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29 April 2024

Every Monday I will be bringing you an interview with an independent band, duo or music artist. This week, I caught up with York band The Corsairs to find out more…

Who is in the band, how did you meet, where are you from and how did you come up with the name?
The Corsairs are Ned Swarbrick (guitar & vocals), Bryn Wade (bass) and Matthew Lilley (drums, keys and everything else).

I met Bryn during lockdown, says Ned.

It wasn’t originally music that brought us together, but rather bizarrely our fondness we both had at that time for D&D. We were only 11 or 12 I think and a group of us used to play online on a Sunday afternoon, not very Rock ’n’ Roll. Our love of the same music came later, when we started hanging out in real life. Bryn had been learning bass for a few years already and I’d been playing guitar and writing songs so forming a band just seemed like the natural thing to do. Matthew only joined us a few weeks before we played our first gig – he went to Bryn’s school, so that’s how we knew him. We’d auditioned another drummer, but he was too busy to commit. He was a keen footballer and was having trials for various clubs at the time. We also tried another guitarist early on, but that didn’t work out. Matthew was such a lucky find, not only is he a brilliant drummer, but he can play a bunch of other instruments also – sickening really, but it helps with recording. So we became a 3-piece.

We are from York, UK – original home of the Kit Kat and Terry’s Chocolate Orange. York’s great but small, it has a bit of a village feel about it sometimes, everybody seems to know each other. That said, it’s got a pretty vibrant local music scene, with some good venues and there’s always plenty of opportunities to get out busking. Worth a visit, it’s a beautiful place.

We kicked around a couple of other band names at first. The name The Corsairs is not particularly original, there are quite a few bands called The Corsairs across the globe – but seemed to suit us, so we stuck with it. We once got an email from some fan of a covers band in Hull with the same name, demanding we change our name, as they had been using it for the past nine years. We pointed out it was also the name of American doo-wop outfit from the 60’s, and various other bands across the UK. They said fair enough – so that was funny.

“I’ve been playing guitar and writing songs for a good few years now” says Ned. “My folks have always been into music, there’s always something on in the background, they have pretty good taste in general – probably some sort of subliminal education or brainwashing going on. We always listen to BBC 6 Music every morning, it’s just what we do at breakfast time. There was always the odd guitar knocking around the house as well, that any of us kids could pick up if we wanted to, so I just learn’t a few chords and took it from there.”

Who were your musical influences when you were growing up and who are your influences now?
Ha, I think we may still have some growing up to do. We listen to a lot of different music. It’s great that it’s all available to stream. However, we do try to track down more obscure music. Our local record shop, Earworm Records is great… you can get loads of weird stuff from there.

Ned says “I suppose early on I was a massive Kooks and Libertines fan and I always liked Alex Turner’s lyrics and the storytelling in Arctic Monkeys’ songs, it influenced a lot of our stuff at first. With our songs, we’ve tried to emulate that storytelling ethos. Our last release ‘Primetime Television’ was likened to The Jam whereas ‘Blues and the Brown’ is probably a bit more Belle & Sebastian with elements of folk and country”.

I think we all have different tastes, but there’s plenty of overlap. We try not to limit ourselves with what we play… if we like something, we’ll play it.

How would you describe your sound?
There are definitely two sides to it. As a 3-piece you might think we’re a bit limited playing live, but we’ve never really found that to be the case.

We love to crank it up, but it’s important to us to have edges to what we do. The lyrics and vocals are really important, so they shouldn’t get washed away in a wall of noise. A little bit of crunch is generally enough to drive things along nicely, we like to keep things choppy and not over cook it!

Obviously, there is a lot more freedom when recording… but there’s also time and money constraints, so a concept album is not on the cards yet. We do tend to work in more guitar and keys parts on our recordings, but we want to be true to our live sound… so it’s generally not that far removed.

Our live sets are generally split up, we start with more upbeat numbers to get things going, but then we always have a slot in the middle where Ned moves on to the acoustic and Matthew comes out from behind the drums to play electric guitar.

The acoustic stuff is generally a bit folky, as might be expected, Ned will whip out the harmonica and Matthew will add splashes of colour with the odd guitar lick. We have a homemade tremolo pedal (The Tremboler) that sounds great – we use it all the time. When we recorded ‘Blues and the Brown’ we also threw in a bit of lap steel at the end, it’s such an awesome sound. It’s fun to be able to experiment like that.

We’ve always tried to mix it up from day one, it’s more interesting for us and gives the audience time to rest their ears a bit. One of the best things about the acoustic numbers, is that they can turn into a proper good sing-a-long.

What is your latest release called and what was the influence behind it?
Our latest release is called ‘Blues and the Brown’. As Ned says “It’s a true story, about a wayward man of the cloth taking advantage of an unsuspecting congregation… basically I made it up, but it sounds totally plausible, don’t you think?”.

I’d say one of the main influences is probably Belle & Sebastian. We wanted to try and do something that didn’t feel forced, with a more relaxed, almost lazy feel.

