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ENGLISH TEACHER are living up to their undoubted potential, carving their own path with a remarkable debut album, ‘This Could Be Texas’.
Words: Neive McCarthy.
Photos: Patrick Gunning assisted by Deckard Hurd.
Styling: Molly Ashman assisted by Rebecca Evans White.
Hair & makeup: Chloe Rose using Saie Beauty.
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An age-old debate of absolute importance is consuming a corner table of a pub in Leeds. Lidl or Aldi? For English Teacher, there can only be one right answer, and of course, it’s Lidl. Naturally, the bakery is the deciding factor for the Leeds-based four-piece. “I really miss Lidl,” says Lily Fontaine, the frontwoman of the band.
Thankfully, over the last year, English Teacher have seen their fair share of Lidls and Aldis – from currywurst sausage rolls in Germany to hot dogs in an admittedly “trash” Aldi bakery in Belgium, sold-out shows across Europe have seen them sampling the best supermarkets of the continent left, right and centre. It’s just one joy in a year that has seen the band busier than ever; from Jools Holland to the BBC 6 Music A-List, it’s been pinch-me moment after pinch-me moment.
“I don’t think I’ve processed it still, especially Jools Holland,” reflects Nicholas Eden, the band’s bassist. “I don’t think that’s gone the whole way through my brain yet. Some time to take stock would be good.”
Lewis Whiting, the group’s lead guitarist, continues. “Equally, in the past year, I think we’ve really got used to touring. We’ve adjusted a fair bit to the busyness of it all. I think that’s prepared us in a way for the coming year. It’s a big year.” Lily adds: “I hope so. I want it to be crazy.”
Luckily for English Teacher, it’s looking like it will be. As they chat over pints of Guinness on a bank holiday Friday, there’s just a couple of weeks until their debut album, ‘This Could Be Texas’, is released to the world. Nerves are growing amongst the group as the approach nears, but they needn’t be. There’s never been any doubt that the debut from English Teacher would be fantastic.
Just two years on from their debut EP ‘Polyawkward’, and yet their debut sees them reach stratospheric new heights. For the band, however, things remain a work in progress through their eyes. “We’re still figuring out a lot,” Lewis admits. “That’s how the process of writing the album felt. We had an idea of what we wanted to do with the EP, but it didn’t feel fully formed. Now, even still, there’s a lot to figure out in terms of what we sound like.” Nicholas agrees: “It’s still early days, isn’t it?”
“It is in the grand scheme of things,” responds Lewis. “I definitely don’t think we’ve hit a point where we’ve got it all figured out.”
“No, I think we’re all still quite confused!” laughs Douglas Frost, the band’s drummer.
“If there are Easter eggs in there lyrically, it’s probably on purpose”
Lily Fontaine
English Teacher may well be in the spring of their career, but on ‘This Could Be Texas’, they sound like a band who confidently know their way around making a track that sticks with you. Recorded predominantly in Church Studios in Hackney but born across studios and bedrooms and writing trips over the last few years, it’s an album that digs through the English Teacher archives whilst allowing space for completely fresh tracks. Though they flit between different sounds, their music has a way of burrowing deep. From the immersive sonic undoing that occurs in the album’s title track to the wistful yet frenetic ‘Nearly Daffodils’, each track is completely consuming and assertive of the power in English Teacher’s hands.
“We were definitely ambitious with it and wanted to be,” says Douglas. “It was subconscious, in that we wanted to break away from the ‘post-punk’ label we had, but also, we all like very different things music-wise. Naturally, each song progressed into what it is now.”
Nicholas chips in: “This album is very maximalist in the sounds and the writing. When we’re in the studio, I get a bit nervous, but you guys are good at trying out different instruments and creating new textures all the time, and you can really hear that.”
Perhaps it is the friendship that is integral to the group that allows them to create those all-encompassing worlds – pushing one another to create something innovative and new, allowing the album to take shape as something much bigger than it could’ve been conceived. In part, though, that came with the tools at their disposal.
“We had recorded with a cellist before, and we always liked the idea of introducing new instruments, but we really leant into that with this album,” Lewis confirms. “We knew that we wanted more orchestral instruments and a wider palette – we had never done it on that scale and had never had the budget or the time, so we definitely wanted to.”
