IRREGULAR INTERVIEW: CHRIS LAFFERTY - WADE / GET IN TO IT RECS.
If you've been around for a while, or I guess even if you're pretty new to the scene, Chris Lafferty should be a fairly familiar presence. The sad-looking and angsty former singer of SundayxLeague, current singer of Wade, and the surprisingly contrasting upbeat and proactive guy behind Get In To It Records, Chris's work is well established and always well received. I don't know him too well - we've only met a couple of times – but I've always had a lot of respect for the stuff he does. It's well documented here that I think the Get In To It single series is pretty goddamn great, and we'll talk about that a bit later, among other things. This interview mostly took place a while ago, but I don't think anything's happened to make it outdated just yet.
I: First question, Get In To It Recs has only been going for about two and a half years as far as I can remember, which isn't that long in the grand scheme of things, but when you look back at that first compilation you put out, things have really changed in that short time. A fair chunk of the bands have split up and the scene you did a great job of documenting at that moment is really different now. Do you ever feel tempted to sort of look back on a 'golden period', or are you a big welcomer of change? I was wondering also if your own reasons for running the label, or maybe the ethos behind it, has changed along with the 'scene'?
C: That's a good question, yeah. I have looked back at that compilation and it's funny, because in that short time, while some of the bands have split up, a good handful of them that are still going are now considered top of their game. It feels like it was a hundred years ago but I guess it actually is quite a short span really. I think the label started with the idea that the comp was based around, and as you surmised - documenting that point in time. So I suppose in that respect, as the label has grown alongside the growth or development of 'the scene', it has changed with it, but I think it's actually changed in general; while we started wanting to document and share that specific thing, I think at this point we have curated a good variety of stuff throughout our catalogue, and I'd like to think we've moved away from being perceived as an 'emo label'. That said, in terms of what we're doing, the ethos is pretty much the same - I still just want to try and represent bands, artists and ideas that I think are worth sharing.
I: I think you're right about the label moving away from being an 'emo label' and it'd be pretty dull if you stuck to releasing increasingly unoriginal versions of the bands on that first comp - your releases are fairly diverse for a small catalogue and I think by and large you're just considered a D.I.Y. label now. Still, you have to get pretty far away to escape the tag or association because, I guess in a similar way to in say 2003 but nowhere near as annoying, the definition of the genre is broadening as the popularity grows again. Nai Harvest is a good example - they're going for the grungy college indie thing but they'll probably never escape the emo tag. What do you reckon to the sudden burst in popularity of the 'revival' that seems to be coming, even as many who were sort of there a few years ago are starting to move away from it?
C: It's definitely been an ongoing thing for a while now - I mean we thought the revival was in full swing back in the early days of the label/when we were just starting my old band, Sunday League, and it's worlds different now even since then. If you had told me in 2011 that D.I.Y. emo bands would be the toast of the NME etc., I'd have laughed it off. It's weird, but I guess it's an inevitable thing when a scene gets bigger or bands start picking up major speed outside of their initial roots.
While we are enjoying the idea of distancing ourselves from one particular sound or scene, we are still obviously releasing records that could fall under that emo umbrella, in whatever degree, so I still try to keep my ear to the ground, but to be honest I personally have given up even thinking about genre titles and such, though I will say I think we could be approaching saturation point on the whole twinkly-pizza-anthem schtick. I could live without any more of that, specifically.
I: I could definitely live without any pizzatwinklecore. It's so played out. Obvious and meaningless Simpsons references should possibly disappear too. What about your current band, Wade - how would you class yourselves and who's influencing you at the moment?
C: I completely agree. I wouldn't want to negate or deny anybody's self expression, but you can only hear the same thing so many times.
As far as Wade's place in the whole thing, I wouldn't consider us an 'emo band', but I don't know what I would pin it as. I asked Nate (guitarist in Wade) what he thought and he didn't say much about it either, ha. I guess we exist within that area, but I think more through association than anything else. But that's fine, and there are a lot of bands like that in the UK at the moment, who I would say you couldn't call emo, but also couldn't describe as just straight up 'punk' or 'indie'. That's a good thing in my view. And as I said earlier, I truly don't care about tagging anything under one genre or title. That stuff's good for Bandcamp but they're pretty catch-all and unspecific.
Personally I'm being influenced by a lot of stuff I've been reading recently, horror fiction, books about demonology and stuff. I'm trying again to get a bit further through a book about radical scientific theories at the moment, quantum mechanics, alternate realities and such, which is pretty inspiring creatively, but I end up having to research technical terms for a long time after half a chapter. Musically, I've just been listening to loads of old punk bands, Wire, The Wipers, and I'm really into the new Creative Adult album.
I: I listened to the Wade EP today for the first time in a while, and I'd forgotten how good it was, and how much of a step up it was from stuff you've done before. I always forget how Wade emerged out of your last band, Sunday League, so could you fill me in for the benefit of anyone equally clueless?
C: Thanks! I think it's the best thing any of us have been involved with in terms of records, yeah, although I am really excited to move on from that now and record some newer stuff.
We rolled right into it after Sunday League. Basically, Sunday League started with me, Mark (bass in Wade), our friend Joe who now plays in Momentum, and our friend Nathan. Over the course of the first year or so Joe and Mark both left for whatever reasons and were replaced with Steve (drums in Wade) and Nate respectively. So we were all in that band at one point or another. We actually started Wade up while SL was still active, though it was a totally different band at that point (in fact we were trying to do a hardcore side project kind of thing at first). When SL split, Wade took the main focus and we decided to go with what we know and do something a bit lighter, which is when we wrote the two songs from the Healing Powers split, among others. We cut a stupid as fuck Four Year Strong style breakdown out of Hail Chillingham just before we recorded it, thank goodness.
