The Winachi Tribes Liam Talks Gorilla in Manchester, Inspiration and Social Media

Kirsty Moody | 5th July 2016

Tram Lines

Before their amazing gigs this summer we caught up with Liam from The Winachi Tribe to discuss their upcoming gig at Gorilla and to help everyone else understand their music and style. Not many bands run their own social media and connect with their fans like these guys do.

You’re playing Gorilla in Manchester on Saturday 20th August, how would you describe your music?

Erm it’s a sort of cross really, it’s a mix of different genres really, there’s a lot of hip hop, funk, house music, but then there’s more guitar bass stuff like rock in there and indie. So I guess we wear all of our influencers on our sleeve and you can hear our record collections in our music, you can’t really pin point us down to one genre.

13453256_10154157952226425_2131107635_o.pngBasically it’s a mix of all the different types of music, everyone can really listen to it?

Yeah definitely it’s like the Mondays did back in the day like when they was just bringing in like the guitar, they were obviously influenced by acid house, funk and things like that so I think we have the similar vibe to us, there a big funk influence in their but also hip hop, rock and everything really, so everyone can take a bit of something from us.

Anyone can listen to you and learn straight away what type of music you are and even if they’re not into that type of music, they can enjoy it?

Definitely, I think we do it all pretty incredible as well, so we’re not like a funk band trying to make house music, if we make a house track we’ll make it as good as a house producer.

Where do you get the inspiration from? How do you decide on what you’re going to do?

Erm, that’s a tough question that, I duno were constantly inspired. I think when you’re trying to write music and forcing yourself to write a song it always turns out crap yano what I mean? It’s always on the fly like in the shower or cooking dinner, there’s just a little bit of inspiration comes to your head. I think when you’re sort of just starting off as young lads in a band you’re naturally inspired by other artists so we just sort of adapted to the sort of music we were making 10 years ago. I think as you get older inspiration comes easier, it’s like life experiences helps, like I write lyrics for the brand, so it can be anything, from what’s going on in the world, my family, anything from drugs, violence, money, love, sex, it’s all in there

So anyone who’s going through anything in their life, they can listen to your music and relate?

I hope so yeah, I hope people can take different messages from what we’re saying, we’re not trying to preach anything in our songs do you know what I mean? Like we try to keep it pretty raw and neutral, we’re not trying to say anything’s wrong or right, but what I see I’ll put down on paper and try and write a story about it

Yeah that’s fair enough, what’s the type of reactions you get from your music?

Well I think when we play live, it’s a bit of a mad reaction because there’s no one around at the moment who sounds like us and we don’t sound like anybody else, it’s a pretty powerful experience when we’re live, there’s 6 of us, we’re all sort of vetro-musicians we know what we’re doing so I don’t know it’s mad I think in Manchester at the moment you’ve got two different types of music. I think basically we’re the other type of sound in Manchester, you’ve got us, the Moods, you’ve got bands like blind arcade who are like a funk sound and you’ve got more guitar based bands as well but I think people are really sort of starting to realise there’s a real original band here that aren’t trying to sound like anybody else and the public are really starting to warm to us, so I think there’s just a lot of love towards what we’re doing which is nice.

hiM86w1462872102That’s good then, how did you all meet?

Erm, I met Antony (keyboard player) as my sort of sparring partner, I met him years ago in Warrington, we met at a pub in Warrington and I’d been in a fight before and had my head kicked in so we was in this pub and I had like a broken nose and black eyes and everything and we’d just ended up for some reason in the corner of this pub and we started talking and we’ve just pulled people in over the years, we’ve just sort of ended up being pulled together, just how we all met would take a couple of hours to get it all done but we’ve all been pulled together with our music so I mean it’s a bit of a collective. I wouldn’t call us a band, we’re a collective we work with loads and loads of different people and we have done for the last few years

Obviously you’ve worked with others but if you could collaborate with anyone, dead or alive, who would it be?

If it was dead John Lennon, erm alive I’d like to work with George Clinton, I know he’s getting on a bit now but I’d like to work with him.

Yeah that’s pretty cool, what’s your top 3 songs which you listen to?

