Yak at SXSW 2016 (Photo: Paul Bachmann for Live4ever Media)
Introduce yourselves and describe your talents…
I sing and play guitar, and attempt to hit a keyboard occasionally, my name’s Oli. I’m Elliott, I play drums. I’m Leo on bass.
Where are you from?
I’m (Oli) from Wolverhampton.
We met in England; Oli grew up with Andy, who’s the old bassist, and I (Elliott) met them over in England. Andy had to shoot off…
Tell us about your first experience with music.
(Oli): I remember Elvis being the first thing, the comeback and all the movies. Being a kid and thinking, ‘is he actually a real person? Is he an alien?’. We used to play in Wolverhampton, down the local pubs and stuff, that was the first time we started playing, or I started playing. Go down the local pubs, they’d be playing generic music.
How did you get together?
(Oli): I had access to a basement, I had some friends bands. I hadn’t played for ages, I was just buying and selling stuff and trying to get by. I just went down there and started setting stuff up and before you know it I’m not working, I’m just playing down there. As I was like, ‘it’d be good to play a gig’, because I did miss it. Andy’s been a friend since we were five years old, he was like ‘shall we have a bash’ – he usually played guitar but he played bass, four strings, I played some guitar and sang. And then met Elliott at a party, he played drums and was interested in playing so we got together and it sounded good. To be honest, we never had any ambition or anything; someone just asked if we wanted to support their band. We played some songs, then met a sound guy who wanted to record us, it’s been pretty effortless really.
Is there something that you’re setting out to accomplish with the band?
We’re just here for the ride. Just enjoying it, we’re fortunate being part of it and also being on the sidelines for so long looking in, to have a chance to get in amongst it, play gigs, have the money to travel here, it’s amazing. And that’s why we’re just thinking, ‘let’s see what happens’. If tomorrow we wake up and we don’t want to do it, we won’t do it. Just doing it on our own terms – the record was done like that.
Live4ever:
Rock n’ roll, it doesn’t seem too hard does it? Hammer out out three chords, put on some distortion, play like you’re starting a revolution. The revolution hasn’t been televised yet, but Yak have been raising the ceiling of the underground with their fierce, unapologetic, no-holds-barred approach to rock n’ roll.
Recent single ‘Habour The Feeling’ is a roaring, blistering wall of noise where bass leads the charge as Elliot Rawson relentlessly pounds out a hammering beat. The heavy, smoldering undercurrent will remind some of noise garage rock luminaries Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, but Oli Burslem’s melodic riffs are tinged with a lithe 60’s psychedelia that cuts through the pandemonium.
