Hi, Haus! How are you? First off, could you briefly introduce yourselves?
Hi there, we’re the HAUS lads, we are Jack Bushell, singer, Ashley Mulimba, guitar, Lyle Simpson, drums, Ellis Mortimer, bass, Daniel Hylton Nuamar, also on Guitar, and Sam Kelly, guitar.
The word ‚Haus’ means something like ‚home’ or ‚house’ in german. What’s the story behind the band name?
Good question actually, well we the boys and I were doing a bit of soul searching in Morocco, in the Summer of ’10, and whilst stopping in Marrakech we were having a cuppa tea with a shamen, and mid-conversation, he entered this trance, absolutely overcome with shamanic verve. We kept trying to snap him out of it, and Sam even threw tea in his face to rouse him, but nothing would suffice. So about 40 minutes later we’re all sat about, waitig for him to snap out of it, he was riding the astral plain to ecstasy, when suddenly he woke up and whispered ‘House’. After that we decided we’de call the band HAUS, and spell it in german as to not confuse it with the Hugh Laurie show of the same name. We get asked that a lot actually, and the story is pretty dull, so we’re gonna invent new ones for every interview we do.
If you had to describe the band in a couple of words, what would they be?
Cocky, charming, sickly-sweet.
In your band description you say that you want ‚cuddle your fans with your music’. Could you tell us more about that?
We’re very social people, so we kind of find it strange transitioning from the social to the performance, so we like to engage in our audience. We’re very much about stage presence and not creating this theatrical wall of seriousness between the audience and us. What I’m trying to say is we shy away from clichés and generally taking ourselves too seriously.
Who or what influences your sound?
To be honest we all listen to a lot of hip hop, house and techno. Some of us in the band really don’t listen to indie at all, its just what happens to come out most prominently when we make music, if we all listened to indie, then our music would be too uniformed, we like to think our six-combined tastes diversify our output, if that makes sense?
You often get compared to bands like The Maccabees or Foals, right? Do you listen to this kinds of bands a lot?
I think all of us at some point in our formative years had respective Maccabees and Foals ‘phases’. We’re still fans, we still follow that and we look back on those phases very fondly indeed, but like a lot of indie bands we like to keep progressing with our tastes, keeping an open mind. And ear. Open ears.
What’s your favourite release of the year so far?
Great question, well, a few of us really enjoyed Kanye West’s ‘Yeezus’ when it first came out, but I think if theres one unifying album its most probably ‘Overgrown’ by James Blake, we were playing that for a good month or two.
If you weren’t in a band what would you be doing?
Jack would be finishing his studies and pursuing a career in T.V, so pretty much what he’s doing already, Ashley would probably be at uni and the boys would be carrying on their full time jobs, and session musician-ing. We’ve only been together 18 months if you think about it so its not quite got to the stage where we’re arranging our 5-year plans around it, but we’re taking everything as each day comes
You’re still unsigned, right? Do you consider it as an advantage or a disadvantage?
Definitely an advantage at the moment because we’re all about building a fan-base first and not being completely reliant on a label, but in the future it goes without saying that it would be an advantage, our music has quite a wide, catchy, sugar-sweet appeal and we like to focus on aesthetics aswell so we’re definitely eager to be heard by as many people as possible
What can we expect from you in the future?
The future of HAUS is definitely going to be more consistent shows outside London, hopefully some festivals and definitely a release on the horizon. I hope we haven’t ruined the mystery of it all by telling you all that!
Is there any chance that we’ll get to see you in Europe soon?
We’re not so sure yet, theres been talk of Oslo, and Hamburg, but certain decisions being made in the coming weeks will begin to definitely move things in that direction. That’s all we’re saying.
And then, last but not least, what’d you call a perfect Friday night?
Cheers for the interview, it’s been a pleasure! Perfect Friday night for us would be going for a pint in our favourite pub, the Defectors Weld in Shepards Bush, and then either going to see a band play or going out and finding a club. That said, some of our best nights have been when we finish a gig, get a few pints in, get some Boris bikes out, and cycle the night away.
Cheers for the interview, it’s been a pleasure!
The pleasure was all ours darling, catch you in a bit.
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Yannick