Scams

Scams are a Leeds based indie band who describe themselves as ‘rock/pop music without bullshit and without boundaries’.

The band is fronted by Andy Morgan, bass and vocals come from Adam Fenwick, second guitars, samples and vocals are provided by Jamie Macneal and Daniel Harvey completes the line up on drums.

The band released a four-track EP entitled ‘Lost For Words’ on May 18th and have recently toured Europe with New Politics.

We caught up with front-man Andy Morgan to allow him to introduce Scams to you!

Firstly, how did the band come up with the name Scams?

There really wasn’t much thought to it, we just wanted a simple, one word, one syllable name.

How would you describe your EP for those who haven’t heard it in just 5 words?

Simple honesty; everybody sing along.

How does the band complete the writing process?

Actually, things changed a lot for the new album we’ve just written and are about to record; for our first EP, I (Andy) wrote the majority, but we’ve now been playing together long enough that the writing process evolved into something much more organic. There’s always been a lot of diplomacy with what we do, but together the focus is always just on melody and simplicity. We normally just finish a song quickly, then take the time to rip it to shreds.

Where do you gain your lyric inspiration from?

The first album was all about telling stories and sometimes using other works of fiction to tell other stories; the 2nd album we’re working on has a big theme of revenge and confrontation and is turning out to be quite dark lyrically in contrast to some pretty light melodies.

If someone hadn’t heard your music, which track would you recommend they check out?

I’d say on our first album there was almost three different styles, but we’ve merged things together a lot more successfully on our second, so really we sit somewhere in the middle of Helicopter Parents, The Gunfighter (1950) and Lost For Words.

When describing track ‘Lions And Tigers And Bears’ you explained that there is ‘always an excuse for a break from reality’, what is the meaning behind this?

It’s about how much I hate when fantastic stories are brought back down to the norm with the terrible ‘it was all a dream’ endings just like in the MGM version of The Wizard Of Oz.

Which bands would you alike yourself to musically?

It’s not an obvious comparison but I do take a lot of influence from early soul and pop, you hear it more in our melodies, but if you’re feeling lazy I think musically its Foals/Vampire Weekend/Tv On The Radio.

You’ve recently completed European tour, how do you feel this went for you?

Amazing, we’re still a new band and although we live in Leeds we have much more of a base in Germany at the moment. The crowds out there have been great to us so far!

What has been your favourite gig to-date?

It’s a toss between the last two Berlin shows we played at the Comet and Magnet clubs for slightly different reasons. With a lot of our European shows they were what every band looks for; playing in front of great crowds who really appreciate and get what we’re doing.

What can we expect in the future from Scams?

We’re booking some dates at the moment, there are already some confirmed on our website. We’re now in the middle of recording our 2nd album in Hamburg so as well as shows that’s our main focus at the moment, we can’t wait till everyone gets to hear what we’ve been up to!

You can visit the band’s official website here now!