Talking Passions: Leo & The Heist

This week Adam meets brand new Bristol band Leo & The Heist! The Heist, comprised of Josh Wood, Alex Steenfeldt, James Eyres, Michael Fortune, and featuring the vocal talents of Leo Wood, were fresh from their first festival gig of the season when Adam caught up with them, and with the release of their highly anticipated debut track on the horizon, they had a lot to talk about.

Adam Chisman (TP). “As a young ones what did you want to be when you grew up and how did you get to where you are now?”

Leo Wood (L). “I wanted to be a singer believe it or not, and I also wanted to own a farm with some lions on it, which I’ll get to later on in life. I went and did a terrible university course which had nothing to do with music, which made me like music even more, and I did lots of collaborations with lots of people. I wrote lots of music, and I’m also a singing teacher which helps. So it’s music 24/7.”

Alex Steenfeldt (A). “I wanted to be a pilot of a fireman or something. I was never really exposed to that much music when I was growing up, so I think I kind of stumbled into it a little bit. I had a couple of mates when I was in high school that wanted to be in a band, and I didn’t even really know much about how instruments worked to be honest but I picked up a guitar and learned it, and kind of went from there. I’ve basically been in a band ever since with a lot of the same people. I think from that I suddenly got a new awareness and appreciation for music, because no one in my family’s particularly musical, I’m kind of the anomaly. But it seems to have panned out quite well. I like it, it’s great.”

James Eyres (J). “Well I think I used to have quite a short attention span because I used to change each week. I’d go from basketball player to F1 driver to astronaut, and then I suppose rock star at the end, so I started learning guitar, listening to Led Zeppelin and AC/DC. And then architecture came along and just got in the way and stole me for ten years.”

TP. “Well you seem to have found your way back to music. How did you all meet and form the band?”

A. “Well me and James met at university doing architecture, and through that we found Josh as well, who’s Leo’s brother and the keyboard player. We’ve been living together for a couple of years and we’ve all been in bands around each other, but it’s only recently that we’ve got together. It seemed silly not to be in a band together.”

J. “I met Josh the first day of uni and we started jamming in the first year, we were on exactly the same course.”

L. “So then I moved to Bristol and stole all of Josh’s friends.”

TP. “Well I know you’ve had your solo project Leo releasing a number of EPs as well as featuring on tracks produced by local D&B artist Phaction, and the rest of you have all been in bands previously. Has your style changed since you all got together?”

A. “Well we’ve  only been together about six months, so we’ve just been trying to just see what we can do. We’ve tried the whole range of styles, some of them are more chilled out, some of them are a bit funkier, and some a bit housey. It’s been quite interesting to work out what we can actually do and what works and what doesn’t work.”

L. “I think we can do pretty much everything!” 

J. “I quite like that we’re using more electronic drums.”

L. “I’ve obviously worked solo for ages, it’s not necessarily restricting, but when you’re with a group of people suddenly your style in unleashed and you can do more. So before if it’s just you and a piano, or just you producing your own music and you can’t quite get what you had in mind, and then with this band I feel like I’m achieving it.”

A. “Other people have completely different views on what a song should be like, so you end up with a song that is nothing like how you originally thought it was going to be. It’s interesting to see what comes out some times, it’s just not what expect sometimes, and sometimes it comes out better.”

TP. “Can you describe your creative process when in the studio together?”

A. “It’s usually just someone playing something, having a jam on a guitar in the background.”

L. “And someone goes, ‘I like it!’ And starts adding to it. Then we’re like, ‘Fortune get a beat down!’ And Fortune’s fast, he’s like, ‘Alright gimme five minutes guys.’ So much pressure’s on Fortune, we’re all just jamming away having a lovely time and singing along, and he’s got to write a lot of the tune, produce it and master it.”

A. “I think that’s been quite interesting for him as well because he’s been a DJ before, and a producer, but now he’s a producer and using it as an instrument sort of, within the band. So he has to kind of try and jam as much as he can with us, even though he’s having to program the beats there on the spot. So it’s a much more impulsive way of working.”

J. “I left him at home and he’s just bought a bongo, cowbell and he’s got a load of random noises…” 

TP. “Well you describe your sound as ‘Electro Soul’ so I was wondering who are your biggest influences in carving your sound?”

A. “I’ve got kind of two sides of it. On the one hand I’ve got all the old timers like Fleetwood Mac, and those old rocky instrumental guitar bands, and on the other hand I’ve got the heavier house and funk, but we span the whole spectrum.”

