Y Not 2014 | Interview | Natives

Formerly known as Not Advised, Natives – a pop/rock band from the New Forest – have had an exciting year, with the release of their debut album ‘Indoor War’ picking up glowing reviews across the board.

Getting to grips with the inspiration behind their first album and plans for the new album, I caught up with Jack Fairbrother, guitarist for Natives, ahead of their set at Y Not Festival on Sunday 3rd August.

You recently played 2000Trees, Y Not’s sister festival – how do they compare?

J: Yeah, it’s really good. It’s a bit bigger and we’re on a bit later. This is really cool actually, both Festivals seem like very cool sites.

I really like this Festival, it has such a good atmosphere…

J: Yeah, it seems like it, and some how we ended up quite high on the line up!

Indoor War has been getting some cracking reviews – what’s the inspiration there? The concept is quite unique, being a complete story…

J: It just sort of happened! When we wrote the first few songs, they seemed to have, like, a similar theme and as we sort of began delving into writing, I don’t know where it came from. It just sort of ended up with this huge narrative. It wasn’t planned, but it did help us with the writing. Its daunting, looking at a big blank chart and having to write 12 songs, so having this narrative that we were all part of that we could all take little bits from helps. It’s good as well, because we all kind of write collaboratively – or we did on Indoor War, anyway – and if it’s like that, everyone can kind of relate to it and get involved.

It’s a brilliant album – its stands as story, but equally so as individual tracks…

J:We really wanted it to be instant, poppy and radioable, but at the same time we wanted it to have some depth to it. I think that’s the problem with a lot of pop nowadays – a lot of it is really instant, but there’s nothing beyond that. We wanted to do a bit of both!

So…who’s Alvima modeled on?

J: He’s completely fictional! I imagine he has traits of all of us, because we wrote the story, but it wasn’t intentional. It just helped us get all our ideas out, turning it into this person. It starts with a lifeless name, but by the end you’re quite attached to this person and the story you’ve written about them. We might do some more stuff with him…

A follow-up album would be amazing!

J: Well, we’ve written a lot of album two and it has a central character. So, I think it might be the same character – we’ve grown quite attached to him!

You’ve got some great gigs coming up – are you excited to be joining the notorious Blitz Kids on tour in October?

J: Yeah! We’ve toured with them before. We both toured with We The Kings last year. We haven’t actually done that much UK touring this year, so we’re really excited just to get out there and get started!

That tour aside, what’s next for Natives?

J: Like I said, we’re quite far into writing album two and we’ve started recording a little bit. We’re touring with Anberlin next week and we have a few things outside of the UK coming up. But in between all the touring, we kind of just want to get our album done. We kind of want to have it finished by Autumn/winter. We still have to finish writing it and recording it, so that’s kind of what’s taking up most of our time! We do have one more single off Indoor War to come out, but in our spare time we just need to get this second album done!!!

If you could choose anyone, who would you like to tour with and why?

J: Ummmmmm…anyone dead or alive? Jesus Christ!

Actual, Jesus Christ?

J: Yeah! Is there anyone more fascinating to spend time with than the most famous person of all time, regardless of what you believe in?

Do you think he’s musically gifted?

J: He can perform miracles! I just think that would be…would there be anyone more interesting than someone who a whole religion is based on? Pre-crucifixion, obviously.

You could maybe write an album with this in mind…

J: Maybe! There we go – that’s album three done!

Any words for the readers of LMLL?

J: If you haven’t heard of us before, you can check us out for free on Spotify and our YouTube channel has a bunch of free stuff on it. And if you ARE a fan, then thank you for all the support we’ve had this year and with the first album. We think the new album is gonna blow it out the water – so look out for that! Its something completely different and its going to be really cool.

Keep up-to-date with Jack and the band:




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