Giveaway and Interview: Spring Offensive at Magnet
Image by Alexa Gibben
Spring Offensive are currently on their biggest headline tour to date, touring Germany, Belgium, Switzerland and Italy after releasing their latest single Not Drowning But Waving which is available on 7″ at their shows.
In November they will play two shows in Berlin as well as two very secret living room shows. In the middle of all of this we had the chance to interview the band.
Blitzgigs.de is giving away 2×2 tickets for the Spring Offensive show at Magnet on Nov 2.
To grab the tickets send an email to winwinwin@blitzgigs.de with the answer to the following question:
What city are Spring Offensive from?
How did you come up with the name Spring Offensive?
It’s the title of a Wilfred Owen poem. It just seemed to really connect with us.
Your music is quite different from the indie mainstream out there and you seem to draw from many different musical influences. Can you name a few?
We listen to all sorts of music, often just a song by a band, or a particular album. We don’t tend to follow bands, just individual records. The album that most influenced us growing up is Kick Up The Fire And Let The Flames Break Loose by The Cooper Temple Clause. That was the first record we shared group love for. We should probably go back and listen to it again. Another is Horses in the Sky by A Silver Mt. Zion. The band’s history is punctuated by falling in love with a new record and listening to it to death. Right now, in the van, we’re listening to Peter & Kerry, Mammal Club, Dan Croll and Everything Everything. Pretty varied!
You’ve been touring Europe a lot, what’s been your favourite place so far?
We couldn’t possibly pick one. However, the Swiss do ply us with a lot of cheese. It’s the way to our heart. We’ve had an amazing time going to countries that we’ve never been to before as a band. We feel incredibly lucky to have the opportunity to meet new fans and visit new places. We can’t get enough of throwing TVs out of foreign hotel rooms. Doing it at home doesn’t quite have the same effect.
Your latest single Not Drowning But Waving deals with guilt felt over the suicide of a friend. The song and video are very intense – is it based on a true story?
It’s based loosely on a poem, Not Waving But Drowning by Stevie Smith. It’s interesting that you interpret it like that – it isn’t about suicide at all. It’s about the guilt of leaving a stranger to drown. But you can take from it what you will.
What does your songwriting process look like, do the lyrics come first or the music?
Usually the idea comes first, then the lyrics, and then the music. And then the idea gets changed. Then the music. Then the lyrics. And when someone tells us to stop, the song is finished. So what does it look like? Pretty ugly and ill-disciplined, frustrating and time-consuming. But if it ends up sounding good, then that’s all that matters. Don’t you worry about us.
There are quite a few independent bands from the Oxford area at the moment (for instance Gunning For Tamar, The Scholars, Stornoway). What’s the Oxford scene like and how is it different from bigger scenes such as London?
Obviously the sense of community is stronger in Oxford than in London, but that’s relative and due to size. If you take pockets of London that are equivalent in size to Oxford, they have equally beautiful and supportive music scenes. For instance, there’s an amazing DIY punk scene in Hackney at the moment. Oxford isn’t an exception. Liverpool, Leeds, Brighton; all these places have amazing scenes, which you just need to dig a bit to find. London has them too, but it’s drowned out by the overall noise. We all live in London now anyway. But that’s for practicality’s sake, rather than a creative decision.
Can we expect a full length by Spring Offensive soon?
We’re working on it. Touring is not an easy period to write in. But there’s a lot of exciting stuff we’re chewing over. Hopefully next year. Late summer maybe. Don’t quote us on that.
Where do you see yourselves in 5 years?
Sometimes it’s hard to work out where you’ll be in 5 hours time. Planning beyond the next few months doesn’t work for us. As demonstrated by the previous answer.
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