Something seems to be happening for Manchester four-piece The Last Party – and it’s all come about rather quickly. Their fourth gig found them supporting local heroes The Charlatans, and after only a total of just eleven shows to date, they’ve built up some regional excitement and gained favourable comments from many, including none other than Mr. Johnny Marr. Frontman Liam Manton came by to talk to Live4ever about the music they make and the buzz it is creating.
Got to say that’s some start the band have made. Tell me how on your fourth gig you got asked to support a band like The Charlatans?
We can’t believe how quickly things are progressing for us to be honest – the support and encouragement we’re getting both locally and nationally is pretty overwhelming. I mean we’re only eleven gigs in (as of July 17th) and it feels like we’ve been around forever, it’s exciting.
That gig came about because we were at Jabez Clegg doing our second gig. It was a bit of an after-party for XFM Winter Wonderland which was happening at the Manchester Academy across the road. A few members of The Charlatans, The View, Mystery Jets and local photographer Craig Barker made the journey over to do DJ sets, I guess they must have liked the tunes and remembered our band name.
A month or two later Craig was organising a fund raising event for the MS Society which he’s heavily involved in. The Charlatans were headlining, and I guess through mutual agreement and a bit of luck on our part they decided to give us a chance.
…and how did the gig go?
I think a bit of history was made that night. We were given a platform to showcase our abilities and more importantly to play our songs to a sell out crowd, and the response we got was phenomenal. There was some pretty influential people in the crowd that night, and by all accounts we made a lasting impression. The next day there was a bit of a surge on all our social media stuff, notably we got an email inviting us to play at the Friends of Mine Festival, which featured some of our favourite bands – we couldn’t believe our luck!
So how come the band have made such an impact so quickly, what’s your secret?
It’s probably a standard response you get to this question, but it’s the one that springs to mind first: I’d say we’re definitely four of the hardest working individuals you’ll come across, and collectively, I think our drive, passion, commitment and ambition is starting to come to fruition. Whilst a lot of bands are out propping up bars and telling people how great they are, we’ll be locked away in our practise room – its not uncommon to be walking through the Northern Quarter in Manchester at 9/10am on a Saturday morning and you’ll hear our sounds echoing through the streets from our lock up. That’s testament to how much we want to be doing this – we’re not afraid to put the hours in.
I think another reason why people are starting to talk about us is because of how well the songs are crafted – I think we’ve found a winning formula; we made sure we had a pretty solid bunch of tunes together before we started telling people who we were, we kind of established our sound, and knew what direction we were going in before we booked a gig. So when we did our first gig, people were surprised – word of mouth is a very powerful thing.
…and the band members themselves, did you all know each other before you put The Last Party together?
Sort of yeah – me and Greg kind of always used to bump into each other at gigs and we’d often see each other at club nights and what not before we decided to get a project together – it’s a small world in the confines of a big city.
Adam (bass) was poached from another band who used to play hip hop covers and I’ve been in bands with Daniel (drummer) since I was about 15 – we kind of lost touch for a while but I suppose certain friends you can always ring up.
Really like the three-track demo you lads have put together – ‘A Thousand Smiles’. It has a great Style Council vibe to it, describe for our readers the sound of The Last Party and the tunes you’ve just recorded?
Thanks – When The Style Council were good they were really good – bizarre direction in some of the videos though! I think if you were to quickly analyse our overall sound you could generalise and say it’s a melting pot of Tamla Motown records, The Smiths, Arcade Fire, The Rolling Stones, Phil Spector’s girl groups, The Doors, and The Pet Shop Boys (Stephen Hague era).
I’d say our songs when stripped back to the rawest form of conception (acoustic guitar and keyboard) are really good, succinct pop songs – verse/chorus /verse/chorus – and then we’ll take the sound wherever we feel the song will benefit in terms of strings arrangements, organ/keys, guitar parts, rhythm section etc – but behind it all, there’s a solid foundation.
