When a band opens an interview by saying they’re hungover, about to record and recovering from a birthday party, you know you’re not dealing with a slick PR machine. You’re dealing with thistle., a Northampton-born trio who sound like they live in a garage because, well, they sort of do.
“I’m Cameron. I went to a friend’s house for his birthday,” says guitarist and vocalist Cameron Godfrey. “Heyy, I’m Judwyn. About to start prepping for a recording session,” adds bassist/vocalist/producer Carey Judwyn Rushton. “I’m Lewis. I’m currently at work, fighting a hangover,” finishes drummer/producer Lewis O’Grady.
Together, the three make up thistle., a band whose name comes with a full stop and whose music comes with a fair bit of damage. Their debut EP, ‘it’s nice to see you, stranger’, is about to land via Venn Records, and it’s already picked up praise for its lo-fi melancholy, chaotic guitars and gut-punch intimacy. The whole thing was self-recorded in a garage, at night, after work, and it absolutely sounds like it – in the best possible way.
“We started properly recording around August last year,” Cameron explains. “It was a very long process, as we were recording ourselves in Lewis’s garage after work, in the evenings, whenever we could. It felt like it took forever to finally finish recording. I’m really happy to know this is going to be out for everyone to hear soon; we spent a lot of time (maybe too much time) making sure it was exactly how we wanted it to sound. Luckily Lewis and Judwyn are patient with me when I say, ‘Could you make it sound more splonky?’ when they are mixing the tracks.”
That phrase, “more splonky”, might as well be the band’s unofficial manifesto. There’s an unpredictable alchemy at play here. Songs are patched together from hard drive demos and jam sessions that veer between euphoria and existential dread. “Whenever we’re writing a new song, there’s a moment halfway through jamming the idea where we can either feel like we are rock gods and we wrote the best song ever, or that this song is the worst thing I have ever heard… most of the time the latter,” Cameron says. “But either way, I find it so exciting when me, Lewis and Judwyn go into a kind of flow state, and then suddenly the song is nothing like what I had imagined it to sound like.”
Before the garage, before the Venn Records deal, there was Northampton, not exactly a hotbed for industry A&Rs, but fertile ground for DIY beginnings. “Northampton is relatively small,” says Lewis. “You end up playing with a lot of the same people, which really helps build that sense of community. When Cam and I started our first band, we felt a lot of support from the other bands and people around us, and the small venues were always up for having us play. That was honestly the biggest piece of the puzzle, just having those spaces where you could get started.”
That puzzle eventually led them to London’s The Grace, where a chance gig introduced them to Venn, who’ve worked with the likes of Bob Vylan, Meryl Streek and CLT DRP. “We first got contact with Venn at a gig at The Grace in Islington,” says Cameron. “Ever since then, they have been super helpful and kind to us. Luckily, when they had contacted us, we had just about got all the rough mixes for the new EP together, so we sent that to them straight away.”
The EP itself was born out of a mix of frustration, survival instinct and an urge to exorcise emotional debris. “We had about a million unfinished demos on Judwyn’s laptop and we just wanted to make them into something that we are proud of instead of letting them rot there like we usually do,” says Cameron. “There were also a lot of things going on in our lives at the time so I think we all needed an outlet to put our focus on. Listening back to the EP now I think a lot of the struggles each of us were going through may have seeped into the songs a little.”
Judwyn agrees, and then some. “Just how much I can compartmentalise, it’s been helpful but a bit scary,” he says, reflecting on what he learned during the recording. “We wrote and recorded this project during some of the most traumatic events of my life, losing my father and the breakdown and rebuilding of mine and my girlfriend’s relationship. In any case, I’ve come out proud, grateful, and wanting to create more than ever. As for the band, I’d say we’ve learned something about the sum of our parts. Something good about that.”
“A lot of this EP is about making it out of the whirlwind of adolescence and early adulthood”
What thistle. write about is messy, raw and rarely straightforward. “It’s been an intense transitional period for us, inside and outside of the band,” says Judwyn. “A lot of this EP is about making it out of the whirlwind of adolescence and early adulthood. Thematically, there’s longing, rejection, judgment, self-inflicted suffering (and normal-style suffering). All fun stuff. We’re having fun.”
The jokes help. When asked about band in-jokes, Cameron offers: “As of recently, we just keep saying ‘class’ in a northern accent as it’s our manager Tom’s favourite thing to say (he’s from Newcastle).” Judwyn adds: “None of us having guitar picks or setlists when we need them is sort of a tradition.”
Right now, the band are back where they started, writing, demoing, trying to figure out where they go from here. “We’re currently just trying to write and record as many demos as possible to find out what direction we can go next,” says Cameron. “A lot of noise rock mixed with Pavement-ish indie at the moment, but we will see. Hoping to have some more cool stuff coming out by the end of the year.”
As for long-term ambition, thistle. are keeping it simple. “We just hope we can do this as much as we can for as long as we can,” says Cameron.
Asked what they do for fun, Judwyn replies: “We’ve formed a coalition against having fun.” Which, ironically, might be the most fun thing anyone could say. There’s sincerity behind the sarcasm, though: a band trying to hold it together, one splonky jam at a time.
And if you’re still wondering whether you should go see them live, Judwyn has a message for you: “We’ll be touring the UK/EU with Cryogeyser from late August into September and we would like you, reader, to be there.”
thistle’s EP ‘it’s nice to see you, stranger’ is out 4th July.
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