The Tea Street Band returned this year with their critically acclaimed new record “Frequency”. Formed in 2010, the group was founded from members of local indie band The Maybes, who had at that time just broken up.
Now, The Tea Street Band are set to play a headline slot at Sound City 2019. I caught up with band member Nick Otaegui ahead of their show at Constellations on Sunday.
How does it feel to be headlining Sound City?
“It’s great, we’ve played here for years and always loved playing pretty late on Sunday to close the festival with a bit of a dancey, energetic edge.”
Your new album ‘Frequency’ was released last November, how do you think it has been received?
I mean, everyone who’s listened to it has been very supportive and we’ve had a good bit of radio play y’know -Radio 1, 6 Music, Steve Lamacq. Don’t get me wrong I would’ve liked a couple thousand more sales more than anyone. (laughs) But yeah, got it out on the road at slow readers club last month and all the fans seemed to love it.
When can we expect new music from The Tea Street Band?
Bands only survive based on the last tune they put out so we can’t rest on our laurels, we’ll need to make a new album. Maybe try and get a third album out early 2020.
Less of a wait than last time then?
No, hopefully not. We took what seemed like an age last time because we had a bit of a change in the lineup which changed a few of the songs and some other things. We took stock, evaluated and now we’ve got an album we’re comfortable with so I think this time we can just keep it rolling and get what we want.
You mentioned in a recent interview that your newer material was a departure from your debut release, regarding lyrics, mentioning that they had become more reflective. Why do you think this is?
During the first album, we were out a lot to be honest – clubbing a lot, putting club nights on, taking a lot of drugs. So, the music reflected that 24-hour party vibe at the time and now we’re older and not out as much it’s kind of like this album’s the Sunday morning after.
How do you think the music scene in Liverpool has changed over the years?
At the moment it’s pretty strong, it’s good to see a lot of young lots of bands getting out there y’know, The Nightcafe, Spinn, Red Rum Club, Queen Z. But I guess there are not as many pockets of music scenes as there was. Liverpool, for its size, has always had loads of bands and there’s certainly more of them getting outside of the city now and further afield.
The album cover of ‘Frequency’ is derived from the interior of Paddy’s Wigwam, what inspired you to choose this for the record?
It’s actually a photograph by our very good friend John Johnson who done our early PR shots with The Maybes about 15 years ago. When we’ve done covers with him in the past we’ve always liked to include a reference to Liverpool as a place in our artwork so we saw that mad shot where it looks like a spaceship docking or something and thought, yeah it’s a no brainer.
What can people expect at your set on Sunday?
A good finale to the festival. Definitely save your energy for that one because we’re gonna take the fucking roof off.
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