Meet Beth and Joe, she’s from down south and he’s from up north and together they both bring something to the music drawing board. Adam Humphries catches up with this talented Duo and talks about their musical inspirations, hurdles, future plans, and more…
Their origins began in very much a similar way to that of other artists; get together whilst studying, play some gigs, obtain a following and do a bit of touring when you’ve got a month or two off. Now both of them have their own musical tastes, she’s into artists like Kate Bush, Peter Gabriel, and Japan whereas he’s into The Byrds, Pavement, and Johnny Marr.
As the singer of the duo, Beth has a very mature voice and definitely sounds like she’s already up there with the greats. As musicians, they both realized their musical talents and decided to create their duo, and it was a random gazing moment on the internet that led to ideas for their band name. Whilst 2020 managed to pause them in their tracks, this year they’ll be working on new material, we might even see a performance or two on a specially-dedicated YouTube channel. Well, I hope so, they do sound good.
“I draw inspiration from those tiny moments of freedom buried in the mundane, like riding your bike down a big hill or finding a really nice spot to skate”
Adam Humphries: So, how did you two first get together?
Beth: We went to university together and met each other plus a couple of other people and began working together pretty quickly.
Joe: Yeah, we did the usual uni band stuff where you would have a song where the wind would be howling and then the Elbow would get bust out. The grand finale would be the Pacman noise on the MS-20.
AH: And what was it that finally decided to make you both get together and become a musical duo?
Beth: The other musicians we worked with in uni had other projects that were their priorities, so Joe and I took it from there. We originally played with the idea of working with other musicians to have a more typical drums/bass/guitar/vocals setup, but realised it was way easier sorting out rehearsals with just the two of us.
Joe: We were both utterly terrified with the prospect of being the driving forces behind the music and we certainly had a “throw everything at the wall and see what will stick” attitude. We definitely had small hints of what was to be out of me and Beth in our earlier projects together but Hobby Club just appeared from other stuff. Our friend Georgia was going to drum for us but during our first rehearsal I showed her a demo I’d be working on and she just said you don’t need me and we just kinda went with it from there.
AH: And in terms of the working dynamic of you both performing together, how would you describe your relationship both when you’re creating music to being on-stage performing?
Beth: We create music quite separately – Joe will work on a track, send it to me, and I’ll write my melody and lyrics over that. Recording is a different story because Joe likes to record during the night and sleep during the day, but that setup kind of turns me into a gremlin. We make it work, though.
Joe: A friend of ours said our relationship on stage is basically a mother trying to wrangle an unruly child into behaving. I always have too much caffeine before we play and just become goblin character and it’s usually up to Beth to pick up the pieces of my general lack of anything useful. I am really good at breaking all of the equipment and getting upset and stressed about it and my complete lack of self-assurance infects Beth and every gig starts to feel apocalyptic until we finish the 2nd song and then it’s like oh yeah, music is fine.
Beth: We do always hit our stride round the second song mark and from there on in it’s a good time. I used to deal with nerves by getting so drunk that I was mainly focusing on staying upright for the whole gig. Happy to say that’s no longer a feature, I just treat the first number like a sacrificial pancake and then enjoy myself from there.
AH: As musicians where do you draw inspiration from in terms of your own music?
Joe: I draw inspiration from those tiny moments of freedom buried in the mundane, like riding your bike down a big hill or finding a really nice spot to skate. I kinda want to get across those strange gooey little moments of freedom and simplicity. At the moment skateboarding has really lit a fire in me and just makes me want to do and create everything possible. I am currently really appreciating the concept within skateboarding of perception of terrain, a curb stops just being a curb it becomes this crazy realm of unlimited possibility and I kinda want to get across the power within that change of perception.
Beth: In a similar way, I maintain that actually a lot of life is quite boring. There’s a bit of an obsession with presenting one’s life as a never-ending series of big events and hustling and winning, when really a lot of it is remembering to floss and taking the bins out. When you look at it like that, it opens you up to a lot more excitement and enjoyment of little things than you would have got otherwise. I also tend to write about the sort of anxieties a lot of us face, things like being bad at relationships and shyness making social outings a struggle.
AH: Now I’ve heard a couple of your songs, ‘For Maurice’, ‘Open Air’ and ‘Edna’, all of which sound really good. As a musician and singer, Beth, how would you describe your sound?
Beth: Thank you! I’d say our sound is very English, first and foremost – I’ve never felt comfortable putting on an American accent when I sing, and Joe’s influences come from everywhere but get run through his uniquely Northern brain. I’d also say jangly, fresh, solemn but hopeful. Like leaving a terrible party to go and run along the beach, or spotting a dandelion growing in the concrete.
