Coal Mob are a post-punk outfit based in Leeds who have been gigging consistently for over a year now, garnering a loyal following in the city. Late last year they released their debut single ‘Bounce’, a track that captured their live spirit perfectly with a blistering instrumental paired with an earworm of a chorus. The group have just released their follow up single ‘Ceiling’ which they celebrated with a headline show at Hyde Park Book Club with support from Vincent’s Last Summer and The North. I headed down to the venue to interview the guys about the journey so far and what the future could hold for Coal Mob.
Credit: Ella Nelson
The following interview has been lightly edited for length and clarity.
So, guys, how does it feel to have ‘Ceiling’ out, what’s the reception been like?
Jack Anderson (Synth): Quite positive yeah, I mean everyone seems to love it so far from what I’ve heard, and it feels good to have it out in the world you know?
Will McGuinness (Bass): It’s sort of like a massive weight off of everybody’s shoulders after the months of writing and recording it and getting it mixed and mastered to just finally have it out.
Ellis Barker (Drums): I kind of forgot it was coming out I can’t lie. We’ve just pushed it to the back of our minds and been focused on the headliner and then it got to midnight Thursday night, I thought “Bloody hell we’ve got a new tune out.”
Jack: This is a song we’ve had for like almost a year now, so it doesn’t feel new to us, it feels like one of our standards.
Dom Armstrong (Vocals): It’s our second single as well, to like cement ourselves if that makes sense? First singles like “Oh this is good”, but the second single is like ramping it up and making it a bit more professional.
What was the recording process like for ‘Ceiling’, and how did it differ from your debut single ‘Bounce’?
Jack: It was a lot quicker; it was a lot more efficient I’d say.
Will: We worked with the same producer at the same place as when we did ‘Bounce’, our first single, and obviously since we’d already worked with him, it was just a lot quicker as we already knew what to sort of expect, like work wise timings for both sides so it was quite straightforward really, just set up and go.
Jack: I think as a band when you first get into studio, there’s like a period of trying to work your way up to taking the stabilisers off and feeling in control of the situation and when we first got into the studio for ‘Bounce’, we had that but this time, we knew the studio, we knew Danny the producer, and we knew was going to do a great job. So, we just got in there and got it done.
So I want to ask now, individually, for your roles on ‘Ceiling’, what kind of music was inspiring you when you were thinking about the parts that you play?
Rohan Manivannan (Guitar): On guitar, I was listening to a lot of Amyl and The Sniffers at the time, as well as Manchester band Yaang. When I saw them at The Ferret in Preston they were really good, a lot of their guitar parts were quite inspiring.
Jack: For the synth part, for most of the songs I play on I’m quite inspired by MGMT and that kind of Indie Electronica synth sounds, like very catchy melody lines, and then for the vocal parts that I contribute to, Dom was showing me a lot of Shame’s early stuff, like the back and forth vocals on songs like ‘Concrete.’ We really wanted to harness that energy but taking a bit of our own direction.
Dom: Yeah, just echoing Jack really, I saw FEET’s ‘Petty Thieving’, how it was sort of that Indie Rocky sort of stuff, and I wanted to cater the vocals to that.
Ellis: At the time for me, I was listening to a lot of like 90s girl Punk bands. So, like Bikini Kill, Slant 6, Red Aunts. So quite loose drumming and sort of technical stuff, but then also, I did replay Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 4 on my PS2 over Christmas, and the soundtrack for that is a lot of Pop Punk, and so that fun element of generally not taking it too seriously came with me.
Will: I think for me, it vaguely echoes Rohan because our parts are quite similar, but it was a lot of early Shame, a Punk band called Mint where it’s that sort of angular, staccato, aggressive punky stuff that I think really complemented Rohan’s guitar parts and the drumming.
Credit: Rowan Evans-Jones
Something that I’ve really noticed with your music is that you can balance the melodic and the heavy stuff really well. Is that something that you think about when you’re writing the songs?
Jack: For me, I’ve done a little bit with Dom with the vocal stuff. I think he’s very much in tune with that very shouty, punky, fast, lyrical stuff, and then I prefer writing the melodic lines to it, so I think as well with the inspiration from everyone’s different voices coming together, the different sides of it are the reflections of everyone’s different contributions.
Will: I definitely don’t think it’s a deliberate choice to try and balance the melodic and the angry, I think it’s more of a natural thing. It’s just where we come from musically, it’s it’s who we grew up listening to, and who we are as artists.
Jack: I do think it’s a nice niche as well that not a lot of bands cater to. It’s something I’ve heard from a lot of people, they like that it can go from catchy to heavy quite fluidly, and I think it’s one of our strengths.
Another question for everyone individually, thinking about Coal Mob as a whole and the history of what you guys have been doing, is there any sort of gigs or things in particular that have been the defining moments of the band that stick out?
Rohan: I’d definitely say the headliners were quite defining, the Oporto ones and the Lending Room ones. The headline gigs and the release of ‘Bounce’ were very defining.
Jack: I’d say whenever we write a song in a very natural way where we’re not really thinking about it too much, we’re just jamming and then suddenly Dom will come in with a vocal line he thought of, and we just build it very fluidly. I remember when we did that with ‘Bounce’. These guys all started writing it while I was away and then when I came back, we jammed it as a full band and Dom immediately figured out his vocal part, and just having that moment of figuring the song out in real time, it was a very satisfying feeling and is always one that sticks with me.
Dom: More recently, we played Retro Bar in Manchester and I think since then it feels like every gig is at a level now, and if we ever dropped that level, we will be annoyed at ourselves. We’ve got to such a level now where supports are feeling like headliners.
Ellis: For me, it would have been about a month ago now, we had this man from Portugal who messaged us on the Instagram account, just being like, “I’m your number one fan from Portugal, we really rate you” and that for me, I know it sounds silly, but the fact that we’ve actually reached someone in the complete opposite end of the world, I was just like, “Oh, wow, people are hearing us”, and that was a bit of a turning point for me.
Will: For me, it was two standout moments, it was the Lending Room headline we did last year, as it was the gig that we debuted our first single ‘Bounce’ at, and in my brain at that moment, I knew that we were already a band, but it was ramping up now. And then like Dom said, the Retro one in Manchester. That feels like it almost sort of unlocked a secret level of energy. We have hit it hard since the Retro gig. So, it’s been quite nice to have that sort of like proper intensity in just everything.
You guys have made it onto the Liverpool Sound City Festival line up, you guys are presumably buzzing about that?
Rohan: We are very excited to be fair, it’s our first festival and our first-time playing Liverpool to which is quite exciting.
My final question is just what can we expect from coal mob in the future?
Dom: An EP I think, a project of some sort, a five track EP, but we want to get in the studio pretty ASAP and get a third single out before the EP.
Will: I’d say for me and something that we can certainly expect is just more gigs, more gigs, more gigs, in different places. It’d be nice to be branching out of sunny old Leeds.
Ellis: Also, most of us are finishing uni this time, it’s going to be a different, new chapter of the band where we’re doing it in a different context. Hopefully it won’t slow down, but obviously there’s new challenges going to be facing us and stuff like that. So, you don’t know, this could be last interview we ever do!
You can check out Coal Mob’s new single ‘Ceiling’ below and can catch them live this summer at Liverpool’s Sound City Festival.