L. “The XX and Submotion Orchestra.”

TP. “Yeah, I definitely got hints of Fleetwood Mac in ‘Acoustic Glow, and talking about that your debut track ‘Acoustic Glow’ is out next week and it’s great! It hints at The XX and London Grammar too. Can you tell me a bit about the song and where it came from?”

A. “It came from my bass line didn’t it. Interestingly, I was listening to a French producer/DJ who was making some beats live on sample pad, and there was a little chord progression on it I quite liked, I kind of got it in my head and then ended up playing this bass line around that.”

L. “Yeah, and then it was just a jam session down in Josh’s little snooky room, and it sounded really nice to begin with. The lyrics I think actually came from Harry saying acoustic something or other, and I said, ‘Acoustic glow! Nice!’ Harry’s one of our mates. Harry we love you! We just wanted to keep it funky and summer-loving, the festival season’s coming up so it seemed to suite it.”

A. “I think it’s one of our nicer flowier songs. “

J. “Yeah, the more recent songs have evolved quite a lot even since that.”

L. “Yeah, we’ve stepped it up a little so you just wait.” 

A. “So a couple of the later ones have been a bit more pumping, a bit more housey and groovy.”

TP. “Fantastic, and I look forward to hearing them. As a musician these days you tend to have to be your own manager and promoter as well. What advice would you give to a band or vocalist starting out regarding self management and promotion?”

L. “Get Leo to do it…”

A. “Yeah, just get Leo to do it. She’s just nominated herself as tour manager, promoter, the lot.”

L. “If you’re doing it on your own, you just have to get your head around it. You have to figure it out, go on the internet, work out what people wanna be sent, how to contact people, what you have to do. It takes a long time. I thought, going into the band, finally it’s off my shoulders, these guys are gonna know more about it, and then I get there and realize that actually I might know the most about it. But that’s only because I’ve been doing it on my own so I’ve had to whereas these guys have had more input from all sorts of areas.”

A. “I’ve always been in other bands but there’s always been that one person who basically takes charge of it, so I’ve not really had anything to do with that side of things. I think a lot of it though is just knowing lots of people in the right places, which I think is really handy. So getting yourself involved, and getting yourself in the right circles where you can speak to people.”

L. “Yeah, speaking to people on a friendly basis, not in a business format straight away. Actually create a relationship before you suddenly go, ‘Here’s all my music, love me, like me, sign me!’ It doesn’t really work. You want to ease your way in subtly and figure out who they are and whether you music is actually right for that kind of thing. Because you could send your music too completely the wrong person and they won’t care about it.”

TP. “Wise words. Well finally, what do you have in store for us in 2016?”

l. “We’re taking it pretty easy this summer because we’ve spent the winter getting our set together. We’ve got Bristol Harbourside Festival on July 16 on the SS Great Britain, which is really cool. That’s our next gig, and then writing the EP. More writing and more recording.”

J. “We want some more gigs but because it’s still early days we’re not sure where they’re coming from just yet.”

L. “Well off the back of our first gig we potentially got three more so that’s a good sign.”

A. “Yeah, it means at least three people like us!”

L. “I reckon write the EP, get a really good EP out, and then next festival season is gonna be the one where we go, ‘Hello everybody!”

A. “We kind of missed the window for applications because we didn’t have anything solid enough to really give them, so this year will be about setting up our foundation ready for next year where we can plug ourselves everywhere and get ourselves out to as many people as possible. Hopefully next summer will be the one where we get ourselves out there the most.”

If you’d like to get in touch with Leo & The Heist about anything music related you can find them on Facebook and Soundcloud.

Words: Adam Chisman (Talking Passions)

Pictures: Leo & The Heist

Here’s a feature on Bristol24/7 called Talking Passions. It’s a Bristol-based interview series that hopes to inspire your creative side by interviewing passionate individuals in Bristol’s arts and music scenes. The driving force behind the series is a belief that within each of us is a creative soul with untold capabilities. It’s not always easy to follow your dreams, to believe in yourself and try to make it work, and it should be celebrated!

Started by local journalist Adam Chisman, and with links to various Collectives in the city including Liquifyah, The Coconut Collective, as well as Irish online magazine Ceol Caint, Talking Passions comes in two weekly parts, with brand new written interviews on talkingpassions.com and Bristol24/7 and audio interviews on BCFM’s The Bristol Music Show and Soundcloud.

Be sure to check out Talking Passions on Facebook and Twitter @PassionsTalking to keep up to date with the latest interviews, and email [email protected] or use the hashtag #talkingpassions if you’d like to know more or recommend someone for a future interview. You can also become a patron and sponsor Talking Passions at www.patreon.com/talkingpassions