Start Listening To: Treeboy & Arc
We sat down with Treeboy & Arc to delve into their remarkable post-punk debut, earning its spot among the best of recent memory.
In this Q&A session, we delve into the world of Treeboy & Arc, a dynamic band hailing from Leeds, England. Comprising James, George, Sammy, Isaac, and Ben, this talented group brings a unique blend of post-punk and experimental elements to their music. With influences ranging from Krautrock's driving rhythms to dissonant guitars and screeching synthesisers, Treeboy & Arc create a dramatic sonic landscape. The band's recent signing with Clue Records and their partnership with EMI North mark significant milestones in their career, offering exciting prospects for the future. As they prepare to release their debut album, Treeboy & Arc remain focused on their artistic integrity, aiming to reach new audiences and make a lasting impact in the music industry.
For those unfamiliar with your music, can you tell us who you are, where you’re from and about the music you make?
We’re Treeboy & Arc, we are James, George, Sammy, Isaac & Ben and we are from Leeds. Our music can broadly be categorised as post-punk but that doesn’t quite accurately represent our sound. We draw our influences largely from the driving, motorik rhythms that can be found in Krautrock and pair this with abrasive dissonant guitars and screeching synthesiser noise. Shouted and half-sung spoken word-esque vocals sit atop this dramatic soundscape resulting in a sound greater than the sum of its parts.
Can you describe the evolution of your sound since you first started playing together? How would you define your current musical style?
When we first started making music together we were quite young and we hadn’t all known each other for that long so we had the tendency to have a lot going on all at the same time. Very noisy, frantic guitars and just no time to breathe at all, which was great at the time and really fun to play. These days I think we have become slightly more measured and our music has matured. After playing together for so long we’re all on the same page when it comes to writing, meaning that we leave more space for each other and our sound has become more refined. We’re still noisy but in a more controlled way.
Your debut album Natural Habitat has been described as your most ambitious release to date. Can you tell us more about the themes and inspirations behind the album?
We recorded the album at The Nave with Matt Peel. I think Matt helped us to give the album a much darker overall sound. We draw a lot of inspiration from our city and its surrounding. I think it’s hard to pin down exact references or inspirations on the record because we wrote it over the space of four years. Every song has been re-written about two or three times, so the way the songs sound now is completely different to how they first started, which makes it slightly hard to remember what we were originally aiming for.
How did the recording process for Natural Habitat differ from your previous works? Were there any challenges or memorable moments during the production?
We actually recorded the album in full twice. First time round we recorded it as a live band with the idea of trying to translate our hectic live sets to record, each song flowed in the next with no breaks in between. Then the pandemic hit and we didn’t want to release it without being able to perform it live. Two years later when normality had finally returned we felt that the album no longer reflected who we were as a band so we made the choice to rerecord it at The Nave with Matt Peel.
Recording the second time round was an absolute nightmare with pretty much every session getting curtailed early due to positive lateral flow tests. I think every one of the band and Matt tested positive at one point or another, making it a pretty disjointed process but we got there in the end.
The band's lyrics often touch on themes of disillusionment, loss, and ill health. What motivates you to explore these subjects in your music?
Personally, I find inspiration from all kinds of things. I have a massive bank of words, phrases and concepts that I use to write lyrics - these can be snippets I’ve read in books, signs that I’ve seen around the city or things that I’ve overheard from places and conversations. Some songs are written about very specific ideas or topics whereas others are almost like diary entries than pinpoint or relate to a period of time or events that have happened in my life. In general I prefer to explore themes that are light hearted or slightly trivial such as False Objects which is a strange tribute to Jack Osbourne and the supernatural world. Some songs however explore much darker themes like death and anxiety.
How does your songwriting process typically unfold? Do you have a specific approach when it comes to crafting your songs?
Usually one of us will have an idea like a bassline or a small guitar part and we’ll use that as a jumping off point. We tend to spend quite a lot of time just improvising together around these small ideas until different parts and sections start to appear, we then start to refine these sections down and pick bits out that we like until we feel we have enough to structure a song. We usually do vocals last.
We’re writing album two at the moment and our creative process has definitely evolved a lot. We’ve moved into a new practice space and we’re recording ideas a lot more now and using software to help us rearrange and restructure songs before taking them into a full live band setting.