I: I think I would probably have enjoyed it more with the breakdown, but that's just me. Anyway. I think my favourite thing you've done with Get In To It is the single series – all three of those releases have been pretty outstanding. What prompted you to start it under a sort of 'brand' rather than just releasing them as normal? Also, they, like many of your releases, come out on tape and I was wondering what the appeal is of tape releases for you as an independent label?
C: I am pretty happy with how the Singles are going, so thanks! To be honest the idea of putting the singles out in a focused series sort of just happened organically- that's just how I originally imagined it going. I didn't think about it too much, and haven't, until you just asked me, haha. I suppose I just wanted to control the perception of the releases as much as possible - one thing I did consider was, I didn't want them to be seen as just short EPs or whatever. I like the idea of them being their own thing. We have some ideas regarding the Singles Series which should be cool though so I'm really enjoying working on it.
I get asked the 'why tapes?' question a lot. From the POV of the label, the advantages are obvious - cheaper than vinyl, but more interesting than CDs. That's about the size of it. There are other factors at play though, namely the fact that I just love tapes. While I've been concentrating on my record collection recently, I probably put more care and effort into my tape collection. We can do a bit more in the way of creative packaging with tapes too, which is cool.
I: Yeah, your packaging is one of the things thats caught people's eyes a lot in the past I think, and you have a lot of label brand merch too - there's a real emphasis on the physical. Is this something you always set out to do?
C: Yeah, it was something I wanted to put emphasis on- the first proper Get Into It release was the Sunday League EP, and that sort of set the precedent for the first year or so in terms of the total hands-on approach to it - hand designed, hand cut and manufactured packaging, etc. I'm still as hands-on as I can be but I do sometimes outsource more tedious aspects for my own sanity, stuff like cutting, scoring, so on and so forth. But yeah, the physical product is really important to me - I just feel, if the end result is something that you couldn't care less about having in your hands, then we may as well just be releasing downloads.
I: Get In To It and Wade are based up in Newcastle, which isn't a town I know a lot else about in terms of music coming out of it - what is the scene like up there at the moment?
C: The scene in Newcastle is touch and go - I've been putting shows on for a few years now and in terms of surface level it's evolved from being very focused on hardcore, to what it's like now, where almost everything is contained - people are always asking about the 'Newcastle emo scene' and it seems like a real thing because we have a handful of really good bands under that umbrella, but it's not it's own scene. We have real punker bands like Pure Graft and Farman but they cross over with alternative indie bands like Cauls, there is some sharing of members with Wade even... heavier bands like End Reign and Tide of Iron... But for the most part we're all playing the same kinda of shows, put on my the same promoters. We are really close to Durham so honourable mentions to ONSIND and Martha et. al, some of my favourite bands/people. It all sounds really thriving, I guess, but it goes up and down. There are times when you can't even guarantee a turnout for a band who would be killing it in any other UK city. But despite that, we do well for gigs; there's a small but dedicated core of promoters and we have some really great bands.
I: From the sound of it, it's a pretty similar narrative to most smaller/"non-major" towns - Huddersfield, York, Bristol, Leicester - they all seem to have similar problems. But I've been feeling for a few years now that the idea of a 'local scene' is becoming less and less relevant and in some ways it's a good thing and in some ways it's a bad thing. When I was younger, if someone moved out of town or whatever, then the band was finished, because the band rarely played out of that town. But the internet has made it easier for bands to stay together, and book tours, and find out of town shows, and now the idea of having a unified "UK scene" seems much more possible than it did when I was a kid. But then maybe I was just exposed to it less. What do you reckon?
C: Honestly I think Newcastle's major issue is the lack of younger blood coming into the scene. There's a bunch of younger people starting bands, but in terms of gig attendees, not so much. But in terms of the internet's contribution, I think you're right in that it has positive and negative effects; the upshot being the ease of networking for bands booking and such, obviously. The main negative repercussion as I see it is that it sometimes feels like a culture of disconnect for a lot of people outside of the bands and such. Anyone can sit at home, stream something on Bandcamp, order a shirt, order a record, and that's it, done. Then that band rolls through on tour and the turnout on the night is less than amazing. But, going back to the original question of 'THE SCENE', I sort of like the idea of local scenes becoming irrelevant, if for no other reason than the fact we live in a small enough country that going out and exploring the extended scene is really easy, which can only be a good thing.
I: I think agree with you on there being a disconnect, though I also get the impression that for a lot of people the important thing is to show off your merch collection online rather than actually show your face at shows - I feel like you see less people get involved, but the ones that do are the ones who are really dedicated and there's some really great people doing some awesome things out there right now. Who would you say are doing good things for 'the scene' at the moment - labels, promoters, venues, etc?
C: I've tried to answer this one a few times now and I keep scrapping my list because I'm basically listing all my friends as my mind moves up the country geographically, haha. There are a ton of great people in these circles, starting to list them would make me uncomfortable in case I forget anyone. Can we ~pass~ on this one?
I: We can definitely pass on that one because I know how it goes, though I'm sure you'd be forgiven for forgetting someone. Final question then, what's in the pipeline for GIIR at the moment? Any plans for the next releases?
C: Lots of stuff! We have releases scheduled from Claw The Thin Ice, Good Terms, Lake Michigan (another split release with the Wolf Town guys), and a few others. It's gonna be a busy year. We have vinyl releases, a couple of cassette EPs and more singles. We are going to start looking into releasing some art and/or zines soon too. We all just want to put out as much cool shit as possible.
I'd tell you to go check Chris's stuff out at http://getintoitrecords.limitedrun.com/, http://getintoitrecords.bandcamp.com/ and http://wadediy.bandcamp.com/ but I'm sure you already know about it.
