Norwich indie rock upstarts The Islas get the UpClose treatment ahead of their huge hometown show on the 11th
For our first UpClose of 2022, CLOUT and our wonderful friends at CloseUp have got the lovely lads in The Islas, a fun and energetic indie rock band from Norwich who are looking to light up the UK this year with their live show following the 2021 release of their debut EP Oblivion.
We had a great chat with frontman Nathan Baverstock and found out some more about where the outfit are at right now coming out of a global pandemic, and what exciting plans they have for the future. 2022 could be a huge year for the outfit, and now would be the perfect time to familiarise yourselves with The Islas and their plethora of sunny indie rock tunes.
The Islas! It’s great to have a chat. We love your music as you well know. Tell us a bit more about the world of The Islas?
Thanks so much for having us and supporting our music! It’s always a great feeling when someone says they enjoy the tunes you make so it’s appreciated. World of the Islas is starting to get really exciting. We released our debut single ‘Aileen’ in 2019 and then started to really find our sound. Which I would describe as a 2-3 minute track of solid indie rock that has some intricate changes and interesting chord progressions. We released our debut EP ‘Oblivion’ last year and we’ve been thrilled with the response to that and seeing the tunes backed by radio, sync and Spotify users across the world has been great.
What part of the musical process do you enjoy most, and why? Is it performing live, creating your tracks, or..?
Personally I love the writing, I like the side of setting up a demo project on my Mac and then just
seeing what comes out. It’s great to then sed it over to the boys and have them give feedback or change things around a little bit. Beginning the process of the song is really fun and most enjoyable for sure. After that it’s playing live. I always get nervous beforehand but when we start playing together it builds my confidence playing with the boys as I think they’re great, it’s the best part of being in a band, doing what you love with your friends
The last 18 months and the pandemic have been crazy for musicians, how much has it had an effect on your music?
It gave me personally a lot of time to write. I had the chance to really sit down and think about what I wanted to create and then ‘Oblivion’ was born. Lots of things changed in my life in the pandemic and I’m in a great place right now so there’s been a lot of emotions and feelings I can channel into the songwriting process. It’s been tough to not play as much as we wanted to, but I think we came into the pandemic with a few songs and an ‘ok’ set but now we have more songs out there and a much stronger set. We’re definitely a much better band now than we were prior to the pandemic.
If you could create a ‘The Islas Festival’, which 3 artists would you have headlining? (Fri, Sat, Sun)
This would definitely vary if you asked each member individually as we all have a very different music taste but at the moment for me it’d be headlined by Palace, Alvvays and Sam Fender.
You headline Voodoo Daddy’s on the 11th February for a HUGE Norwich show, what should we expect from your live return to the capital?
There’s been lot’s of energy bubbling up from us, we’ve only had the a couple gigs to showcase the new EP so coming into 2022 we want to give it everything we have. VooDoos is going to be great, it’s a perfect venue for us and we love being close to the crowd and playing London is always special. Close Up have been a great promoter of us so we’re going to re-pay them with a strong set! We can’t wait!