Douglas continues: “It was more what we found when we got to the studio and what was available. Where we recorded the bulk of the album, Marta [Salogni] had her own private studio next door. In there, she had a vibraphone from the 70s, and a pump organ harmonium thing. There were all these different percussion things we came across in each studio – there was a theremin which we used. It was such a nice snapshot of the place where we actually recorded it as well. We went in wanting to pile a load of shit on it, but not really knowing where that could end up.”
It ended up with something intricately layered, begging for you to listen once more so you can uncover something new – each time, there’s something to marvel at that might have slipped your attention previously. Taped vocals, a flurry of strings, quick switches between gentle and ferocious, it doesn’t shy away from experimentation and instead flourishes because of it. “If anything, we’ve made it hard for ourselves to play these songs live,” smiles Lewis.
“I’m an onion!”
Lily Fontaine
That intricate entangling is something equally as present in the lyrics of the album, too. Meticulously crafted, certain phrases echo around the album, prayer-like. There are mantras and manifestations woven into each line, often deliberately so. With each track, the scale of this world develops, and it becomes harder to not get completely absorbed in it.
“I’m annoyingly obsessive about things linking up,” laughs Lily. “If there are Easter eggs in there lyrically, it’s probably on purpose because I’m very annoying about words. It’s quite a self-referential album.”
“Lyrically, you’re a very layered person, Lil,” says Douglas. “I’m an onion!” she laughs. “It’s a good mixture of us deliberately trying to do cool things and also happy accidents.”
Perhaps its most meta moment comes on standout track ‘The Best Tears of Your Life’ – it’s a sharp inhale, layers of textures subtly hinting at the hardship that came with writing the album, a meditation on the shock to the system that becoming a visible musician can be. “You can take the girl out of her comfort zone / but you can’t put her back,” sings Lily over dreamy, spaced-out guitar. It’s a line that hits like the drop on a rollercoaster – your stomach gone from under you, your breath stolen. As the track amps up, it’s easy to get caught up in the whirling emotions as though they’re your own.
It’s something English Teacher have mastered – weaving the very heart of the song’s lyrics into the tension of their bass lines, the fever of their percussion. They might be hyper-specific in their detailing, but there’s a resonance that cuts deep. With their delivery, they provide you with little choice but to feel those feelings with them, to become riled up or deflated with equal measure. ‘I’m Not Crying, You’re Crying’ winds you up tightly; its guitar lines and vocals become increasingly more frenzied and turbulent until it finally releases you from its clutches, still reeling.
“We definitely wanted that song to be tense – that was a conscious thing,” says Lewis. It doesn’t just stop at immersing you in that tension, however. From Leeds to Liverpool to Lisbon to Louisiana, there’s a universality to their experiences that will resonate deeply.
“It’d be nice if our music had affected people or made them think and talk about our music and important topics,” Lily explains. “Some of the things we talk about should be talked about more. It would mean the music was having an effect and sparking conversation – that’s the ultimate goal, I think.”
“We had a Zoom the other day,” Nick recalls. “And the guy was explaining how he felt in his 20s was connected to ‘Albert Road’, and he’s 5000 miles away.”
Lewis continues: “That’s it, isn’t it? That’s the best bit about the songs. For me, that’s a big reason why I like the idea of doing it. So many songs have had a big impact on me, and I hold them close, and if anything we write has anything near that impact, that’s the goal; what more could you want?”
“Some of the things we talk about should be talked about more”
Lily Fontaine
‘Nearly Daffodils’ is a shattering example of the band achieving just that – heartbroken and devastated but desperately, fervently clinging to the hope of spring and some kind of joy around the corner. It’s no doubt already found its way into the hearts of many of the band’s listeners.
Despite its relatability and conversation-sparking nature, many of the album’s best moments come in the form of odes to the places that have shaped the band. It is rooted in the landscape of the North – ‘Sideboob’ immortalises the beauty of the Pennines in their own way, whilst the video for ‘The World’s Biggest Paving Slab’ sees the band in and amongst the lush greens that surround Lily’s hometown of Colne, Lancashire. The places they were made are seemingly irreversibly entangled with who they are as a band in many ways.
