Interview: Relics, Lock Tavern

Indie band Relics are ensconced in the corner of a tiny cafe in Soho. Alex is the singer. He and Theo play guitar; James is on bass. Relics have been around for several years but, as Alex says, they haven’t done much—that is, until now. They recently recorded an EP and last week they played their first gig. 

They’re in their infancy, but Relics show promise: playing on stage comes naturally to them, at least judging by last week’s gig. Perhaps Relics’ performance was inspired by their new song: Ease is awash in reverb and echoey vocals. It’s an accomplished example of the shoegaze genre (although Relics often play faces tilting upwards, eyes closed).  

It's early days yet - but do Relics seem like fledgling rock stars? It doesn't look like it. On this drizzly Sunday afternoon, the most rock’n’roll the band gets is when they fall out over a question inquiring how rock’n’roll they are.

James: "It’s a silly question."

Alex: "It’s a lovely question."

James: "Alex just used the word lovely, that’s how rock’n’roll we are."

Evidently, you won’t see Relics invoking the gods of rock as they leave broken hearts and furniture in their wake—they’re much too polite for that. If they’re not exactly rock’n’roll, though, then neither are they dullards. The band was inactive for a few years because they were all at university (one went to Oxford, one is currently doing his masters).

And in this cafe, they practically fizz with ready wit and humour. Asked about his background, Theo, who is snub-nosed and straight-faced, says, "My background is heavy metal and being in the wrong crowd."

To describe how they write their music, they use apt, bite-sized phrases and elaborate imagery. Theo likens their process to a “a communal feast. You’ve got a carcass.” 

James: “Everyone brings their own side salads.”

Alex: “Their own halloumi and shit.”

Theo: “We put the salads onto the carcass and it just becomes an exquisite corpse if you will.”

For the layman, this means their approach relies on “experimentation with our instruments and ideas,” according to Theo. Alex adds: “A riff or a melody will come to one of us—a happy accident—then after that, we think everything out to make that accident work.” 

Relics are a smart crew, but they wear their cleverness lightly. In contrast, discussion about their ‘look’—do they have one? should they have one?—weighs more heavily on the mind.  

“We wear a lot of black and blue,” says Theo. “I wear whatever’s comfortable,” says Alex. “For instance, I wore trainers to the show last week."

‘We wear what we wear,’ says James, with an air of finality. They all wear skinny jeans.

Almost inescapably for the shoegazers, footwear played a role in bringing the band together. A couple of years ago, James and Theo met on a night out at The Old Blue Last, the Shoreditch pub and venue run by Vice Media. Shoes were complimented. Friendship blossomed.

Our abiding impression is that Relics have an ear for a good phrase. As they think up an adequate description of their music, the trio revert to imagery. Relics’ music sounds like “a hot wind filled with diamond particles that cut your face” (James) and “loud molten gold” (Theo). Or else it’s “thick, gold, shiny” (Theo), but “not in a Kanye West way,” Alex interjects. “It’s pretty noise,” he says.

You can witness all the thick, shiny, pretty noise when Relics play Camden's Lock Tavern on 20 December, Dalston's Birthdays on 21 December. Both gigs free. 

Both gigs free.