April Towers

February 2015

Within just over an hour of uploading it to the BBC Introducing website, April Towers’ first single, Arcadia, was being played by Fearne Cotton on her Radio 1 show.
And it threw the Nottingham synth-pop duo into a spin.
“It was just a coincidence that it was BBC Introducing day,” says Charlie Burley, of the BBC initiative which helps unsigned artists get national radio airplay.
Anyone can put tracks forward  using the BBC Introducing Uploader, which is monitored locally by Dean Jackson at BBC Radio Nottingham.
“Dean was going to play it on The Beat that Saturday but then he called us to say it had been heard by Huw Stephens,” he says of the Radio 1 presenter who is in charge of BBC Introducing at the station.
“And he said it was going to be played on Fearne Cotton’s show that morning.”
Charlie, who was born in West Bridgford, grew up in Southwell but now lives in Mapperley Park, formed April Towers from the ashes of acclaimed Nottingham band Frontiers, with Alex Noble from Wysall.
“We had a break from music, got our heads together and decided we were both going to do solo projects,” says Charlie.
“The idea for April Towers was initially Alex’s solo project. But he sent me a vocal demo that he’d recorded on his iPhone for a track called Tel Aviv and I really liked it. I asked if I could turn it into a proper track.
“That was the first track we uploaded to Soundcloud in the summer of 2013 and it really took off. People were asking us when we were playing live - but we only had one track. So we spent the first few months palming people off.
“But that was the point we started taking it seriously.”
The name comes from a friend of Alex who was trying to saying ‘April showers’.
Says Alex: “It was someone I worked with who’d had a few. And it just stuck with me. I Googled the name and the only April Towers that came up were a few girls in the Deep South of America.
“It’s important to have a name that no-one else has and it has been a big source of discussion. Although some people think we are a female solo act,” he laughs.
Although fundamentally a synth pop act, there are traces of their days with Frontiers.
Says Charlie: “We’ve brought in a lot of indie elements; there are lots of guitars on our tracks, so that takes it away from being purely electronic music.”
Both play guitars and keys, Alex is the main singer with Charlie backing during live shows. And they’ve introduced a drummer for gigs after using a drum machine in the past.
They’d been together just over a year before the Radio 1 airplay last October.
“It triggered a lot of interest,” says Charlie.
“It’s been pretty crazy ever since.”
As well as support slots with Kyla La Grange and a BBC Introducing gig for Club NME at Koko in London last month (where Huw Stephens was the DJ), their second single, No Corruption, has been playlisted on Radio 1.
“Huw’s been playing it for a while, but last week it was played on virtually every Radio 1 show: Fearne Cotton, Greg James, Alice Levine and Scott Mills, who announced on air that he was a real fan and did an impression of the vocals, which was pretty surreal,” says Charlie.
He adds: “We’ve had so many more followers on Twitter and likes on Facebook, even people from Europe.”
The single is released digitally on Monday, followed by physical copies in March. To celebrate they’ve produced their own beer.
“We thought April Towers sounded like an ale,” says Charlie.
“We’re very much into our beer so we contacted Castle Rock.
The bottled beer, 5%, is now on sale at Saltwater and Alex’s local The Plough in Wysall.
He adds: “We also sent Scott Mills a few. We had 15 cases and we’re down to just two. Alex has drunk quite a bit of it. I’ve only had three bottles.”

For more about April Towers follow them on Twitter: @April_Towers.

