PROM: Psychedelic Vibes & Jarring Guitar Harmonies
Inside an unnamed studio in Hackney, PROM have not so quietly been hashing together their industrial surf sound, in between sporadic live appearances. The results are somewhat difficult to define. In and amongst the angst-ridden vocals of Angela Won, there’s psychedelic vibes mixed with jarring guitar harmonies that make your hairs stand on end.
The band remain tight lipped on their influences, not wanting to be defined by bands gone by, but rumour has it several fans have hit the nail on the head when they’ve confronted PROM at gigs. Artists rarely get the luxury of being defined on their own terms, so I decided to support that and kept talk of specific influential bands to a minimum in my interview with bassist Nick Benton.
“For the first few months we would turn up to practice, and not really practice,” said Nick. The band would just go out and get hammered and not get anything practical done.
“I feel like it was an important process as we got to know each other really well and started to figure out what we wanted to do.”
But what is that?
“Yeah I actually find it quite hard to articulate what we do, but there is something solid there in our minds.”
The band just wanted to do something that was completely opposite to how they’d worked before. From how they recorded, to how they played their instruments. When the band start playing, they were swapping instruments, nobody had defined roles.
“For the first few months Pip [guitar] was playing bass on his guitar and I was doing some singing – so it was all a bit of a mess but slowly, things started to come together. I think when we wrote Cry Baby Cry, our first single, that’s when we realised this is the kind of thing we want to do.”
So how important are your influences to the writing process?
“At first they weren’t important at all – we were trying to come out with something which was as pure as possible. But that was actually quite hindering, ‘cause you’ve got no restrictions. You’re just writing really vague music. We wanted something that was really focussed, so once we’d started pulling songs together, that’s when references and influences became important to it.”
That’s when PROM started collecting ideas, and looking at the particulars of different bands’ techniques.
“I think anyone who listens to us and this kind of music, could tell straight away what our influences are. But without having them worn on our sleeve,” said Nick.
Something that’s really surprised PROM is that it’s the first band they’ve all been in that people “get.” “All the people that come up to us after shows, are often really accurate. Any influences they pull, they’re usually completely correct,” said Nick. “It’s really nice, it makes you realise that you’re on the right track and doing everything correctly.”
The band also record in a studio, despite the fact that these days pretty much anyone can record a pretty awesome sound at home.
“It didn’t come out of choice – it sort of just happened,” said Nick. The band’s first rehearsal space was in Manor House and producer Mike Page, who owned the building encouraged them to record in the same room.
PROM record the rhythm section live, with a few overdubs to fatten the sound. “I was always doing things by multi-tracking [in the past] but I found the overall quality was detached and cold. Everything could be in time and in tune and sound great, but because you haven’t actually been playing together it just sounds a little bit shit, I think.”
So Nick was keen to record with every band member in the same room. “Cry Baby Cry and Celebrate were all recorded live in a room where we didn’t have to think about the production of it, we could just get the guitars sounding how we liked them and focus on the performance.”
Tell us a bit more about your studio space in Hackney? “We share a space with a few other bands, it’s really great, and there’s pub nearby. The coolest thing about this studio is that there are no comforts in there.” There are no distractions. It’s just a room with a few amps and drum kit, so when you go in there, there is only one thing to do, and that is play. What’s the name of the place? “It doesn’t have a name, I dunno…”
Nick later informed me that it was just off Mare Street and was founded by bassist Danny Blackman, who works on another project with lead vocalist Angela. Several bands come together to pay the rent. With the extortionate price of rehearsal space in London, perhaps this could be the best way for bands to find affordable studios.
So you mentioned you go to a pub? “Oh it’s just a Wetherspoons.” Oh yeah I know the one, it’s just on the high street. “Yeah, we have a lot of band meetings in there, and it’s cheap as fuck so it’s really good for us.” Bizarrely, I sat in that pub mixing drums last year, so we laugh at the pub’s unintended musical heritage. “It’s like our hub at the moment, we’re always in that fucking Whetherspoons.” And on that note, it was time to call it a day.
PROM will be supporting The Bohicas at Tooting Tram and Social on February 20. It’s free entry, 18+ and doors open 7.30pm.
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