The song has been kicking around for quite a while now… and is part of the live set. We always wanted to record it, but never had the funds or it was gazumped by another song we thought was better.

However, when an opportunity came up at the local Uni for a free recording session, as part of a student assignment… we jumped at the chance to record it. We are really, really happy with how it turned out. It’s a quite short song for us, but we think it’s perfectly formed. That said, we did have plans at one point to put an extended outro on it, with a full gospel choir… maybe one day.

There’s also a small chance that a French language version of the track might get released in the future. We’ve been contacted by a fan of ours over there, who has done a translation for us. We are thinking of re-recording the vocals. It’s amazing when you look at the countries where your songs get played. For all the problems with streaming platforms and the pitiful revenue they generate for artists, they do provide global reach… which is mad!

This release certainly seems to have gained a bit more traction than previous ones… brilliant to see 2000+ streams in the first two weeks.

What’s your local music scene like?
York is small, but the music scene is generally pretty good. There are a couple of top class independent live venues, loads of open mic nights and there’s plenty of opportunities to get out busking for those unsuspecting tourists.

There are some great bands, some more established than others… Bull are brilliant. Tom Beer from Bull runs an open mic night every Monday. It’s a great night with loads of local talent. Some other favourites of ours are Captain Starlet, Victory Samosa and Needlework. As with any local scene, it’s very diverse with new stuff coming through all the time… something for everyone.

We’ve been lucky enough get plenty of gigs early on supporting some top acts, as a band it’s helped us a lot. Some venues/promoters just don’t seem that interested in what we’re doing, but that’s ok… whether it’s an age thing or our music doesn’t fit their tastes, who knows… time will telI I suppose. We do have a pretty young audience, and that has caused some problems for us in the past, when it comes to underage drinking and the like. We’ve not been banned from playing yet, but we’ve come pretty close on a couple of occasions.

What do you have planned for the next 12 months?
Hard to say at this point. More of the same, I’m sure… we’ll be a bit older, that opens up a whole bunch of options for us gig-wise. The last two years have been pretty busy and also great fun, but we’ve purposefully had a bit of a break from gigging until we get exams out of the way. That said, there’s a bunch of side projects that have been happening. Ned is still busy writing and has been doing some solo stuff. There are a bunch of other collaborations on the sidelines, that could eventually feed into The Corsairs or become something new.

We’ve got another track already recorded, so hopefully we’ll get that released over the summer. More gigs out of town, Leeds, Sheffield, Manchester… we’ll see if we can persuade someone to drive us down to London.

We’d love to get enough recordings together to release an album. We have the songs, just not the funds yet – we tend to go and record a new track each time we save up enough to do so. It’s easier at the moment releasing singles as and when we can, but it would be lovely to be able to create something physical and real on vinyl.

There’s some great recording studios in York, Young Thugs run by Jonny Hooker is a cracker. We’ve done most of our recording there. However, there are opportunities for doing it on the cheap if you find the right people. “Blues and the Brown” was recorded as part of a student recording project at the local Uni, so we managed to get some free studio time. We didn’t know if it was going to be any good, but it worked out great – Sherry our engineer was brilliant.

Playing festivals would be great, last year we played a couple of local ones. I think that’s going to be an ambition for next year.

Is there anyone you’d love to collaborate with?
Ned says “I think I’d like to write a song with Jack Jones of Trampolene. Something chilled out. Or maybe Stuart Murdoch and Belle & Sebastian. I saw them live in Hull, what an amazing talented bunch.”

Any funny stories surrounding your live performances?
Not sure this is directly about our live performance, but back in February 2023 we supported Trampolene when they played in York as part of Independent Venue Week. We are massive Tramps fans, and got a bit starstruck when we met Jack Jones and the rest of the band.

Anyway, we were first on that evening, and Ned was full of a cold and had lost his voice… he was proper cross, as this was going to be the gig of the year and he’d been looking forward to it for months. He took every remedy, herbal and otherwise, under the sun and was eventually medicated enough to play and sing.

Trampolene heard us playing and came down to listen. They watched our whole set from the back and paid us the best compliments after we’d finished. They were just lovely. During their set (which was absolutely blinding and probably one of the best performances we’ve ever seen), they called Ned up on stage to sing their newly released single (Money) with them. Dreams came true that night!

When we were leaving, we left them a note written on the back window of their van…”The Corsairs ♡ the Tramps”… apparently it brought a tear to Mr Williams eye!

The best part was yet to come, a couple of months later they were doing a headline tour and playing in Leeds at the Brudenell. We already had our tickets. However, they asked us if we’d like play instead and open the evening, they went out of their way to sort it all out with the promoter… total gents and absolute stars!

What is the one thing that you want readers to know about you?
We try not to take any of this too seriously. It’s just a bit of fun… when the fun stops, I’m sure we will. But there’s nothing better than making the music you love with your mates… and putting it out there for others to enjoy as well.

You can find out more about The Corsairs on their website or via Bandcamp, Instagram, Linktree, Spotify, X (Twitter) or YouTube.