Rock and Pop: Preview - Stornoway at Mencap Little Noise Sessions + Tom Jones, Paulo Nutini, Hurts, Ellie Goulding
Published: 11 November 2010
by ROISIN GADELRAB
THEIR foundation was based on a lie. They inherited a “wanted” van from a fugitive stalker and their musical background ranges from Zulu singing to traditional choirboy.
Not your average young folky band you might say.
Stornoway may be one of the most intelligent bands in the UK (PhD in ornithology, MA in Russian literature, doctor, chemist), and claim to be “timid”, but these guys are anything but dull.
Bassist Ollie Steadman, who is six years junior to founder members Brian Briggs and Jonathan Ouin, who met at a freshers’ fair at Oxford Uni, conned his way into an audition.
“There was an ad for a bassist for an Oxford band,” he says. “I replied by lying about my age which felt really silly in retrospect. It was a lie that took two years to kind of fade out. It was a gradual realisation, I never came clean. It’s a topic we never discuss because it basically means my first encounter with them was based on a lie and they will never trust me again.”
A while later, his younger brother drummer Rob followed, wowing the band with his adept knowledge of their songs – he’d been secretly eavesdropping when Ollie practised at home.
Stornoway, tipped as the next big indie nu-folk band, play Mencap’s Little Noise Sessions at Islington’s Union Chapel alongside Ellie Goulding and Tinashe (November 20). The acclaimed set of gigs running from November 15-20 also feature Tom Jones, Hurts, The Kooks, Paolo Nutini and Example.
“We really like that they limit the gig to 85 decibels,” says Ollie. “Our whole philosophy is to play as close to unplugged as possible.”
The same calm reigns on tour: “Everyone’s really cordial, we’ve never put face paint on someone who’s sleeping or be noisy. It’s all very polite.”
At 15, Ollie and Rob moved to England from South Africa. They grew up listening to traditional Zulu songs, and Afrikaans, classical and US chart music. “My friends started saying what about Led Zeppelin and Pink Floyd?” he says. “I’d never heard any of those. Seven years later I’m still catching up.”
He owes his affection for bass to an Oxford local legend: “Rob’s drum teacher suddenly said, ‘I don’t like drums anymore, buy yourself a bass or don’t turn up to the next lesson’. He bought the bass and it was lying around at home so I decided to pick it up. Two years later I joined Stornoway.
“We discovered the teacher said the same to all kids having drum lessons at the time.”
The boys can be spotted driving around in a dodgy looking van: “It was given to us by this strange man who slightly stalked us and fled the country for Saudi Arabia. It’s got tiger seat covers and strange markings inside as in maybe he was a criminal and the van was a cover-up, an accessory to a crime and maybe he wanted to get rid of it.”
• Info and tickets for Mencap Little Noise Sessions from www.littlenoisesessions.org.uk