Last Wednesday we ventured down to The Rainbow, Birmingham, where we met up with British indie-synth-pop duo Summer Camp for a pre-show chat. “I expected it to look more like an actual Rainbow” commented Elizabeth Sankey, lead singer of tonight’s headline act on this unlikely, out-of-town venue (see video for her full description and diagram).
Summer Camp were born out of a happy accident when multi-instrumentalist Jeremy Warmsley created a fake MySpace page for the pair, posing behind the guise of a Swedish pop-group;
“We started making music together one afternoon just for a laugh…Elizabeth hadn’t really sung much before but we thought it would be fun to record a song…This blog called Transparent picked up on the MySpace page and within two hours we were getting record deal offers…it was really weird”.
Talking about their debut album; Welcome to Condale, the band cite film and television shows from a range of eras as their major influences. This is reflected in the visuals for their live show; a montage of scenes from Jailhouse Rock, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, The Breakfast Club and Footloose amongst others.
On pinpointing a specific era the band’s music is reminiscent of, Jeremy mentions;
“We did get a lot of 80s and chill wave descriptions thrown at us but I think we’re about a bit more than just that…some people say 50s, some say 90s, I think it’s more about a general reaching back and the older you are, the more it seems like it’s from a previous decade.”
Referring to more electronic tracks like I Want You and No One Knows You, Jeremy highlights an interesting basis for their sound;
“Sometimes I would be reading pitchfork and someone would mention Dub or Dub-Step, I’ve never really listened to any Dub-Step but I would kind of base the sound on the descriptions I read”.
Take a listen to the nostalgic Welcome to Condale and see what era it takes you back to.
Like this:
Like Loading...
Tags: Birmingham, Fixers, Summer Camp, The Rainbow
