A discography detailing love, loss, space and seafood - a feverish take into Manchester's latest indie mavericks
By Tom Adams July 2024
"We're about halfway through our journey sat in a very hot car..."
Twenty four degrees in fact. All huddled around the screen of our Zoom conversation in a service station car park somewhere between Greater Manchester and Somerset are indie four-piece, Spangled. Speaking to Amplifier during a midpoint journey stoppage to escape the heat, or as part of a calculated Greggs pitstop as later revealed, the band were on their way to Garslade Farm for their debut performance at The Godney Gathering festival later that day. After an early impromptu decision to revert back to the overheating car for better signal and having to do the entire Zoom call with their camera off, I quickly got the impression this was the kind of welcomed rock and roll spontaneity of any old group of mates in their mid-twenties learning the ropes and having a laugh as they do so. That or a charmingly unconventional pre-gig routine, but either way they were in high spirits.
Now roughly one hundred and sixty five kilometres from their home city of Manchester, Ben Johnson (singer), Jamie Halliday (guitarist), Niall McGovern (bassist) and most recently acquired, Joe Kilroy (drummer) are in their fifth year as a Spangled. Originally suggested as a joke in conversation over a pint at Ben and Jamie's local pub, the intent to act on their once tipsy aspirations to start a band in the first place materialised on a night out at Manchester's beloved indie club: 42's, that ended with Ben asking his mate George how he was doing come 3am. A deadpan expression followed by a one word answer of "spangled" inadvertently brought the band life. Now with two EPs, multiple UK festival appearances, a Soccer AM live performance, and two headline shows in Manchester already under their belt, the decision to start the band in the first place should never have been in doubt.
Whilst having only themselves to thank for their recent success as a band (and a drunken George for the name rights of course) the guys were quick to also praise how growing up in Manchester's iconic music scene inspired them in Spangled's early days.
"Obviously growing up in Manchester you’re inevitably surrounded by all these different influences that are pretty much thrown your way from your parents so it’s been fairly easy for us to take influence. We love all the massive bands to come out of Manchester, you know there's us, Joy Division, The Smiths, The Stone Roses as a few we love" joked Ben. "We found it's easy to get immersed within that culture when living here, but yeah we’ve just kind of ran with our own creative direction which is pretty much what we’ve always done so far and will keep doing."
But just as Spangled began finding their feet in the industry, the dreaded COVID-19 pandemic brought it all to a cruel standstill. But looking back over the band's early discography around the time of the pandemic, it became evident their work ethic never really slowed down in correlation. With the release of songs 'Turmoil' and 'Nosedive' in 2020, followed by both 'Headspace' and 'Cosmic Vibrations' in 2021, it was almost as if Spangled were living on a different planet with such a consistent work rate during such unprecedented times.
"We’re always trying to be active so it’s always felt like an upward trajectory because we seem to be writing more and more every year so in a way the pandemic was maybe a bit of a catalyst for that as we couldn’t go out, so we only had time to keep writing and just keep going on from there really. To be honest, right now we’re probably writing even more tunes than we were back during the pandemic so it just seems to keep growing further. We just need for a nice big man with a big fat cheque like Sony or someone like that to drop millions on the desk and say go on boys, record an album - that'd be great!"
With the arrival of 2022 came the release of Spangled's debut EP Chasing Nebulas via the This Feeling label. A six song long mini album with zero filler and owning the feel of many of the Manchester greats marked a huge moment for the band. Plus a chance to work with producer and mixer Gareth Nuttall for the first time evidently left a stimulating first impression.
"In terms of working with Gareth Nuttall, he’s such a fashion slash sex icon that it was an absolute privilege to work alongside him and witness a genius at work. I think for us finally being able to release a proper body of work that wasn’t a single and actually going to a studio in Wigan called The Lounge to record as a band the whole time was really special, especially being the first time we’d done anything like that before. We obviously had this cosmic theme going on with the EP too, it was nice to have something where we could tell a story and Chasing Nebulas really gave us that chance."
The title of the EP, in addition to the space themed cover featuring two astronauts an arm's length away, plus song titles such as 'Cosmic Vibrations' and 'We'll Always Have Neptune', it would've been wrong to not ask why the space theme... and I'm so glad I did.
"We’re just big fans of space, we absolutely love space! Well actually Brian Cox visited us in a dream and very specifically said what the world needs right now is thirty minutes of uninterrupted space music and that’s exactly what we did because he told us to. One of us actually grew up on Jupiter too so we were very familiar with space generally. I think we just enjoy making stuff that is themed and we were a bit obsessed with space before we were even a band so that was always gonna come into play."
Even with their comedic antics and good-natured humour, the band haven't had an easy few years. Back in September 2021, after playing the Isle of Wight festival to a packed crowd including Ben's dad John Johnson, who was in the audience for the set, tragically passed away in his sleep that same night. But the following year Spangled bravely returned to the Isle of Wight and paid tribute to John with the release of their then new song 'Good Life Better' that celebrated a man so dearly loved by Ben and his bandmates.
"My dad was the person that got me into guitar music in the first place so if it wasn’t for him then I probably wouldn’t have even started the band and would instead still be a little grime boy so it’s nice to have his influence come through", explained Ben. "He was always there in our early days as a band being at all our gigs supporting us so yeah he was massive influence to us all of course".
