The Elwins
The Elwins are a Canadian indie rock band that are made up of vocalist; Matthew Sweeney, drummer; Travis Stokl, keyboardist/guitarist; Feurd Moore and bass player; Frankie Figliomeni.
The band is currently on their first UK tour and is releasing their album, 'And I Thank You' on the 15th July.
We caught up with keyboard and guitar player; Feurd Moore, to discuss their new album and what it is like to tour the UK for the first time.
Can you tell us a bit about the band?
We’re a band from Ontario, Canada and we first started when Mathew and Travis met in high school and then later me and Frankie joined the band. We started playing small gigs and then started to think we could do this as a career.
What other musicians have influenced your sound?
We have a lot of influences to our sound but mainly people like The Beatles, The Beach Boys, Vampire Weekend… Stuff like that! We love our rock music.
What is the overall theme of the album?
It is generally a happy album but the songs differ. Some songs are a bit more meaningful whereas others are fun to listen to and has a real summer vibe to them. We all went away and wrote songs and then pieced the album together.
What sounds are we expected to hear from the album?
We’re an indie band and many of our songs are cheerful and feel good songs.
What made you decide to release 'Forgetful Assistance' as your first single from the album?
We just really liked the song and thought it would be a good song to have as our first single. We also made an interesting video for it with our iPhones so we just thought it would be a good idea to release this song as our first single.
How does it feel to be on your first UK tour?
It feels amazing! Everyone here is really friendly and it feels good to tour here. There’s really good vibes here in the UK.
How does it differ from touring Canada?
I think it’s different because Canada is such a big place and it can take so much time travelling from one place to the other. We can be travelling for 9 hours to get to the next place whereas in the UK everything is so close and there’s always something going on. We’re in Manchester one day and London the next.
How do you plan on making it big in the UK?
We just plan to carry on what we’re doing. We want to stick around and carry on touring the UK. We’re also working on our second album.
What can be expected at one of your gigs?
We put on a real live show! I know there are bands out there that do that as well but we concentrate on getting the crowd going and being energetic. Everything we do on stage is live.
After the tour, what else is in store for the band?
We are in the studio writing new songs and working on our second album which we will release soon. We also have a lot of festivals coming up. We're very excited to carry on with what we are doing and releasing new songs for you guys to listen to.
By Claire Lancaster