Soundtrack Of Their Lives: Navvy
Artist:
Navvy
We at DIY are a curious bunch. We want to know what makes musicians tick and what brought them to their current role. We'll be aiming to bring to you the tracks which helped shape the music you listen to, what gems are uncovered, what crimes are admitted to – we'll be bringing you the 'Soundtrack Of Their Lives'.
Sheffield-based quartet Navvy released their '4 Songs By Navvy' EP on 31st March, featuring - as one might expect - four songs. So we decided to ask the band to come up with four songs for their Soundtrack of their Lives. And, as it's a well-known, almost scientific fact that bands never agree on anything, they've given us one each.
Keith ('vox and bass'): The biggest influence on me as a bass player comes from my previous band Texas Pete. I joined as a replacement to their original bassist - so I never had anything to do with writing the bass parts - and, having never played an instrument, I was right in the thick of things as soon I joined.
We were basically a surf band, but James, the songwriter, was a real eccentric, and the songs were too. They'd all have odd time changes, and weird fiddly bits thrown in. On top of that, they were always played really fast, too!
There was an especially tricky one called 'Shoot Your Load'. I jumped for joy when I nailed that one, 'cause I knew things couldn't possibly get much harder to play than that. And they didn't! The band split!
After the split up, I had three or four proper bass lessons. I stopped going as soon as my teacher started talking about playing 'slap', but I'd gotten him to teach me a few bass lines to songs by A Certain Ratio and Delta 5.
Armed with what I'd taken on board with Texas Pete, and what I'd learned at my few lessons, I started composing my own songs for the first time.
As no one outside of Sheffield is going to know who Texas Pete were - I'm going to cheat and mention a second influential song - 'Don't Worry About The Government' by Talking Heads.
David Byrne, and his ideas about what made suitable subjects for pop songs, inspired me to write 'My New Building', 'Time', 'Spaces' and 'Navvy'. I don't like 'big' subjects, so when I realised I could write about fairly mundane things (the built environment, time management, personal space and work), I quickly wrote the lyrics and bass parts to the songs mentioned above, and got to thinking about asking Claire to come along to listen to them.
Daf ('the guitar'): When I was in University the only other guy who was into music made me tapes with names like 'three chords and some shouting' and 'same old shit' of all these bands I'd never even heard of: Pixies, Alice Donut, Minor Threat, seBADoh, Make Up and... Wire. Needless to say my tiny mind was blown. Wire were like all the punk I liked - but different. Such short songs, simple but arty and even tuneful.
I fairly much infuriated the same guy by my inability to play my guitar properly, only able to play fast, single notes, so finally he wrote out the chords to most of 'Pink Flag' with the heading 'LEARN TO PLAY CHORDS, YOU TWAT'. So I did.
And as for the moment I heard the Velvet Underground's 'The Gift' and realised one of the members was Welsh...
Marie ('the drum kit'): I saw Interpol before I heard them because they were supporting someone else and I thought they were ace, so I bought their album. The first song, 'Untitled', is probably my favourite, and when I listened to it, I thought it might be something I could play. I took up the drums and learnt how to play the basic drum beats and formed a band, (previous to Navvy), shortly after that. Following my move to Sheffield, I met Claire who had seen me play the drums in another band. She asked me if I'd like to join Navvy as a percussionist and the rest is history!
Claire ('keys, percussion and vox'): When i was a young and innocent schoolgirl, I bought the Velvet Underground and Nico album from Fopp because i liked the big banana on the front. I also liked the fact that my mother had said not to buy it as "that Andy Warhol is awful". 'Sunday Morning' was the first song i played, and at the risk of sounding very cliched, my life was changed! I'd never heard anything like the dirty fuzzy sound coming out of my speakers before, it made me weak at the knees! I also loved the fact that the drummer was a woman and that she never played 'too much', relying on simple repetitive pounding drum rhythms , something i found really effective and always try and replicate in whatever instrument i'm playing . That was the first piece of vinyl i ever owned and is still my most treasured!
