Meet They Explode | Band

We had the good fortune of connecting with They Explode and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi They Explode, we’d love to hear what makes you happy.

Robin: Getting lost in making something – dinner, music, a woodworking project, whatever. It’s like a productive form of meditation. And then of course at the end of it, you have something beautiful/delicious/ridiculous to share.

Steve: Loud music, quiet music, dancing, searching for old records, hanging out with friends, playing the guitar, and whisky. Why? Because you can get drunk on all of them.

Can you open up a bit about your work and career? We’re big fans and we’d love for our community to learn more about your work.
Robin: Making music is one thing, but recording, releasing, performing… it’s odd. Sometimes it feels like you’re grating yourself down to a puddle of raw vulnerability and then trying to package up the suppurating guts nicely enough that people want to pop it on Spotify while they bike to work. The lesson is that you can’t really do anything with that cognitive dissonance but shrug and get on with it.

Steve: Nothing in the music industry is ever easy, especially given the last few years! But that aside, for me I’m most excited about our new album, Some Low Fiction, recorded here in London, which will be out soon. As friends, we’ve been hanging out for years and playing in loads of different bands, so we know each other’s strengths and weirdnesses pretty well. We knew a group with the three of us in it would be exciting, and we bring a lot of different influences and experiences together in this band.

Any places to eat or things to do that you can share with our readers? If they have a friend visiting town, what are some spots they could take them to?
Robin: We’d spend all day walking and eating. First we’d get lost wandering one or many of London’s waterways – the Thames of course, from London Bridge to all points east, plus the canals of East London and Deptford and surrounding neighborhoods. Throw in a Victorian cemetery for history and some greenery – I’m partial to the ones in Mile End and Nunhead.

For food: I’ve never been up early enough to get the breakfast at that cafe near Billingsgate Fish Market, but for my best friend I’ll make the effort. We’ll grab lunch at Borough Market (and maybe stop by the Old Operating Theatre while we digest), and for dinner, Viet Hoa on Kingsland Road. I’m aware we’d need some 10,000 league boots to do this all in a day, but humor me.

Then we spend a long, warm evening drinking cans of average supermarket G&Ts in a park, watching the sun set and befriending dogs.

Steve: For eats, definitely Somine on Kingsland Road in Dalston, cheap and amazing Turkish food, and open late! Also Tayyab’s in Whitechapel, long-standing Punjabi restaurant of legend. Definitely worth queuing for. Also Newman Arms Pie room in Fitzrovia for some dark winter bitter and English grub.

Drinking in London, you’re spoilt for choice. For a bit of history, It’s got to be the Seven Stars in Carey Street behind the Royal Courts of Justice. It survived the Great Fire of London and boasts the fanciest-dressed cat you’ll ever see.

Hanging out in Helgi’s in Hackney, one of the only metal bars in London. Also experimental musical oddness at Dalston’s Cafe Oto.

Shoutout is all about shouting out others who you feel deserve additional recognition and exposure. Who would you like to shoutout?
Robin: Nothing is as motivating as realizing your friends have big expectations of you. Actually, the same goes for anyone whose opinion means something to you – I include my kids in that!
Steve: Well, I’ve got to my say family and my girlfriend or I’ll be in trouble. But also a big shoutout to all my London friends who I’ve played with in various bands over the years, written, planned, organised, and schemed with. Because of them, creativity was never far from the surface.

Website: linktr.ee/theyexplode

Instagram: @theyexplode

Facebook: https://m.facebook.com/theyxplode

Other: theyexplode.bandcamp.com theyexplode@gmail.com

Image Credits
Rachel Lipsitz @elsnapslife Dan Maguire