The inspiring impact of 'Good Life Better' didn't stop there. Following the use of the song on Sky Sports once Saturday morning breakfast TV show Soccer AM for its goals of the week compilation, Spangled then earned themselves their first ever TV opportunity playing the song in full live on Soccer AM in late 2022.
"It was an ace overall! But being our first live TV performance, it was kind of horrible because you have to play the song like twenty times before you actually do it while they’re checking all the levels on all the cameras and then when it’s actually time to do it, you’re almost dying because you’ve done it so many times already and now they’re pointing cameras at you like massive machine guns. It was good fun and a great experience, especially to do it so early on in what we’re doing, it was a great learning curve to have been through already.
The presenters Fenners (John Fendley) and Jimmy (Bullard) are top lads! They’re literally the kind of people we’d go for a pint with. It’s weird because when you see presenters on TV they don’t seem that real but then you meet them in person and you realise they’re just the same as us! The person that Jimmy Bullard is both on camera and off camera is exactly the same. I remember when I walked onto the studio floor and he just went “Jesus Christ look at his mullet” to me so he’s exactly the same and Fenners is brilliant at spreading the word of new, up-and-coming bands such as us so he’s a really good lad too."
Following a brief tangent about football with Jamie explaining how the band is half split by Manchester United fans as the two in the front of the car, to the "two expendable ones" sat in the back siding with the blue half of Manchester, I brought their attention to their second EP: Always In Colour. Now almost two months on since its release, I wanted to learn about the band's creative process for this particular EP, and perhaps how it differed to their first.
"There was less of a focal point this time as with Chasing Nebulas we obviously had the whole space theme going on, whereas with Always In Colour, it included tunes we’d written over a long period of time and just sounded pretty good together so we put them as one. It felt this time a bit more of a start for us in feeling our way around different sounds so it was a bit more of an experimentation that wasn’t too out there but wasn’t tied to a theme like the first EP. It was recorded at The Lounge with Gareth again - he’s really become our top dog! There’s not a man quite like him that wears a snapback cap in such gracious style so we wouldn’t have it any other way".
One major noticeable difference with the Always In Colour EP was the decision to include a number of audio-like messages at the start of half of the tracks that featured on the record.
"I think they just became a bit of an intro into the songs in the sense that it hints at the direction the next song is heading before the song itself kicks in. With the tune ‘Swordfish Trauma’, it’s almost telling you how to feel before you dive straight into the song so we liked the idea of having something that nicely sets you up for the song before which is what we were aiming for."
As we neared the end of our chat, Spangled revealed they'd actually not long back been in the UK. Following their own domestic tour, the band then travelled to France earlier this month for a gig in Paris and Marseille, and it's fair to say they won't forget their cameo in the latter city for some time to come.
"It’s been a dream, four lads in a car having a very, very fun time! Well not Jamie, he’s been the one that’s driven us round but you know swings and roundabouts. Anyway let us tell you about the little city of Marseille… as we descended into the dreary mist that was the great city of Marseille, the mountains appeared through the top of the clouds and we see graffiti everywhere you look! Graffiti here, graffiti there, graffiti on your underwear, there was graffiti everywhere! As we continued on into this narrow, dingy car park then got stuck in a French lift, we thought to ourselves this city is quite strange. Then we got to the square we were actually playing in and boy was it lively! There were kids on skateboards and hoverboards - it was basically Back To The Future but everyone was French - then we got to the actual venue and we thought where are we gonna be staying and they were like “you’re staying right here of course” at the top of these rickety stairs to this lovely minus four star hotel room they had ready for us. We then went and did the soundcheck which was certainly a special one because there wasn’t much sound checking going on! We were having problems with our in-ear monitors, there was a hole in the middle of the stage where Ben would stand, then afterwards we went for food which was really fun especially for Joe who couldn’t eat because there were literal cuts down his throat maybe frisbee related, maybe Birmingham related a couple weeks prior - we'll never know.
Anyway, after that we go to do this gig to a cracking crowd of fifty massive French hooligan Spangled fans, maybe less - definitely less - just chatting the entire time. They’re doing shots, heckling us then Niall’s base stops working so we had to write that off for the rest of the song and have Niall pick up his microphone and join Ben down the front so that was a fun moment. Also there was some man in the front that passed out on the ground basically for the entirety of ‘Little Tom’ so that was chaotic. After we’d left the stage they then had the audacity to chant for one more song so we just hid in our lovely little green room thinking well that was our best gig ever! We did actually love it, Marseille was definitely a highlight because it was so mental so we’d love to go back, right now actually!"
Even with the added chaos of Marseille now thrown into the mix, Spangled have actually already achieved a number of impressive career milestones in their short time as a band and so I had to ask what had been the highlight for them so far.
"Probably the Greggs we’re gonna get once this interview concludes before getting back on the road! No but actually, honestly maybe Marseille or Paris would be up there! Supersonic in Paris is a special place, the crowd was just brilliant. Considering most of the people were seeing us for the first time, they were all just so up for it and that’s exactly what you want in a crowd because you definitely don’t get that all the time. They just get so involved and stuck in, they absolutely love it! But also the two Manchester gigs we did last year at Manchester Academy and Gorilla just for being able to have a gig at that level to people that have actually come to see you with most of our family and friends present, so it felt like a really special moment to share that all with them in one place. Plus if it’s a gig in Manchester, we’re definitely going out afterwards and we’re gonna have it large, or if it’s Glasgow, or Birmingham or yeah just anywhere else to be honest. We love it!"
Comments