Kontours
With Coventry trio Kontours set to support DYGL this Friday, we thought we’d have a chat with lead singer Ollie and find out a bit more about what you can expect…
"For me personally, music is a wayof ignoring what is happening in the world.It’s almost like nothing is happeningother than the moment we are in..."
If you could share one thing with an audience before they first tuned into your music, what would you say?
If I could share one thing with an audience before they tuned into our music, it would be that it is written with playing live in mind. Each section of each song is created with the nuances of the live show. We try to make big riffs that are not just heavy but hold a groove. Music that you can break stuff to, but also dance to.
What’s a non-music thing, a book, a place, a random job, a conversation you overheard, that actually changed how you create music?
I think it is hard to pinpoint one specific thing that has overall changed the way we make our music, as it is important not to put too much weight on feedback, whether it be good or bad. I think it is a case of, are we creating something that we would like? And you can’t go wrong if so.
Give us a song origin story. Where did the idea come from, and did you know straight away that it was something, or did it take a while to reveal itself?
We end our set with a song called ‘Protect Yourself at All Times’. It was a Saturday night, and there was a big boxing fight on. The referee squared the fighters off, and before the first round started, he told both fighters to “protect yourself at all times”, and it is almost as if I heard the main riff of the song in my head immediately before even picking up a guitar.
Pick a song that you’re going to release that could only have been written at that exact moment in your lives. What was going on, and is there any part of you that wishes you could still be in that moment?
We have a song called ‘Twisted’ that I have had the lyrics for for years before it even became a song. During COVID, I was really into Hip-Hop and UK Grime and was experimenting with putting rap-esque lyrics on top of rock/blues riffs just for fun. In rap songs, a lot of the time, they will say a line and use the word “like” to set up a metaphor or a simile. The line in the song is “pull your socks up buddy, I’m busy looking for a buzz like woody” and it reminds me of being locked in doors during the pandemic, so no, we do not want to go back to that!
Tell us about a gig that went somewhere unexpected: a night where the room, the crowd, or just something in the air made it feel like more than a show. What happened?
I’m going to go way back to when Kiera and I were playing in a previous iteration before Matty joined on the drums and really changed our sound and made us who we are today. We were very young and raw, and while sound-checking at a venue in Leamington, Tom Clarke from The Enemy was there. I remember thinking, “this is so cool’, and it created tension, so we soundchecked as if we were headlining Glastonbury. He ended up booking us to support them in London a few weeks later and even wrote about us in NME’s radar section.
What’s going on in the world right now, nothing to do with music, that’s quietly making its way into what you’re working on?
For me personally, music is a way of ignoring what is happening in the world. It’s almost like nothing is happening other than the moment we are in, whether that be writing, recording or playing live. So in answer to your question, absolutely nothing!
There’s a sound, an instrument, a texture you haven’t used yet, but it’s there in the back of your head. What is it, and what’s it waiting for?
I’m a big fan of Derek Trucks, Ariel Posen and Jack White as guitar players. And I love watching Derek specifically using slide on his guitar. It is something I have not tried yet, but in the back of my mind, it’s something I really want to get good at and implement in some of our songs.
We also want to start using a cow bell, because cow bells are sick.
Which artist, alive, dead, from any era, would you most want to play your music to?
For me, it would be BB King. I’ve always played guitar since I was about 13/14 but I think it took until really getting into the blues for me to actually understand what I was playing. Our stuff is heavy and groovy and not traditional blues like BB, but I’d love to play in front of him and almost tip my hat and say, “see what I’m doing here?”. I have learnt a lot from watching him play.
Forget the big moments. If your music was the soundtrack to one small, ordinary moment in someone’s day, what would that moment look like?
Car chase. I feel like with the intense car chases you get in the USA, if you put a Kontours song on, the adrenaline would be pumping. I’m thinking 5-star police on GTA vibes.
What’s next for you? Tell us what you’re working on and if you have anything exciting in the pipeline.
This has been our first year as a band, so getting back out there and playing live with a set of completely new songs has been the motive. We are going to record in September with a producer we are big fans of, so I think for us the priority will be getting some recordings we can share with the world. Watch this space…
