With a new album due in January and in the thick of a support tour with Echobelly, indie alternative duo Blue Violet have a lot to be excited about. We caught up with them ahead of their gig at Metronome...
“It’s all systems go!”
Sam Gotley grins as he considers what lies ahead for Blue Violet. The band are in the throes of a tour which will take them the length and breadth of England, into Scotland, and back again as they provide support for the iconic Echobelly.
Sarah Gotley tells me how she deals with the rigours of being on the road. “I always try to be as healthy as possible in the lead up because it is pretty gruelling… If you can be fit and healthy and ready to be lifting lots of things and not sleeping the right amount then that makes it a lot easier. And obviously rehearsing and getting my voice in the best shape, doing a lot of vocal exercises every day.”
“And for me it’s re-learning my guitar parts!” adds Sam.
Sarah and Sam have a long history of making music together, but their focus and style has developed and morphed over time. Under the name Broken Bones Matilda, they were an Americana band, but while an album was in the works, they realised their British identity was becoming more important to them.
“We noticed the music wasn’t American, we’re not American and that wasn’t what we wanted to do anymore,” says Sarah. “Then Covid happened and we had two years to decide.”
The result was Blue Violet and their debut album Late Night Calls, a record which is more indie in style but with folk elements and tinges of that Americana past. Album number two, Faux Animaux, is due to be released on 24th January 2025. I asked Sarah and Sam to talk to me about the new record and their live shows.
“We wrote this album a little bit more with the live show in mind. There’s a bit more energy to some of the songs, faster tempos and I guess slightly heavier sounding guitars in places as well. But I guess we follow what we’re into at the time, and that’s where our instincts have led us really,” says Sam.
That live element of music is something that is obviously very important to the duo.
“It’s very much about the connection that we make with people,” says Sarah. “We feel nothing can really replicate that. Social media is a great way to promote yourselves, but if you can get that backwards and forwards with the audience and really feel them there… and you can also gauge how people respond to certain songs which can be quite unexpected.”
Sam continues: “We love being in a studio as well, but where it’s different to live is when you’re recording you're making something that’s permanent and part of your legacy. And live is very quick – you have an hour or two basically where you’re just doing this thing and it’s electrifying and really connecting with people. There’s space for things to go wrong live which is quite exciting. You have to think on your feet.”
“Once you’ve fallen over on stage a couple of times you learn to accept that it’s going to happen,” laughs Sarah.
On 27th November, Blue Violet will visit Nottingham as part of a tour where they’ll play at Metronome. It’s not their first time in the city.
“I’ve noticed when we’ve played there that it’s been a good reception and also a really good turnout,” Sam says. “We played Rescue Rooms a couple of years ago, an acoustic set. And we also played at this really nice pub when we were Broken Bones Matilda.” That gig was at The Running Horse back in October 2019, where they played alongside Alice Wallace.
“When you go to a city that’s full of music lovers you just feel like they get it. Unfortunately we’re just dropping in and out this time. It’s a travel day after that because the next one is all the way down in Bournemouth. We’d love to return again!”
With headline shows in London and then Scotland in January 2025, it seems there could be space for Blue Violet to make another visit to Nottingham
Blue Violet’s music is very human, drawing liberally on observations of human behaviour. This is the way Sam likes to write and “make sense of things.”
“Even though we’ve got some songs which allude to injustices in the world, it’s not that we’re saying ‘You shouldn’t do this’ or ‘You shouldn’t do that’, it’s more that we’re interested in what is actually happening and the impact that has on you as an individual,” he says.
Sarah’s past as a primary school teacher, with the elements of psychology and sociology that entailed, has also given her a valuable perspective.
“I think we’re both very sensitive to the world in general. We’re people that like to be emotionally intuitive with things, and connect and listen to people… When that occurs, you can gain so much.”
The first song to be released from the album, Barefoot on the Seine, has a strong protest theme and Sarah says there are others on the album which are “kind of observational protest songs”
“Then there’s a running theme about human nature - the ironies of human behaviour and how ridiculous we are sometimes, and how we do things that go very much against our animal instincts and make us regress,” she explains.
Musically the new album Faux Animaux has a more electro feel, with sprinkles of glam, as well as more familiar guitar work. Sam explains how this style emerged.
“That side of things comes out of being interested in instruments I haven’t really played before. I bought a couple of synths and played around with them, and got quite into it, but I was quite aware that we didn’t want it to turn into a synth band so I try to use that sparingly … for most of the album it feels like the glue that ties arrangements together,” he says.
“Also we wanted to be able to go and have fun on stage, and so the new songs kind of reflect that as well,” adds Sarah.
I wonder if the duo have any regrets for moving away from their previous Americana and Country focus, given the resurgence of that influence in pop music recently, but Sarah shakes her head.
“I think you create what you feel like creating at the time. As soon as you start to make stuff that’s influenced by what other people are making or by what you think people want, you detach yourself from it,” she reflects. “So no regrets on that, even though it’s very fashionable now!”
Blue Violet will perform at Metronome on 27th November 2024, supporting Echobelly.
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