“Because I started writing these songs when I moved to Leeds for uni, there was a parallel,” Lily says. “Moving to a new place and reflecting on home and the different ways that it impacted me. It’s become really important because I’ve realised that it’s a good frame to explore lots of different topics through. You can talk about political stuff, personal experiences, other characters – because it’s full of them!”
It’s equal parts paean and eye roll at the parts of those places that are frustrating. “You want to get out of it,” muses Lily. “But as soon as the option to go back is removed, it’s really desirable.”
That complicated relationship lingers in the songs, and the rurality of the album is keenly felt, too. It comes as no surprise, then, that the idea of desire paths was recurrent when it came to the process of putting the album together. An unplanned trail caused purely because it is the more convenient route; there are plenty of parallels to be drawn between the idea and English Teacher’s journey to and making of their debut album.
“When we were writing, and we were struggling with a song, we’d strip it back and simplify it to basics,” recalls Douglas. “That links back to a desire path – it’s a human naturally figuring out the quickest route.” Lewis adds: “As a band, it felt like a journey of figuring out what we were and what we sounded like.”
“I really like the metaphor because I feel like to create a desire path you have to tread down loads of shit over so much time,” shares Lily. “It’s been hard. It hasn’t been easy – not many people know that it’s been really hard. Making this album has been like beating down general life and trying to stick to what’s best and stick to your own guns and not worrying too much about what other people are telling you to do and the way you should be. There are a lot of things I really like about it.”
A reflection of toil and turbulence but also a reassurance that you are not alone in that, the idea of a desire path is inextricable from ‘This Could Be Texas’.
“I love seeing a desire path so much,” Douglas adds. “There’s so much fucking history to it; when you see an actual well-trodden path, people have worked hard to make that and to make their lives a split second easier.”
Lily continues: “It’s also people that don’t know each other – they’re not connected, but they have something in common. That’s another thing about the album. There are themes that are in common experiences, like disregarding borders. All of these people that tread this desire path – they don’t know each other; they haven’t communicated it.”
“Being able to tour and travel about with your best friends playing songs, what more could you want?”
Lewis Whiting
Despite that, there is a kinship that transcends time and space. When ‘This Could Be Texas’ is released, many people will walk this desire path that English Teacher have created – it’s the quickest route to the core of the band. A tour of the places they’ve lived, the people they’ve been, the anger, love and frustration they’ve felt. The easiest way to understand English Teacher as a band is to listen to ‘This Could Be Texas’, knowing this world they’ve created is entirely their own.
Throughout the process, they’ve continued to flesh out the world on their own terms, too. From Douglas playing a part in co-directing music videos like ‘Albert Road’ to Lily’s involvement with the album artwork, English Teacher are a band bringing their vision to life through sheer hard graft.
“Overall, in everything we do, we like to have a lot of control creatively because it feels right, and we can put effort and love into other passions we have,” explains Douglas.
Lily chimes in: “I think that’s just one of the things that attracted to making music. If you want, you don’t have to just be a writer – there’s artwork, videos, merch. There are so many things that I want to try. I want to do more.”
Given the sheer excellence of ‘This Could Be Texas’, it seems pretty likely that Lily will get those opportunities soon enough. With a sold-out UK tour around the corner, things are looking full-steam ahead for the group – things can only get bigger from here. “It’s my favourite thing in the world,” Lewis shares. “It’s exhausting, but being able to tour and travel about with your best friends playing songs, what more could you want?”
Douglas agrees: “Before, I look at the calendar and get quite stressed, but it always happens – I have these anticipatory moments before a really busy period and freak out. As soon as you’re on the road and at festivals you forget about that crap, and it’s so fun.”
As they approach what looks to be some of the craziest few months of their life so far, there’s a lot to process. ‘This Could Be Texas’ is about to land, and there are a lot of emotions to be felt as a result of it. Nicholas sums it up best, though: “Dead nervous. Dead excited.” ■
Taken from the May 2024 issue of Dork. English Teacher’s debut album ‘This Could Be Texas’ is out now.
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