Indiana

October 2014

JUST five years ago she was a struggling single mum, scraping a living together for her and her son by working in a T-shirt printing shop.
Her dad had committed suicide, her mum and two sisters had moved away.
Lauren Henson was alone.
One lunchtime, she nipped into a smoothie bar in her home town of Loughborough, and met the man who would turn her life around.
“It sounds cheesy, I know, but it was love at first sight,” says Lauren Henson, better known as rising Nottingham music star Indiana.
“We couldn’t breath, he was dropping things... we couldn’t get out of each other’s heads.”
The 27-year-old is sat in Suede Bar in the Lace Market, co-owned by her boyfriend, who also, coincidentally, runs a T-shirt company.
As well as moving her and her son Harvey, now 6, to Long Eaton, James Alexander encouraged her to pursue her passion for music.
He entered her for the annual Future Sound of Nottingham competition in 2012, the winner of which would open the main stage at Splendour in Wollaton Park.
She made the semi-final, held in the Old Market Square, in April of that year - her first live performance.
Despite obvious nerves, other local musicians, music writers and Splendour boss George Akins, were blown away by her dark electronic pop. To reach the final, Indiana needed votes but as an unknown artist, she didn’t have the fan base to put her there.
No matter, she would play the final at Rock City anyway, as a special guest, such was the belief in this fresh music talent.
Since then she has signed to major record label Sony, played all the major music festivals, including Glastonbury, had her first Top 20 single, Solo Dancing, and played an intimate show at Radio 1’s Live Lounge with Irish chart-toppers The Script - in front of The Queen.
It was a one-song performance, of David Bowie’s Heroes and included her singing the line “and I will be Queen”.
She laughs: “I was told not to look at her when I sang that line. But I was so focussed on not looking at her, my eyes were darting around the room and they hit her a couple of times.”
HRH was on a tour of the BBC’s new Broadcasting House in London and Indiana’s three minutes were screened live on BBC News 24.
“She’s well sweet and little,” says Indiana, who was introduced to her afterwards.
“She reminded me of my grandma Mary.”
That was last year, a year that also saw her make her Glastonbury debut and play the main stage at Splendour, while heavily pregnant with second child, Etta.

This year she has been regularly playlisted and interviewed on Radio 1, had a No. 14 single, played summer festivals such as Reading and Leeds, Bestival and Nottingham’s No Tomorrow in Wollaton Park and finished her debut album, No Romeo, released this month.
So how does she combine motherhood and a music career?
“It’s been hard, this summer especially, because of all the festivals. After Bestival on the Isle of Wight, I got home at 4.30am and had to be up at 7am to prepare for Etta’s first birthday party,” says Indiana, a lean 5 ft 11 with model looks and tattoos snaking down her left arm.
James, who inspired her growing collection of tattoos, isn’t a stay at home dad as he has three businesses to run, including Suede Bar, three smoothie bars and the T-shirt company Some Kind Of Nature, which Indiana often wears for gigs and social media photos.
“He’ll kill me,” she says, realising she’s forgotten to wear a branded T-shirt for today’s photo shoot.
“We’re lucky that my mum has moved in to our house to help out with Harvey and Etta,” she says, returning to the childcare issue.
“She’s retired and she wanted to do it but she’s looking to buy a house so she won’t be there for much longer.”
Her mum and dad separated when she was six.
“I saw him every day and I was extremely close to him but I didn’t find out he was ill until I was 14 or 15,” she admits.
“He was a paranoid schizophrenic. My childhood is a very confusing place because there were two sides to him. He could be very loving and caring and a really fun dad to be around. But then he’d say some really confusing things to me.
“A young girl from our town had been murdered and the last person to see her alive had the same name as my dad. The police told him that they knew it wasn’t him but he invented this whole thing that he had killed this girl. He’d tell me that he was a bad man and a murderer.
“Even when they caught the guy who did it, he’d carry on saying that and I’d scream at him ‘what is wrong with you, you didn’t do it!’ It was very confusing. Very weird.
“He attempted to kill himself six times and I witnessed it. He stabbed himself in the stomach and we had to take him to hospital.
“He eventually killed himself because he thought me and my sisters would get bullied because of him.”
After that her mum moved away. Her older sisters, Joanne and Nicola, had already moved to Hampshire and London.
She became pregnant by a childhood friend.
Indiana admits that she went off the rails after her dad’s death, although she believes she was always off the rails until she found music.
“I was ungrounded, going from job to job, fixating on fitness or partying too hard or yo yo dieting... there was something I always had to focus on. Sometimes bad things. When I found music, I found peace. I have an addictive personality... I’m just glad that I’m addicted to something healthy.”
Early musical favourites included Marilyn Manson.
“I had a poster of him on the wall next to my bed right where my pillow was and I used to kiss it,” she laughs.
“What a weirdo!”