Treeboy & Arc is known for its captivating and dynamic live performances. What can audiences expect from your shows, and how do you translate the energy of your recordings onto the stage?
You can expect high energy and a little bit of chaos. We are first and foremost a live band I think so it’s more how we try to translate our live performances to record. But yeah we always try to make sure we’re completely knackered by the time we come off stage and give people something interesting to watch as well as listen to.
As a band hailing from the North of England, how has your regional background influenced your music and artistic identity?
As a band we’re really proud to be from the North, there’s a big DIY ethos up here that we have embraced - we’ve always been keen to work with local people and keep things in-house as much as possible. From day one George has always done all of our artwork for every one for our releases.
There’s so many great bands not just from Yorkshire but from the North East and Scotland and all over the North that don’t get as much attention or don’t get represented as much in the press etc as bands from London and the South. What we’ve found when we play places up North is that the people are always really passionate about new music and just love going to shows!
How does it feel to be signed to Clue Records and be a part of their partnership with EMI North? What are your hopes and expectations for the future?
We’re really happy to be signed to Clue Records, we’ve known Scott for a while and he does great work particularly in supporting local artists. It’s really good to see the label getting the recognition it deserves with the partnership with EMI and hopefully it will bring a lot of benefits to artists in this area in the future.
With the release of your debut album approaching, what are your main goals and aspirations as a band in terms of reaching new audiences and making an impact in the music industry?
I think our aspirations have always been the same as a band really, we want to make music that we like and are passionate about in a way that suits us. We’ve always been very clear headed about not compromising on how we want to sound and how we want to represent ourselves as a band and this is still the case. We’d obviously love to keep increasing our reach and playing bigger and better shows. We had a great time playing in Europe last year as well so it would be great to get back out there and visit some other countries as well!
How do you approach collaboration within the band, considering you have two singers and two lyricists? How does this dynamic contribute to the overall sound and message of Treeboy & Arc?
B: I think we’re pretty good at collaborating, we’ve been playing together for years now so we’re all aligned on what we want to create, we can usually tell pretty quickly just from the feeling in the room whether an idea is working or not.
I think initially we started sharing the vocals because neither of us wanted to be a “frontman”. I personally love having two vocalists because I love hearing what James has done to a song. When recording the album we went into the studio with a couple of songs that didn’t have vocals on them so when James first recorded them was the first time we heard them. I remember when he did the vocals for ‘Winter of Existence’ for the first time just thinking “fuck that’s good” and it was nothing like what I would have done. I feel like I can listen to our songs that James sings and it’s like listening to a different band.
J: I don't think I'd be able to churn out 'good' lyrics for 9 songs so Ben is a safety net for me. Knowing he'll sing a few gives me more time to write and think about the ones I am doing. In dreams on the EP was written for us both to sing, which was definitely the most fun I've had writing lyrics. Like Ben says, what I have in my head of what a song is going to sound like is so different from what Ben might do.
Could you share a behind-the-scenes anecdote or interesting story from your experiences touring and performing with notable bands like Parquet Courts, Shame, and Rolling Blackouts Coastal Fever?
On the first night of our first ever tour, our driver got arrested in Glasgow for pissing in a bar and then that night while sleeping in the van pissed himself all over the seats. We had to ask him to leave/fire him in Wetherspoons the next day over breakfast. We got robbed in Rotterdam while James was jumping in the canal which ended up with us chasing some guys through the streets in the middle of the night with Jim in his pants soaking wet. Fucking Brits abroad eh?
How have your hometown of Leeds and the local music scene influenced your growth and development as a band?
The Leeds music scene has always been great, there’s so many influential bands that are from here and we’re lucky to have some really iconic venues here too. Leeds is quite a small city really so a lot of the bands here all know each other and it’s a really supportive community to be a part of, we’re lucky in that respect. When we first started we were able to share lineups with the likes of Drahla & Team Picture which really provided us with a platform to grow and be seen.
Looking ahead, what are your plans for the future beyond the release of Natural Habitat? Are there any exciting projects or collaborations on the horizon?
We are already currently working on our second album, we have a load of tunes in the locker ready to go, so we plan to start recording some demos soon and aim to be recording properly by early next year. It took such a long time to get the first album to fruition - from writing the songs, to recording, then through the pandemic, then rewriting and recording again took all in all about 4 years. In this time we’ve changed a lot both sonically and as people so we’re excited to be working on new material that reflects this.
