FVMusicBlog

Giant Killers are an indie-pop band, songwriting duo of Jamie Wortley (guitar, keys, lead vocals) and Michael Brown (bass, keys, brass, vocals). They were signed to MCA Records in 1995, where they released two singles. However, the album never saw the light of day. After a momentous three-decades-long struggle, the band got their rights back, and their songs have finally got a chance to shine…

We speak to Jamie and Michael about the latest single, ‘Around the Blocks’, the second single from ‘Songs for the Small Places’.

How did you get into the music industry?

M: We kept on banging on the door until they let us in.

J: I’m not sure anyone wanted to answer it! We ended up kicking the door in.

M: So true! Our entry was what you might call Route One for musicians of our generation. We spent a lot of time in the back of a van going up and down the M1, playing toilet venues to tiny audiences.

J: We hustled for gigs in London – places like Harlesden’s Mean Fiddler, Islington’s Powerhaus, and the famous Marquee Club – places where we thought the A&R people might hang out.

M: At first, we drove back to Grimsby in our battered Ford Transit.

J: Actually buddy, it was a Bedford CF.

M: Mate, you can’t get all anorak on me about a van we owned 30 years ago.

J: Apologies buddy. I slept in that van so many times I had the word Bedford imprinted in reverse on my forehead from the insignia on the dashboard.

M: As I was saying, the gigs got so frequent we ended up just staying. We knew we had to be in London as that’s where all the opportunity was – I guess we were economic migrants.

J: And although we built up quite a live following, we still couldn’t get arrested as far as A&R people went! We had to take control of our destiny.

M: We set up our own tiny label. We were savvy – we worked out we needed a distribution deal to get our record into the shops if demand was sufficient. To create that demand, we persuaded Nick Battle, a radio plugger from Sheffield we’d met at a gig, to help bash the phones to radio stations – and between us, we got seven plays on Radio One.

J: We didn’t sell much, but it generated major label interest, and people were surprised to find us making headway off our own backs. Inevitably, there was an offer from one of them, Arista – the MCA deal came much later.

M: We thought we’d won the lottery.

J: The naivety! We’d only bought the ticket – but that’s another story.

Who influenced your stunning latest release, ‘Around the Blocks’?

J: As far as influences go, not just for Around the Blocks, but for all our work, I love any great singer, Nat King Cole, Sinatra, James Brown, George Michael, Amy Winehouse, Nina Simone, but also, anyone who understands a melody – I don’t mind a bit of Manilow if I’m honest. I’m a sucker for a show tune too.

M: I’m going with Bowie, almost any UK and US Punk and New Wave. I think Around the Blocks, with that gritty guitar driving the melody has a pop-punk feel. Especially the outro with that chanting refrain.

‘Around the Blocks’ is a superb dream-pop release, what draws you to the genre?

M: I’m not sure we could answer that– we’re song first, genre second.

J: But we love pop, so the song can’t help but be shaped by what we love.

M: Maybe it’s the genre that is drawn to us.

J: That’s profound, buddy.

M: Thank you.

You were signed back in the 90s and toured with the likes of Blur; what were those days like compared to 2024?

M: Heady days. By the time Britpop arrived, we were established Londoners in our second musical incarnation as Giant Killers, hanging with the Britpop crowd in Camden’s Good Mixer. We got to know everybody from playing in the industry football kickaround in Regent’s Park every weekend. It was organised by the late Andy Ross, head of Food Records, who signed Blur and Jesus-Jones.

J: Some of the big journo names of the day turned out – Simon Price, Johnny Cigarettes, Chris Roberts, loads of A&R folks and popstars; Damon Albarn played, the guys from Menswear, even Jarvis Cocker put in a shift when we did a tournament at Mile End. A pre-fame Sophie Ellis Bexter popped along for post-match drinks.

M: Fast forward from those days – we got dropped by MCA after our second single went nowhere. This time, we saw things differently. The real world beckoned. We were sort of tired of the permanent state of adolescence that the bubble of the music business keeps you in. Disillusioned too.

J: We went on to get ‘proper’ jobs, mortgages, have kids – all that life stuff. We moved out of That London and became separately successful in the world of business. Without that single fixation that drove our younger selves, our lives became complex and layered – just like other humans. Decades came and went. And then, still friends in our fifties, we came back to Songs for the Small Places as unfinished business.

Other than music, what are you passionate about?

M: Mental health is an area that interests us – poor mental health is often an unwanted bedfellow with creative people. Look at the very public developments last year with Lewis Capaldi, for instance. If people who need help don’t get the right signposting, advice, or counselling, then that is potentially fatal. You know, 1 in 5 of us will harbour suicidal thoughts over the course of a lifetime – it’s one of the reasons that we have tried to raise money for Campaign Against Living Miserably, (CALM) the suicide prevention charity, by donating our proceeds on Bandcamp sales.

J: CALM’s mission is to destigmatise the conversation around suicide so that we can all talk about this at a societal level. Everyone should support that ambition.

What would it be if you could choose one thing for fans to take away from your music?

M: In the context of the album from which Around the Blocks is drawn, Songs for the Small Places. The work is a celebration of how the places you come from shape your outlook – who you are, your opinions and personality – for good and for bad.

J: It’s also about loving who you are and where you’re from, but also to not be held back or be confined by those things. It’s about growing up and out, as people

M: And… to understand that whatever endeavour you embark on, failure is a more likely outcome than success.

J: But! You must press on regardless. Whatever you do, you must believe that the horizon is bathed in sunshine.

M: Even though it’s likely that it will be raining when you get there. That’s our message to anyone who listens to us.

Have you started working on your next release?

J: First, we have Who Am I Fooling, as our third single off the album arriving in October. And we’re aiming for a seasonal Number 1 – everyone loves a power balled at Xmas, and ours is called I Hoped One Day You Would Know My Name.

M: We have more material to bring to the world – after Songs for the Small Places, we set off on a quest to write a collection of new ways of looking at the subject of Love – which is interesting as a writer as it’s the most common thematic in popular music.

J: Which makes it ripe for a bit of shaking up. We’re looking forward to bringing that collection out into the light in 2025.

FVMusicBlog August 2024

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