We took the time to speak with Aberdeen "Granite-Rock" five piece Black Tiles after their riotous set at House of Jack Festival on Saturday. They were in an upbeat and bright mood as we discussed a range of topics such as physical music, where they grew up and what they learn from supporting so many great bands!
Black Tiles play at King Tut's in Glasgow this Saturday, supporting Parliamo!
With you guys all growing up quite close to each other, do you feel that's something that feeds into and has an impact upon the music?
Tilly: Maybe not the geographic location but the way you grow up does. We all grew up just outside of a town and were friendly with each other, knowing each other from school. I think recently we're noticing how where we grew up has maybe influenced us, initially we would have said no.
Kieran: Well it's really weird how there's a bunch of bands from where we grew up that are all playing (in the scene). I think that's pretty odd.
Tilly: We all have a similar sort of gloomy pop. Like Vansleep and Cherry Bleach and perhaps Canary Gold to an extent all have a sort of gloomy pop about them.
Liam: We're not happy up here haha!
Tilly: I wanna claim it as "Granite Rock"! We grew up five minutes from Kemnay Quarry which is the source of granite in Sydney Opera House and various big buildings. There's sparkles in Granite and that's very much our style, we do the sparkly shit! We're influenced by the concept of Aberdeen. Maybe when you're like fifteen you want to be like "Nah I'm myself and I like Glasgow better" but when you start to think about it obviously where you grow up influences you.
Were you guys into physical music growing up? Did you listen to a lot of vinyls and CDs?
Georgia: Yeah definitely! I've got heaps of vinyl. I remember getting for my sixteenth.
Liam: I've still got a lot of CDs.
Tilly: Yeah good for the car!
Liam: Yeah, "Robbie William's Greatest Hits". "Robbie Williams at Knebworth"!
Georgia: The first CD I bought was Peter Andre - "Mysterious Girl".
Liam: Mine was Natasha Bedingfield - "Unwritten".
Tilly: My parents were quite into dancy music. They had CDs filled with dance tunes; Gorillaz, Prodigy, Chemical Brothers. They used to freak me out but now they're like the stuff I listen to! It felt too big but now when you grow up you're like that's pretty interesting, just way too much for a child to comprehend.
Callum: So I think our answer for that one is yeah?
Liam: Haha yeah, "In Summary...."
Do you think we lose something from having less physical music about?
Kieran: Yeah, a lot of money!
Tilly: We have CD's.
Kieran: Back in the day you'd sell one hundred CD's for a fiver each. That's five hundred quid. Now you get five hundred streams and that's like twenty pence.
Tilly: People used to buy singles and listen to them. Now they'll just listen to them for thirty seconds for free. On Spotify you don't even get paid if someone just listens to your song for thirty seconds!
Kieran: Yeah that's why all our songs are thirty one seconds long haha!
Tilly: That's why people have moved to the choruses come first, so you get the choruses to come quickly.
Kieran: Spotify is genuinely shaping music right now. Their algorithms are affecting the way people write music. It's pretty incredible.
Tilly: Yeah, we're missing CDs.
Georgia: Especially when you put so much thought into the artwork.
Callum: Yeah, I've had feedback for the In Forever EP and people have bought it cause they love it but they have no way to play it.
Tilly: Yeah, my laptop doesn't even have a CD player.
Kieran: The only CD player I have is in my car.
You've supported so many great bands over the last while with some more great gigs coming up, do you learn things from supporting them?
Callum: I mean Larkins made us want to be a lot tighter.
Kieran: They came to Aberdeen and we supported them and they were just so tight.
Tilly: Every time we see a band we really like we want to be better.
Liam: The Ninth Wave, they put on a show!
Tilly: Yeah, we really love theatrics. We've not supported The Ninth Wave but we've seen them. We usually support punkier bands and we learn where to put songs in the setlist from them. That's a big thing! I think a good cover is a good way to get people in the door as well. A good choice of cover!
Then turning from bands you've supported to venues you've played. You have King Tut's this coming weekend, do you think you'll view back on that as a landmark moment for the band in years to come?
Liam: One of my goals was to play Tut's.
Callum: We were talking about how it's probably gonna be the biggest gig so far.
Kieran: We're pretty happy to be playing King Tut's, it's gonna be so cool!
Tilly: King Tut's has all the history.
Georgia: It's a big step for bands.
Liam: Especially being one of the only Aberdeen bands (playing Summer Nights).
Kieran: Yeah we're one of four so it's pretty exciting.
And finally, what's the best piece of advice you've ever been given?
Tilly: Don't care so much about what people think of you.
Georgia: Smile more!
Kieran: It's always drunk old idiots coming up at the end of a gig.
Callum: Well Kieran's dad gave me a good bit of advice at the end of the gig there. Just saying do what you want and go for it.
Tilly: Don't take yourself too seriously. Nothing is the end of the world.