The three tunes we’ve just recorded are probably three of our more direct songs. If you come to see us live, you’ll also experience more elaborate compositions, in terms of ‘Lights Go Down’ which is a heart-felt love song which could soundtrack anything from the end of the world to the birth of Christ – it’s just a huge monster of a song, it takes me back every time we play it. There’s definitely good depth and variation in our set – I think that’s another reason people are interested too, there’s something for everybody.
‘She’s Infectious’, if we’re picking the sound apart, drifts between The Supremes and The Doors. There’s a real groove going on between the drums and the bass which you’ll get on a lot of Motown records, backed up by a pounding snare. Although there’s some 60s style organ going on, I’d say the song stays faithful to its pop routes.
‘We Could Be Lovers’ - to me this is the ultimate disco love song. Someone at one of our gigs told me it was like Pulp covering The Stooges, which I liked. There’s a bit of a rave style hands in the air moment in there as well – it’s some kind of optimistic love dream.
‘A Thousand Smiles’ – this has always been a favourite of mine, it’s one of the first tunes we wrote. A concert promoter friend of ours said it’s a real festival song – they were probably right. When we played it the FOM festival, there was a touching moment when the people watching us started singing along. I guess it’s one of those songs which is just catchy from the off set – hopefully it can soundtrack a few people’s summers next year.
Are you the chief songwriter in the band Liam? What’s the songwriting process like for you?
No not at all. Me and Greg (keyboards) write the songs together. They’re all generally written in my front room, an idea will develop from either a chord progression, or a keyboard riff and then we’ll club together a bit of instrumental, structure it, work out what sounds we want to have on there, and then we’ll probably spend an hour or two working on the melody.
Once the melody has been sorted, and the songs formed, I’ll usually write some lyrics on the bus to work – and we’ll meet up the next night and pick up where we left off.
I think the reason our songwriting partnership is so fresh, and works well, is because we both have really varied tastes in music – what I listen to, you wouldn’t normally find Greg listening to, and vice versa – it keeps things interesting to have two very contrasting opinions and tastes, but with one common goal.
After making such a great start can you see the band getting signed? What’s Manchester’s music scene like at the moment?
We’re just taking each day as it comes, it seems every week there’s an exciting development in the TLP camp, be it an encouraging email, a celebrity endorsement, or a gig opportunity. Obviously we want to take this thing as far as we can, and as we grow as a band musically and personally, I’d like to think our success emulates it.
The Manchester music scene is a very diverse place, there are lots of ‘pockets’ of talent if you like, some great singer/songwriters, some really good up and coming electronic acts – there’s something for everybody.
Another fan of the band I believe is Johnny Marr?
Yeah, apparently he thinks we’re the ‘brightest light in new music’, which is a real compliment. People like Johnny are an inspiration – he’s created a legend in terms of The Smiths, Electronic, Pet Shop Boys tracks he played on, yet he always seems to be striving for the next new thing and isn’t scared to say he likes something! I love The Smiths; ‘The Queen Is Dead’ is probably one of my all time favourite albums, but I think his work on some of The Cribs stuff is really impressive as well. The guitar riff on ‘We Share The Same Skies’ is probably the best Ive heard from the Marr-ster!. You’ve got to have respect, I’ve invited him via Twitter to come down and play with us – so who knows. Johnny if you’re reading, you’re always welcome mate!
So what’s next for the band? You played the Friends Of Mine Festival earlier this year, any more similar events to play?
Yeah that was amazing; fifth gig and we’re playing at Capesthorne Hall with the likes of The Cribs, The Buzzcocks, The Charlatans – mental. A couple of us had tickets for the festival anyway, and we were planning on just setting up somewhere and playing, so when we got the invite to play…well you can probably imagine!
We’re at the Cock Rock festival this weekend, Sunday, 24th July at 10.30pm – Bar Stage. We’re going down to London on the 13th of August, doing a show in Camden at The Wheelbarrow, which has had some really impressive people on their stage.
To be honest we’ll play anywhere where we’re welcome, we played in Sunderland the other weekend and that was pretty amazing! The promoters have since asked us back too, which is always flattering. I guess we’ll just take whatever comes our way and keep on keeping on!
Check out the EP for yourself over on the band’s official website.
(Carl Stanley)