Joe: For some reason, I always think that everything I send Beth sounds like a kids tv theme song for the most part. Everything is a little bit wonky and silly, it almost feels like pretend music or something. I have this demo of a song that is currently called ‘Butlins’ because it really does feel like simulated fun or something. I think it’s why I work well with Beth to be honest as she kind of takes the silliness and molds it into something more dramatic and personal. It’s like a family holiday where the weather is really bad so everyone just spends a week in a small space slowly gnawing at each other’s patience and sanity but you look around and all the walls have images of sunny vistas and trains with people smiling in them so you are left with the impression that you are supposed to feel happy but can’t with the tools at hand. Another really important aspect of the sound I think is this tape filter I use on the drums to make them sound like a broken old machine. I think we toe the line of lo-fi a bit but think but I have quite nice equipment now so I feel disingenuous saying we are ‘lo-fi’ when we are merely admirers of old broken stuff.
AH: The name of your band name sounds somewhat interesting, how did it come about?
Joe: Basically, I like to hit random articles on Wikipedia sometimes and it shows you all of these mad things about Yugoslavian fusion dancing and vulcanized rubber production. One of the articles was called Hobby Club which was a gentleman’s club formed in New York in 1908 and they would just show off things like poetry and scientific discoveries from their ‘cabinet of curiosity. It wasn’t until we formed the band and really started it that I realized our name is very unsearchable, it’s about 3 pages of Spanish holiday homes and Russian club nights and then little old us appears in the background doing that awkward smile when you see somebody you vaguely know in the street.
AH: As the female of the duo Beth, do you think that there’s been much change in regards to female representation and ratio in regards to both musical releases and live performances?
Beth: I would say so, yes. I love seeing female performers having the space to demonstrate their musical prowess, and the ones who came before who made room when those spaces were a lot more limited. A lot of the music industry is still a bit of a boys’ club, and there are plenty of people who are very willing to assume you have no idea what you’re on about, but female musicians have been fighting for a long time to be taken seriously and will continue to make space for themselves and others.
AH: How was last year (2020) for you both?
Joe: To be perfectly honest it seems like 2019 and 2020 were in competition to be the absolute worst year possible but even in the muck there is beauty to be found. 2020 was a strange necessity for me in some sense I guess. I feel like it allowed me time to try and ground myself and kind of work out what I am doing and why I am doing it, there’s a Stacy Peralta quote that really resonated with me today to paraphrase him he said “it’s not what you do; it’s what makes you do what you do, is the thing that has to be protected and nurtured”. I had really lost sight of why I do what I do and to bring it back to skateboarding again, it reminded me that there doesn’t need to be a prize or a reward for completing a goal and that the reward should be the act of doing and creating in the first place. I think it’s just a really long-winded way of saying I think you should do things for yourself and anything that comes with it is a bonus, we should celebrate the simple act of creation, to tie all these random influences and pull something out of the air and create is pretty much like some kind of magical spell to me, I think it’s so interesting.
Beth: Joe is right, we definitely hit a wall but we tried to be nice to ourselves about it instead of our usual neuroticism. As is befitting our name, we got really into hobbies – skateboarding for Joe, crochet for me, cycling for both of us. I felt very much the same way as Joe, and to have a different creative outlet was so helpful for remembering what it’s like to just enjoy creating for the sake of it. We have gone into hibernation before, then come out all guns blazing, so that may well be next on the cards for us.
AH: We’re in 2021 now, so what can we expect from you in regards to music?
Joe: We have been sitting on some stuff that is in various stages of completion but another EP is on the cards this year I would say. COVID-19 gave us a complete break from all of this and I think it’s been quite helpful for us both. I think we are in a good place to write and record some cool stuff, we just have to see what’s the business with the pandemic I suppose.
Beth: Very true. I can’t wait to get back into the studio and record some new bits, but of course it will have to wait once we can be sure it’ll be safe to do so.
AH: And where can fans, both current and new, find your music?
Joe: We can be found pretty much anywhere really. All the classic platforms like Spotify and YouTube and that.
Beth: Yes, Spotify, YouTube, Bandcamp, Soundcloud, the works. Just don’t forget to write “band” after “Hobby Club” if you look us up. Last time I put our name in on YouTube, one of the newer results was a Vietnamese ukulele lesson, which is great if you speak Vietnamese and want to learn ukulele but not so much if you wanted to put Video Days, our last EP, on.
Joe: Just to make us that little bit harder to find as well I decided to name the EP after one of the most iconic skate videos of all time. We here at Hobby Club revel in obscurity.
Soundcloud: https://soundcloud.com/hobbyclubband
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/artist/2YYM5SKnQih9rog0n6oriv?si=ptmKKoJ5Q7OV2RYqcGu1Jw
Youtube: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=OLAK5uy_kEQi3hOxAFzI2uFSGzcWcZmmdN9uz10mc
