Manchester garage punks, Tinfoils, George from the band tells us about their latest single, their money raising effort for BLMUK and how a game of pool completed the band...
Alright hope you’re doing well through this shit time.
Can you tell us who Tinfoils are and where did the name come from?
TINFOILS are a mardy northern bastard garage punk band based in Manchester. There's three of us, and we've all moved here from Yorkshire.
The name came from when I was on an X Files hype. Thought it was a good name for a band, so I just got the Facebook, Twitter and Instagram pages before we'd even done a rehearsal! I think it was before we even met Will. I just thought it was a good name, the other two agreed and we ran with it.
Sounds like you had confidence in this band early on then. How did you find Will and what has he brought to the band?
I don't know if I had loads of confidence in the band before we started really, I just thought the name was cool! We didn't really take it very seriously for a long time, took us about 6 months to bother looking for a gig. Was just an excuse to meet and get pissed up at first.
Me and Alex had known each other for a while, and went to a pub in Fallowfield. We were having a game of pool, when two blokes came up and asked if they could play doubles because no other tables were free. We agreed, and one of them turned out to be Will. After that they invited us to some flat party, and at about 6 in the morning on some unknown persons kitchen worktop he mentioned he played bass. We met up a couple of days later and the rest is history.
He's an amazing bassist, and his love for funk has a massive impact on every song I write. Tunes always come out sounding better once I show them to Will and Alex.
Love the bass lines in your songs, The Abyss, especially. Could’ve been a different story if you and Alex decided that was your last game of pool and just handed it to Will and his mate!
Like The Blinders, you also (and I think one or two others have followed suit) made the journey from Doncaster to Manchester. How much of a difference has that made to you and the band?
Definitely! All credit for that goes to our mate Breezy to be fair, he was the one who suggested doubles. He drops it in to conversation every time he's trying to convince us to come out.
Yeah I moved from Doncaster about 5 years ago, I do love it to bits but I wouldn't have been able to do half the stuff I wanted to if I'd stayed. Wouldn't have met Alex and Will, and probably wouldn't have ended up starting a band. There are some decent bands in Doncaster but a lot of it was indie stuff at the time, which I do like but not something I was interested in doing. The music scene in Manchester is amazing at the moment, there's so much music and it's all really different and interesting. Best place for music in the country at the moment I reckon.
Manchester is definitely a great place for music but I think the UK in general has a really good music scene at the moment with loads of good bands about! Though places like Manchester have some unreal venues and bands love playing there.
I wanna talk about your latest single ‘Spitting’ which was released during lockdown. Absolutely love that track! You went to Magic Garden to record it. What did recording it there bring to the song?
Cheers mate, we're really happy with it. I think it added a lot going to Magic Garden, Gavin's brilliant. First of all, it's just way higher quality than anything else we've put out, and I think it manages to sound a lot like we do live. Gavin also suggested we add some vocals in to middle 8 bit, which was originally just instrumental. I quickly wrote something down on a bit of scrap paper in a few minutes, and recorded it in one take, and that's the take in the final song. It's the whole "lap me up I'm stagnant water" bit. We'll hopefully get some more tunes recorded soon, would love another trip to the garden. The music video for the song is just clips of our time at the studio mixed in with some live clips, had a really good time there.
I hear quite a few bands speak highly of him and his influence on their time in his studio. He does seem to get great results.
You recently released some songs on bandcamp that were live demos if I remember correctly. Are they going onto Spotify at any point and also will you be recording any of these? Peeping Tom is probably one of my favourites of yours.
Yeah they're a load of demos we did at Dead Basic Studios last year, we thought it was a shame to have them just lying about. We decided to put them out and donate all the money from Bandcamp Day to BLMUK, every little helps doesn't it. They won't be going on Spotify, but I reckon we'll probably record a couple of them properly one day. Peeping Tom's a bit of a favourite, would love to get that recorded in a studio but there's a million tempo changes so I think it'd probably be tricky to nail down. Its one of my favourites to play live, especially when we're headlining and get the chance for a self-indulgent 10 minute jam with a big sing-a-long. The demos will stay on Bandcamp for the foreseeable, but I think we'll probably take them off at some point.
A great cause, did you manage to raise much? Some really good tracks on there would love to here them recorded like you say.
So what are the bands plans once lockdown is relaxed to a point bands and musicians to get out there and do proper stuff without fear again?
Yeah we raised about £60-70 I think? It was only for the day, when Bandcamp waived their fees. Props to Lewis from Dead Basic for recording and mixing them all.
First things first we need to get in for a rehearsal! I've written a load of new songs which I'm looking forward to working out, I think it'll be a lot of new tunes in the set list when we're back gigging. Hopefully reschedule our tour that had to be postponed, play some tunes, get some recording done, and go out and see some bands! Just got to hope it's not too far off.
That’s awesome! Excited about the new tunes and future recordings...and gigs again obviously.
Hopefully you can squeeze a rearranged gig for us on the tour!
You mentioned how highly you rate the Manchester scene. Which bands should people go and see once bands get to gig again?
There's a tonne of bands to go and see, to name a few: Loose Articles, Blanketman, The Early Mornings, Swine, Springfield Elementary, Giant Boys, The Red Stains, Cold Water Swimmers, and loads of others. There's a lot of different styles about but I do feel like there's a sort of coherent feeling between all the bands around here at the minute. It got to the point just before pandemic where no matter which venue or what day, if you turned up you'd probably see something amazing. Fingers crossed it all survives the lockdown!
There’s some good bands there, really like Springfield Elementary and Swine what I’ve heard of them and also Red Stains. I need to check the others out but we’re very lucky to have so many good bands about and more people these days that are very much into new music!
We’re gonna end the interview with some quick fun questions...
Favourite album/EP of this year?
I'm gonna go with either Zero Dollar Bill by Do Nothing, or The Non-Stop EP by Buzzard Buzzard Buzzard. Can't pick between them!
Also really looking forward to Fontaines DCs new album, and Idles, and The Blinders.
If Tinfoils could tour with any band alive or dead who would it be?
Would love to go on tour with Fontaines DC, Idles or Sleaford Mods. If I had to pick between them, at the moment probably Fontaines. Loving their last few singles, and Dogrel was banging.
Ah wait, Thee Oh Sees! Maybe Oh Sees actually. Any of the above would allow me to die happy.
Is there a song that at least one member isn’t keen on in the set but are outnumbered?
I don't really like The Royal Baby Machine that much, but the other two do.
Chinese food or Indian?
Indian
Lager or Real ale?
Ale, but more of a standard bitter to be honest. Not West Coast passionfruit and jasmine infused with lemongrass IPA stuff, it's rank and I don't get it. Give me a pint of John Smiths over that wank any day.
Festival you’d love to play?
Wouldn't turn down Glasto!
Last one...
Best live band you’ve seen?
Best live band I've seen is probably Idles.
Alex, our drummer says Cabbage at Night & Day was probably the best gig he’s been to recently
Thanks to George from Tinfoils for chatting to us! You can listen to their music on all the streaming services and go and visit their social media pages. Here is their latest effor, Spitting.
