Prides

Hey, how are you doing?
I'm good! We're in Manchester right now, upstairs in the Albert Hall. It's wicked. I've not been in here before so I'm looking forward to playing tonight. It's a bit bigger than the venues we played last month...

Tell us about Prides...
We try and do honest, anthemic, synth pop party tunes. We're not far off.

You've recently released latest single, Higher Love. Can you tell us more about it?
It was a track that we started writing after we had been out playing live a little bit. We all had such a good time and we wanted to create a song that people could get involved with and be engaged with, especially when we would perform it live. The seed of the song came from trying to have that big anthemic sing-along kind of moment... lyrically, most of our tracks are about self-doubt and love and all those cringey things...

So your lyrics are coated in self-doubt, but the music itself seem to be the complete opposite of that...
That's one of the things I really like. I name-drop them all the time but The Cure, one of my favourite bands, they kill that. The idea of having those big, uplifting pop tunes which are filled with despair. It's a weird juxtaposition but I really love it.

Why does Higher Love have two music videos?
Ha ha! Well, it's because the official video got held up. Zane Lowe was premièring the single on Radio 1 as a future exclusive, so we really wanted to have the song somewhere for people to listen to it. The idea was that we'd have the official video out by then... but we didn't. So we decided to make our own lyric video. We spent the day messing about in Glasgow and it turned out all right! It's a bit tongue in cheek, we hate taking things too seriously so it's just us having a laugh. 

You've been doing a lot of sessions on the radio recently, playing stripped back versions of your songs (particularly Higher Love and Out Of The Blue). Do you prefer those versions, or the originals?
I quite like both, to be honest. They're completely different, but it's like how we spoke about the tunes being really uplifting and how you strip it back it exposes those other elements a little bit more. It can be quite nice, especially because that's how I usually write lyrics, just sat at the piano. It's nice just to go back to that sometimes.



Do you have any news on your début album?
It's coming! That's the news. We're in talks at the moment to nail down a release date so, fingers crossed, before the summer it will be in people's hands.

Whenever a band says “before the summer”, it usually means September.
That's kind of how we think about it too! That's why I have to prefix everything with “hopefully...”

Are you excited about your tour with Kiesza?
We're really looking forward to it. All the venues we're playing in are really big and iconic sort of places. I think it's going to be really, really good fun. We love Kiesza, too. We saw her play at the MTV EMAs in Glasgow and she was amazing. We've just been watching her dancers get ready and they're just incredible. It's gonna kick off!

If you could cover one of Kiesza's tracks, which one would you pick?
Oh, god. Um. We actually just did a remix of Cut Me Loose, and we'll be releasing that this week. So that's our Prides slant on her music. I don't think I'd dare to do a straight cover, it's too risky. Remixes are fine, though.

If you could go on tour with anyone, who would it be?
Living or dead?

I hope they're alive, or it'd be a very different show...
That's true. We could have a 2Pac hologram... Okay, I think The Killers have got to be up there, for us. That kind of band have just got that synth anthem stuff on such a massive scale. Or McBusted! That'd be the dream. I was having the best time when I saw them in Glasgow the other week.

When you ran out of wine on the last tour, you demanded assistance from a 'Wine Tech'. Have you got one of those yet?
Ah, we've had to drop the Wine Tech. But we're working up to it! We're aiming for one Wine Tech each, then we'll be sorted.

To someone who hasn't seen you perform live before, what should they expect on this tour with Kiesza?
I guess we just try and make sure everyone is involved and having a good time, more than anything. We're in a band so that we can have a good time, so it feels selfish to not share that!

You played at the Bodega in Nottingham last month, now you're at Rock City. Have you ever played there before?
I've never even been in Rock City before. But I'm really looking forward to it. I've heard so any good things about that venue so I think it's gonna be cool.

Prides support Kiesza at Rock City on Wednesday 25 March 2015. 

Prides website