produce with?
Sam: We’ve worked with some incredible producers already like Rory Atwell and it’s been so great. But ultimately anyone who can capture us best and set it across well. Like our songs sound better probably in the set over being recorded which is nothing to do with our current work but who we are as a band.
Charlie: We aren’t after a producer with a sound, as ideally they should fit to us.
Sam: What would be good for us is someone who can strip it back but still capture the energy and get it bang on.
If you got to play with anyone who would you pick?
Sam: We would love to change things up so like David Burne would be great. Also Blake Mills is a great modern artist who we all agree would be great
Mark: *laughs* 28th album…. Kanye….snoop dog
All: Blur, we are huge fans!
What is your aim for a year’s time frame?
All: Aim is festivals next year and to be able to just focus on the band and live off our passion.
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