She adds: “I was a greb. I went through a bit of a bit of goth stage but reverted back to being a greb. I was into metal, punk and ska. I didn’t used to wash my hair, I’d wear baggy trousers... and I’d stink,” she laughs.
She didn’t make to the trip over the border to Rock City to see gigs though because she had a baby at home, whose dad is still very much a part of his life.
“Harvey’s heard me on the radio and he comes to rehearsals, so he’s getting it,” she says.
“He misses me when I’m away, as does Etta, but sometimes I see them more than the average mum because I can be at home for long periods.”
That won’t be the case this month when the album is released. There’ll be promotional duties to do followed by a UK tour that includes a home coming in November with a date at the Rescue Rooms.
She admits: “I’m the most contented and grounded and happiest I’ve ever been.”


No Romeo is released on October 13. Indiana plays the Rescue Rooms on November 7. Tickets are £10, call 0845 413 4444 or go to alt-tickets.co.uk.

Dog Is Dead

October 2011

A NOTTINGHAM band could soon be snapping at the heels of music’s biggest stars in the UK charts.

Dog Is Dead today released their first single for Atlantic Records, one of the world’s biggest record labels.

The West Bridgford indie-pop quintet signed to the label, home to Plan B, Bruno Mars and Ed Sheeran, earlier this year.

Hands Down was recorded at the famous RAK studios in London and today went on sale in shops across the UK and through all the key download sites.

But singer and songwriter Rob Milton is cautious about being over optimistic.

“We are confident we can get in the chart but we’re talking about the top 150, which would be ridiculous for a band at the stage we are at,” said the 20-year-old.

“We don’t want to push it too hard, we just want to see how people react to it.”

The band have already released three singles on their own Your Childhood record label. Glockenspiel Song, Young and River Jordan have been played on Radio 1, Radio 2 and BBC 6 Music. They’ve also been featured in the NME, appeared at Glastonbury and even had a small role in the Channel 4 teen drama Skins.

“Even though we’ve been doing this for three years, getting signed to Atlantic felt like the start. And this single is really a first step. It’s not going to get to number one but we want to steadily build our fanbase.”

Rob met Joss Van Wilder (keyboards) and Lawrence ‘Trev’ Cole (bass/sax) at West Bridgford School. They formed Dog Is Dead with Paul Roberts (guitar) in 2008. Drummer Daniel Harvey joined this year.

“I wanted to make a song with a Motown feel that had a really positive message,” he says of Hands Down, which will be included on their first album for Atlantic, expected in the Spring.

“We’re still working on the songs for that,” said Rob.

“It’s a bit of a free-for-all at the moment which is quite exciting.”

They recently supported Bombay Bicycle Club on tour.

“That was probably the time of our lives,” he said.

“We were playing to two or three thousand people every night. The crowds reacted to us amazingly well.”

Dog Is Dead will play the main stage at Rock City in December, the biggest gig by a homegrown band in decades.

“It feels like it’s going to be a big show, not just for us but for Nottingham.”

Local music champions Nusic have been running a competition for an unsigned Nottingham band to open the gig.

“This is a life-changing opportunity for any musician serious about pursuing their musical dream,” said Nusic’s Mark Del, who will be choosing a shortlist tonight along with a panel of judges.

Added Rob: “We just want someone who is really entertaining. I wouldn’t necessarily want a Dog Is Dead tribute band.”

Dog Is Dead are leading the charge for the local music scene which has seen the likes of Jake Bugg, Ronika, Liam Bailey and Spotlight Kid gain national attention on the radio and in the press.

Dog Is Dead, who were signing limited edition seven inch vinyl copies of the single at Fopp yesterday, play Rock City on Saturday December 17.

Tickets are £7.50 from the venue, call 0845 413 4444 or go to www.alt-tickets.co.uk.

Hands Down is available at all record shops and to download through iTunes and other websites. The video for the single is available at dogisdead.co.uk.