Long Legged Creatures have been creating music in their Leeds basement for two years now, taking over the live music scene with their twisted and rebellious electronica. Bassist Beth and producer Ross discuss their sound, Leeds basement parties and what we can expect from the band in 2019.
Megan Fairgray: So, how did Long Legged Creatures begin?
Ross: It was Beth, Matt, Vanessa and Ed at the start. After a year of you guys being together and figuring out your sound, I invited you down to an event I used to run.
Beth: For so long we had just been in our basement jamming and making bits of a song but never writing it down. It took us a while to get solid ideas down without just having loads of fun! That’s where Ross helped so much. Ross just gave us some new inspiration to the group, as we all come from different backgrounds of music.
What’s been your favourite gig?
B: The launch of Pretend; the response from the audience was amazing. We also knew it as Ed’s last gig and we went onto the stage knowing that and just went onto the stage like fuck it, let’s just have the best time. We just had a really good attitude towards it and I think audience could see that and responded to it really well and it just felt a little bit spiritual.
R: It really did feel spiritual! All of us on stage kept slipping in weird effects or sounds and we’d all just have a sick connection with each other. The audience could probably see that and just supported it.
Leeds’ independent music scene is immense. Do you take inspiration from this?
B: I was inspired by the escapism of the basement parties or gigs. How the DJ’s would come in with big sound systems and how everyone could just dance to it, it’s a real equality kind of thing. No matter your music preference, they would just make you dance. I want our music to do that, I want to make people dance in a different kind of genre.
R: That’s it, getting people to dance to your band. You look up and see a crowd moving and you’re like ‘this is what I’ve been waiting for’.
What’s the next step for Long Legged Creatures?
R: We’re trying to step back from gigs a little bit. We’re excited to be releasing new singles and music videos and just excited to start releasing stuff on our own terms.
B: With Ed sadly having to leave the band as well, it has left us with more room to experiment. Without a keys player we can really test out looping and more production effects and get featured artists on our tracks so I’m just looking forward to working with featured artists. And recently, I’ve been a bit depressed with the world, so pushing my political agenda forward through new songs I think will especially give me more meaning in music and in life.
R: We want to be political and say that we don’t like what’s going on and no one is doing that really, so it would be cool if we could find a way to put that into what [Long Legged] Creatures is.