East India Youth

2013 was quite the year for William Doyle, aka East India Youth. Highly touted by the blogosphere, he delivered on the early promise with the stunning Hostel EP, sending expectation levels for his debut LP – out on the 13th January – sky high. With the music world seemingly at his feet, we called him up pre-Christmas to talk about Total Strife Forever’s long genesis, the demands of playing live, and his New Year Resolutions.

 

Interview by Derek Robertson

 

 

It’s been a pretty meteoric rise for you this year, hasn’t it?

It’s been great, but a lot of years’ work has gone into getting here. I spent a long time working on songs even though most of the time I didn’t really know it was going to turn into an album. But when it did, and I gave it a title, I was really excited. And I’ve made music my full time job, which is ace.

 

What matters the most for you, as a composer, on the album?

I think every song has a very dissonant, almost serene noise to it, but the most important thing for me is the mixture between the instrumental and vocal tracks. It’s an interesting way of skewing it; you don’t see many records where there are more instrumentals than vocal numbers, especially on what’s considered to be a pop album. To me, that makes it the album what it is.

 

Are you looking forward to taking it out on the road?

Yeah, because I haven’t really had a chance to play headline sets yet; I’ve been supporting people for ages. I did a headline gig the other week, and I was able to play pretty much the whole album – doing it in an order that works live was really exciting.

 

Has it been easy to transfer the material to a live setting?

I’ve had a lot of time this year to work out what works and what doesn’t. I’ve hit upon how to get a good amount of dynamics in the set, and it sounds quite full now; it’s really grown as the year has gone on. It’s nerve-wracking playing electronic music live by yourself, especially when I try to be as physical as I can on stage, but you get a good adrenaline boost from it.

 

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Is it quite tiring to play – mentally as well as physically?

After that headline gig I felt really drained, more so than normal. I’d only added a couple more songs than usual, but they were the more intense instrumental numbers, and it took a lot out of me. But I like that it’s emotionally and physically exhausting; if I haven’t sweated enough by the end, I usually think it hasn’t gone very well, and I like to feel like I’ve worked.

 

Are you looking forward to Christmas?

Yeah, I’m going to spend it in London for the second year in a row with my girlfriend. Because I’ve only just finished touring, I haven’t got into the Christmas spirit yet; I need to put some decorations and stuff up. I haven’t even got a tree yet.

 

A real tree or artificial?

In my childhood, I would have said artificial, but real trees are cool even if they are messy as fuck. You get bits everywhere. I want to be in a position where I can get a proper big beast.

 

What makes Christmas, Christmas?

Getting annihilated on booze!

 

That’s not really the traditional festive message! What about family, the presents…

I always find it really relaxing, and it’s just completely blissful from start to finish; my family has never been the type to fight as everyone’s in a really good mood. There’s just an atmosphere to Christmas that you can’t really put your finger on – it’s great, I love it!

 

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Looking ahead to the New Year, are you making any resolutions?

I should probably do more exercise. I used to swim and ride bikes, but I don’t any more, so maybe I should get back into that. There’s probably a lot of things I need to change, but I’m going to go with exercise even though I’m sure I said the same last year. It’s a boring one, but I feel really deflated and tired at the moment, and that might be why.

 

Everyone always says their resolutions are boring, but those are the ones that are important – eat better, quit smoking, drink less…

I won’t be drinking less! If I do more exercise, I won’t have to change other parts of my diet.

 

You should ask for an exercise bike on your rider.

That’s a good idea actually. I could get one on stage, and have one of those headset microphones so I can sing along while pedalling. Or I could power all my gear using it. I’m writing that down and sending it to my manager immediately.

 

We’ve got East India Youth lined up for two shows in the coming month. He’ll be at OT301, Amsterdam with DFA’s Greek multi-instrumentalist Larry Gus on 16 January before the two head north to Groningen for our Eurosonic Day Party at Gallery Sign on the 18th. He’ll also be performing at Eurosonic Festival the same weekend.