An Interview With The Ideals

As much as I love my pop, R’n’B and dance (ok so pretty much everything) I am also partial to an indie band or two.

I got the chance to speak to up and coming band Ideals. A 4 piece from Ipswich, with a blend of melodic, emotion felt, honest music.

Simon who plays bass, talks to me about life in the band.

How did the band come together?

Ideals was created on a boat, on Christmas Eve 2009. We all knew each other from our hometown, Ipswich, but we all lived in London at the time. Andrew (guitar and vocals) and Ben (drums) had been playing in bands together since they were 15 and I was in a previous band with them called It’s A Trap. We decided to stop playing as It’s A Trap and form a new band which ended up as Ideals. It’s A Trap was 3-piece and we wanted to make a band that had more dimensions to it’s sound, so we asked our good friend Matthew Bunkell to join us.

What inspires you to do what you do?

I guess the whole idea of being in a band is pretty inspiring. For me it’s about creating music with people I’ve grown up with and who inspire me, the fact that other people are enjoying the sounds we make is quite fulfilling. I guess growing up we all loved music and the imagery that’s associated with being in a band inspired us to form our own. Most of our current songs are inspired by the difficulties of being in love and the emotions that come with it but I think our new songs, that we’re currently writing are starting to move away from this. To me, the new songs are about accepting what has happened in the past and learning to move on in a positive way. Our old songs carried a lot of pain and anger and that reflects the personal moments we were all going through. All of our songs are about real life experiences and this is probably quite easy to pick up on.

Ben W: Everything that happens in our lives as well as the music we listen to. For me it is also the people I am in this band with that inspire me to put everything I can into a song. Whenever someone comes to practice with something we all love we immediately begin adding to it with so much enthusiasm and creativity. Everyone just amazes me and it’s their creativity that helps drive mine.

Which song would you say you are most proud of?

When writing a song it’s really easy to get carried away and believe it’s the best song you’ve ever written. I’m proud of all our songs and every time I listen back to them they remind of what was happening in my life at the time. It’s nice to look back on past memories and reflect on them and how you’ve moved on since. I have to admit I’m pretty proud of ‘Lungs’ as a song. It’s travelled all around the world and it’s a great feeling to know people are being affected by our music on different continents. For example, Lungs was play listed in the New York flagship Topshop, so god knows how many people must have heard that. Also we’ve had people contact us from countries like Indonesia and Mexico to let us know they love what we’re doing and this makes me very proud.

Where did the band name come from?

I think I came up with this one. We wanted a name with one word that was bold and reflected our music.

Who would be your dream collaboration?

Writing a song with Damon Albarn would be amazing. This man has proved he’s one of the best songwriters ever and every project he’s touched seems to turn to gold. In Blur and Gorillaz he’s proved he can write songs that define a generation. He can write anything from pop infectious songs, to real emotional and beautiful songs.

Which artist do you look up to?

I’m not sure if I have one band that I look up to. Something that does piss me off though is bands that fall out and refuse to reform. Without fans buying their music and paying to watch them they wouldn’t be where they are now.

Do you have a biggest fan?

Maybe a girl in Indonesia called Tessa. She made us a book with hand-made paper cut outs of us. The attention to detail was amazing. [Dying to see this]

Ever been out with a groupie?

[Laughs] When we started the band we all had long-term relationships, so not to begin with. I’m not going brag about anything but I think it’s safe to say that being in this band hasn’t exactly harmed our chances with girls and I’m sure we’ve made the most of this.

Favourite gig you have played and why?

The madness is we’ve played well over 100 shows, maybe even 200? Our last gig was pretty amazing actually, everything just felt so good and our new songs went down really well. We’ve played some great shows in Germany and Holland and the crowds over there really like to get involved. Supporting The Automatic at the Colchester Arts Centre stands out a lot for me. It was sold out and the reception we got was incredible.

What is your opinion on talent shows such as The Voice?

Personally I have nothing against these kind shows but I know we’d never get involved in these kinds of things. I think they’re a good way for people to expose themselves and sometimes the people on the shows might come from poor or under privileged areas where they don’t have the opportunity to be heard, so for them it’s a smart move.

What are the next steps for Ideals?

You may have just seen our new video for “Eyes Open”? We want to make more content, both visual and audio. We’re in the process of writing a load of new songs that will hopefully be released as a collection, probably in album form but maybe we’ll do something different with them. But I think the main focus is to continue writing these songs and get some kind of release out at the end of this year/beginning of next.

–Thanks to Simon, follow the Ideals on Facebook and Twitter & check out their new video for Eyes Open —

Background
Ideals are a London based 4 piece indie band from Ipswich, Suffolk. Andrew Major (Vocals/Guitar), Ben (Guitar), Simon Wilson (Bass) and Benjamin Ward (Drums). Described by Music Week as “exhilarating”. Managed by Intruder Records, they have released their debut EP titled ‘Let Your Anger Leave You’ featuring new release Eyes Open.