Pennine Suite are a classic example of the burgeoning UK guitar scene: they’ve just come back from LA, and they’re days away from opening the main stage at Truck Festival. Howl sat down with Nick and Louis from the band, to talk everything from the York scene to cruising Venice Beach and meeting Bono (almost).
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Howl: You guys are gonna be on the main stage at Truck pretty soon, and we wanted to know about your relationship with the UK festival scene - what does it mean to go from being punters to playing the main stage?
PS: It's hard to describe really, we’re fans of festivals all over the world, let alone the UK. For us, it’s always been the thing that you want to achieve. Especially when you’re playing with bands you love and respect. We went to Truck about five years ago as massive IDLES fans, and to go back and play on the same stage as them feels massive for us. It means the world.
Howl: Have you got any great festival memories you want to share? How about some horror stories?
PS: We went to Rock Wertcher, and this is a nice story, with a couple of mates who ended up getting engaged while we were there. It was a really lovely moment. We also met a guy on the plane over who comes to our gigs now. There are a few not-so-nice tales but we won’t mention them here, our mums might see.
Howl: What has it been like to sell out the Fulford Arms? Again, that must be a great feeling to pack out somewhere you must have been hundreds of times
PS: It’s brilliant - York isn’t a massive city like Leeds or Manchester where you’ve got millions of venues and a ladder up them. There are a few, and they’re all really great. It's good to go through them and tick off the ones we’ve played. We did the Fulford in June, but we originally wanted to play further afield but it's really tough to find somewhere we can sell and make financially viable. But that just speaks to how lucky we are to have the Fulford Arms really.
Howl: What's the scene like in York for new bands and bands climbing that ladder?
PS: It comes and goes in ways, it’s all about uni really. We’ve been doing this a while, for a York band. At the moment there’s loads of kids coming up, there's a battle of the bands thing that really fosters a scene and brings people together: you rarely go to a gig and there isn’t a good turnout. There’s a great community aspect and you become friends with the other bands really fast. There’s a story about how me (Nick) and Louis met through a piece of paper in a second-hand shop.
Howl: Well, you’re gonna have to tell the love story now
PS: It’s a tale as old as time. There’s a second-hand shop in town, called Bulmers, that sells old music gear and tech. I (Nick) went there and got the cheapest bass I could, to write songs on. I kept going back in for amps and pedals and that. One time I went in and there was a scrap of paper saying “Drummer available. Influences are Green Day, Metallica and Foo Fighers”. Drummers are like rocking horse shit, so I’m gonna lie and say I’m into those bands. We met up at college and the rest is history, really.
Howl: Where did the name come from?
PS: It was one from our big list of potential band names. We all got into watching ‘Phoenix Nights’, and part of the club has a room called “The Pennine Suite”, which only comes up once or twice as a bit of a punchline, It’s got a bit of meaning but it’s its own thing. Peter Kay isn’t gonna take us down.
Howl: So there’s no ‘Easy Live vs Easy Jet’ style court case on the cards?
PS: Exactly, hopefully not! We got on a Phoenix Nights fan page recently. We give logo stickers out to fans who put them everywhere, and someone had taken a picture of one and tagged ‘No Context Phoenix Nights’ on Instagram and it got thousands of views. Imagine if all of yous just bought a ticket!
Howl: Have your tastes changed much these days, since the paper in Bulmers? What are you listening to that influences the group?
PS: Louis is the one that brings stuff in and wants us to try it. To be fair, I (Louis) still love those bands. I love stuff like The Weekend. We’re off to go see Turnover soon, but they’re clashing with Travis Scott and I’m a bit cut up I can’t see them both. I already had the Turnover tickets but they’re examples of how varied our influences are. There’s The Cribs and The Hives, but we try to distance ourselves from it creatively. We’re all quite pop-centric these days. To me I like how Blossoms and Inhaler do that pop/rock crossover stuff.
Howl: As pop fans, are you guys having a brat summer?
PS: Yes! One hundred per cent. I loved that record, it's a strong eight I reckon. Fantano gave it a ten so we got stuck in.
Howl: As a five-piece, how does that work when it comes to writing? Is it a democracy or does someone take ownership?
PS: It’s a hard one, I (Nick) get a bit self-conscious because I worry I sound like a dickhead. Generally, I write the lyrics and most of the songs, the basic structure and ideas. I’ll bring it to the band and we try it out, everyone adds bits and contributes. It doesn’t always work, but I’m so fortunate to have the other four to add more and more. We’re trying different stuff and seeing how far we can push our tunes at the moment.
Howl: How does that work when it comes to writing your lyrics?
PS: it’s all personal stuff really, I love Alex Turner, but when he’s writing a song its often about something else, lots of metaphors and that. It is also often overhearing stuff, pinching bits of words and conversations. Lots of it comes from Louis you know. I’ll get one line in and then go from there. It’s a bit wanky, but there's this book called ‘A Kony Island For The Mind’, it’s a collection of poems and I draw from that sometimes. It is bollocks, but it’s always good if I’m getting stuck.
Howl: How was LA? What were you up to? How did you tap into the musical history?
PS: It’s so far the polar opposite of York. It was like, proper holiday music, sunshine, everyone is healthy and beautiful and a rapper. We went to The Chateau Marmont and felt like a gangster. I think you can hear that in ‘Typical Fantasty’ and the presence of the city. We would have made a very different song if we hadn’t been out there. We saw CMAT and loads of others Kim Gordon, Offset the rapper and more. We bumped into some of The Murder Capital out there too. It’s very vibrant and I think we fit in. We even bumped into Bono. We were walking down the street and I saw a guy in cowboy boots and yellow sunnies, I thought ‘he looks like Bono’ and it was! Before I realised he’d turned into some gated residential areas. We basically went to Bono’s gaff.
Pennine Suite are back in the UK, and their brand new single ‘Typical Fantasy’ is out now. They take on the main stage at Truck this summer and then, the world.