This Is Fake DIY
Navvy MySpace
We at DIY are a curious bunch. We want to know what makes musicians tick and what brought them to their current role. We'll be aiming to bring to you the tracks which helped shape the music you listen to, what gems are uncovered, what crimes are admitted to – we'll be bringing you the 'Soundtrack Of Their Lives'.
Sheffield-based quartet Navvy released their '4 Songs By Navvy' EP on 31st March, featuring - as one might expect - four songs. So we decided to ask the band to come up with four songs for their Soundtrack of their Lives. And, as it's a well-known, almost scientific fact that bands never agree on anything, they've given us one each.
Keith ('vox and bass'): The biggest influence on me as a bass player comes from my previous band Texas Pete. I joined as a replacement to their original bassist - so I never had anything to do with writing the bass parts - and, having never played an instrument, I was right in the thick of things as soon I joined.
We were basically a surf band, but James, the songwriter, was a real eccentric, and the songs were too. They'd all have odd time changes, and weird fiddly bits thrown in. On top of that, they were always played really fast, too!
There was an especially tricky one called 'Shoot Your Load'. I jumped for joy when I nailed that one, 'cause I knew things couldn't possibly get much harder to play than that. And they didn't! The band split!
After the split up, I had three or four proper bass lessons. I stopped going as soon as my teacher started talking about playing 'slap', but I'd gotten him to teach me a few bass lines to songs by A Certain Ratio and Delta 5.
Armed with what I'd taken on board with Texas Pete, and what I'd learned at my few lessons, I started composing my own songs for the first time.
As no one outside of Sheffield is going to know who Texas Pete were - I'm going to cheat and mention a second influential song - 'Don't Worry About The Government' by Talking Heads.
David Byrne, and his ideas about what made suitable subjects for pop songs, inspired me to write 'My New Building', 'Time', 'Spaces' and 'Navvy'. I don't like 'big' subjects, so when I realised I could write about fairly mundane things (the built environment, time management, personal space and work), I quickly wrote the lyrics and bass parts to the songs mentioned above, and got to thinking about asking Claire to come along to listen to them.
Daf ('the guitar'): When I was in University the only other guy who was into music made me tapes with names like 'three chords and some shouting' and 'same old shit' of all these bands I'd never even heard of: Pixies, Alice Donut, Minor Threat, seBADoh, Make Up and... Wire. Needless to say my tiny mind was blown. Wire were like all the punk I liked - but different. Such short songs, simple but arty and even tuneful.
I fairly much infuriated the same guy by my inability to play my guitar properly, only able to play fast, single notes, so finally he wrote out the chords to most of 'Pink Flag' with the heading 'LEARN TO PLAY CHORDS, YOU TWAT'. So I did.
And as for the moment I heard the Velvet Underground's 'The Gift' and realised one of the members was Welsh...
Marie ('the drum kit'): I saw Interpol before I heard them because they were supporting someone else and I thought they were ace, so I bought their album. The first song, 'Untitled', is probably my favourite, and when I listened to it, I thought it might be something I could play. I took up the drums and learnt how to play the basic drum beats and formed a band, (previous to Navvy), shortly after that. Following my move to Sheffield, I met Claire who had seen me play the drums in another band. She asked me if I'd like to join Navvy as a percussionist and the rest is history!
Claire ('keys, percussion and vox'): When i was a young and innocent schoolgirl, I bought the Velvet Underground and Nico album from Fopp because i liked the big banana on the front. I also liked the fact that my mother had said not to buy it as "that Andy Warhol is awful". 'Sunday Morning' was the first song i played, and at the risk of sounding very cliched, my life was changed! I'd never heard anything like the dirty fuzzy sound coming out of my speakers before, it made me weak at the knees! I also loved the fact that the drummer was a woman and that she never played 'too much', relying on simple repetitive pounding drum rhythms , something i found really effective and always try and replicate in whatever instrument i'm playing . That was the first piece of vinyl i ever owned and is still my most treasured!
This Is Fake DIY
Navvy MySpace
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