twin hidden are a musical delight that, once indulged in, will keep you going back for more each time, craving their unique brand of smartly written, elegantly performed indie pop. Which is no better executed than with their most recent single ‘Join Hands’ – a bold rejoice of flourishing pop, spirited with a lyrical sensitivity that is just as infectious as it is overwhelmingly sweet.
In an attempt to hopefully freshen up and create a more entertaining interview, I thought to myself ‘hmm, I want to be more creative with the questions I’m asking, what should I do?’ so after a bit of time spent thinking. I thought why not ask questions inspired by the artists song titles? So that’s exactly what I did. Enjoy….
Join Hands – Collaborations…do you like them? Would you entertain a twin hidden collaboration with another artist?
twin hidden: “Have you ever been to the Tomato throwing festival near Valencia? Back in 2013, twin hidden ‘collaborated’ with an army of Spanish men (burly and hairy) to climb a 15m pole coated in grease towards a prized ham at the top. Some say that’s how twin hidden began. Did we like it? Hard to say. It’s all part of growing up.”
Paper Unicorn – You are very creative with your music videos. Which one so far has been your favourite to plan and put in motion?
“This is going to need some different answers… we loved planning Unconditionally – working out how to move on that big spinning disc and building the harness system so we didn’t get thrown off the edge… but between every take of it, we were borderline vomiting.
The most fun video to plan was probably the original A Berry Bursts video (we’re thinking of doing a new one). We worked with some of the world’s best slackliners and set up lines in a beautiful nature reserve between the massive, industrial columns holding up the A10 flyover. We made the video plan by interspersing their brilliance with out total incompetence.
The most fun video to execute was probably the Join Hands video – it’s a collage of life’s highs and lows, and the scene we were filming totally controlled the mood of the team. We did most of the depressing, underground scenes at the end, so after a beautiful, halcyon day out, everyone felt really low… and then we discovered the fairground at Shepherds Bush, which we hadn’t expected to be there, and that brought us back up to a high before “getting home before nightfall” as instructed by our parents and local government authority.”
A Berry Bursts – Has anything ever gone horribly wrong during the making of a video or during a live set that maybe you can laugh about now?
“At Ronnie Scott’s only last month, we got our wires tangled around one another’s instruments as we ran between them to play all the different bits at the end of A Berry Bursts. There was about half a second when we looked at one another and thought “there’s no way we can possibly recover from this”… and then somehow we managed to move our bodies just enough to stretch to play instruments that shouldn’t have been possible to reach, and by the time we got to the end of the song, we were untangled and jumping up and down again.”
Boomerang – Are there any songs that didn’t make it past the demoing process that you wish would make their return now?
“Loads. You’re going to hear a lot of old ones reworked, mixed in with the new ones. We’ve been storing songs in the granary ready for when we have to feed a label…”
Unconditionally – What have you learnt about yourself from being in this band?
Matthew: “Nothing”
Sam: “Nothing”
Make/Shift – Art, creativity and adventure seem to drive the band. If you could play anywhere in the world, it doesn’t have to be a conventional venue. Where would you like to play?
“I know we’ve said this before… and we’ll say it again. We want to play on Rockall (a small, uninhabited rock 300 miles off the coast of Scotland) every year. One day we want it to grow into The Rockall festival and get some really big bands down there. And then one day, we want to have our first guests.”
Twin Hidden – Is there some hidden meaning behind the name?
“Yes.”
Photo credit: Tobias Lunde
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