Every Day People by Sly & Family Stone, Atomic Dog by George Clinton, and Little Wing by Jimi Hendrix

Yeah that’s a good selection, with you being in Manchester for your gig at Gorilla on 20th of August, are there certain places you like to hang out?

Yeah in Manchester, my favourite venue is my mates gaff The Live Rooms, yeah I’m good mates with the owner, the after show party is going to be there after Gorilla so whenever I’m in town I like to go and have a drink in there and have a hang out in there. It’s just set back a little bit, it’s like the outskirts of town.

Obviously on your website, you’ve got quite a few new gigs planned for the next few months, what’s your favourite type of event to play?

Erm, I was thinking about this the other day yano, my personal favourite shows are the smaller gigs so it’s a bit more intimate, so like somewhere like The Live Rooms when that’s packed and you’re playing there and right in front of you in your face, I love that and you buzz off the crowd. Like we’ve played on some big stages in the past, so say like a festival on the main stage and the crowds like dead far away from you so it’s weird, like you buzz off of being on the stage and the sounds great and all that but the crowd interaction and stuff I’d say personally for us is a packed out sweaty club.

Do you think that relates to your type of group and stuff?

I think so yeah, I think we come from like a dance background, like a club background, if you took the guitars off of the live songs its dance music so I think it comes across better in a club I think Gorilla for instance is fine it’s not too big yano it’s big enough and packed out it will come across really well but I think rock bands and stuff come across better in the offbeat festival stages but I think the dance bands in more like a festival or a big tent or a club.

If you could do any big festival, which one would you do?

I’d love to headline Pyramid stage at Glastonbury, why not? Yeah that would be great, that would be the top one to do, also I’d quite like to play Coachella in America, yeah, it’s just where it is you also get yourself a holiday and you get to play there as well

That’s great, so you’re very active on social media, what would you rather use Twitter or Facebook?

Erm that’s a good question that, I sort of think over the past 6 months the band has started to warm to twitter more, I think if you want to directly get to somebody, if you want to speak to someone directly I think Twitter is more personal. You can get the point across better and you’ve got to be a bit more clever with what you’re doing as you’re limited aren’t you with what you can put as well, I think Facebook is one of them for your fans, like your fans are on there for you to interact with, I can’t really choose I think they’ve both got plus points and they’re completely different. I think with social media and networking you’ve got to be careful not to get bogged down with it too much because it’s like a necessary evil these days, you’ve got to use it to promote yourself but it’s very easy to get bogged down. You sometimes have to snap yourself out of it and think oh yeah I’m menna be making music not just putting stuff on Facebook.

Yeah that’s true, we’ve seen you don’t have an Instagram account, would that be something you’d use?

Erm, I mean I’ve thought about it but I think the reason I’ve not done it, it’s just too much to take on, say we had someone else doing it for us then fair enough but I think taking on twitter, Facebook and Instagram I think it would be too much, it would bog us down too much. One of lads, Antony, out of the band he’s got an Instagram account and he sort of pushes The Winachi Tribe but it’s not an official one of sorts

As you mentioned it, you don’t have anyone else doing your social media, you personally do it?

Well me and the rest of the lads, so I run it and then you’ve got a number of the other lads chipping around management as well

So you actually like to connect with your fans rather than getting someone else to do it?

Yeah I think so, where we’re at at the moment, it’s good for us to be doing it and interacting with the people

If people asked you to try different music and stuff would you try that? If they asked for covers of others and things like that

Erm depends who it is I suppose, I mean probably not I think we’re quite confident with what we’re doing, we wouldn’t need to copy other people’s music, I mean we’re open to ideas so if someone threw something out there and it genuinely worked then yeah we’d do something but I think we’re super confident with what we’re doing as musicians and artists, so we sort of keep that in house.

I’d just like to say thank you for the support and the love that the bands getting at the moment it’s absolutely outstanding and we’re all over the moon about it and just get down to Gorilla on the 20th of August, it’s our biggest headline to date so the party keeps on going this year, after The Stone Roses come down they’ve got this to look forward to, so we just want to get everyone to come down and have a big party on the 20th of August in Manchester.

 

Follow the guys on Twitter @winachitribe | Facebook | Website