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The following is a condensed, written version of an interview with UK indie band Easy Life at Boston Calling Music Festival. This interview was conducted and transcribed by WHUS Operations Manager Aidan Brueckner.
AIDAN: How are you guys doing? Doing good?
MURRAY: Yeah, we’re really good man, yeah.
AIDAN: Alright, awesome. So just for our listeners do you guys want to introduce yourselves, just kinda talk about what kind of music you make, that sort of stuff?
MURRAY: Sure, well hey listeners, we’re Easy Life, we’re from Leicester in the UK, which is like 100 miles north of London and right in the middle of the country. We make alternative, hip-hop inspired, pop music, with a little bit of jazz and guitars thrown in there, and yeah it’s good to be in Boston.
AIDAN: Yeah, we’re happy to have you.
MURRAY: Thank you.
AIDAN: So I was going to ask about who you guys cited as influences, but I saw that you—I did some research and I saw that you guys don’t really like to pigeonhole yourselves with that sort of stuff, so do you want to speak on that a little bit?
MURRAY: I mean, so it’s less about getting pigeonholed and more about actually how difficult it is to say who actually inspires the music and the sort of, the creative output of Easy Life, because there’s so many- as there’s five of us in the live band, and numerous others that we collaborate with and work with, and all of those individuals draw from like, such a wide range of genres and inspirations, so it’s difficult to actually say “Oh, we’re directly inspired by X, Y, and Z” because, it’s—it’s so difficult—
CASS: We take like an influence all the way from like 60s music right up to like, now. So like, it’s sort of like an era of like, every kind of music that we all listened to at some stage, so like, going right back to like, people like Otis Redding back in the day, all the way to like Anderson .Paak and Kendrick Lamar, all those kind of people now, and Kevin Abstract, et cetera.
AIDAN: So you guys are on tour right now, correct? How has that been going for you?
MURRAY: You know what, we were out last night for some food talking about this. We’ve been on tour, um, for like two or three months now with little breaks in between, we started out in South by Southwest in Austin, and then we did a show, went to New York, and then we went back toured like the UK—
LEWIS: Flew straight into a UK tour, landed in Glasgow.
MURRAY: Yeah, and then we came out again—then to Coachella, and from Coachella we toured Europe, and then from Europe we came straight back to . . .
LEWIS: America.
MURRAY: Yeah, but for what?
LEWIS: For . . .
MURRAY: Oh, for Hangout! We went to Alabama to play Hangout Festival, which was so sick. It was like, totally different to anywhere we’d been before, and then here we are, and we’ve got Governor’s Ball next week, and then we go home, and then we’ve got like, a couple weeks off before we start the UK festival season.
AIDAN: So you guys have been doing like, a lot of plane-hopping then?
MURRAY: Yeah, like, before we started this, I didn’t get on many planes, and nor did any of us, so it’s nice to actually travel a little bit.
AIDAN: Yeah, that’s great stuff. How do you guys feel your reception has been overseas? You know you guys are from England, how do you you’ve been performing here in America?
CASS: It’s been like, very exciting to be honest, like, in Alabama especially at Hangout, like there was probably the best response we’ve had off an American festival yet. And it’s just nice to play to audiences that know your music, and stuff like that. So we feel like we are getting some reception back from all we’ve been doing out in the UK, and our music’s finally making it’s way out here to the people in the festivals, which feels great. So like, long may it continue.
LEWIS: We were saying yesterday, me and Olly were just talking, this time last year we wouldn’t have even played a main stage in the UK, so to be in America and play a main stage at a festival that’s pretty infamous is pretty sick.
MURRAY: It’s always like a complete trip that people from so far away, thousands of kilometers away have even heard our music, and then to be given [the] privilege to actually then perform it to them live, is just, you know, a massive blessing, we’re all totally thrilled to pieces to get that opportunity. So, long may it continue, fingers crossed.
AIDAN: You guys put out a music video a couple days ago. Watched that this morning on the train ride in, do you want to talk a little bit about your process for that and how the response has been? Because that was kind of a fun video to watch.
MURRAY: Yeah, all our videos—
LEWIS: Soft porn, basically.
AIDAN: Yeah, I was gonna say, like . . .
[laughter]
MURRAY: Yeah, uh, videos are really an important part of the brand and the art and stuff, like we really think about those things, and we’ve got a few cooking up at the minute as well which we’re really excited about. But yeah, the video for Sunday was exciting, and yeah, just a bit of a wacky concept, and aesthetically we wanted it to be sort of these pink and pastel hues throughout, and, yeah. I mean I don’t want to ruin it, I want people to go find out what it’s all about.
AIDAN: Yeah, definitely go check it out, it’s quite an experience.
LEWIS: Yeah, our like, proper second ever, proper video, with like we had put aside a proper budget for it so we could really bring our ideas to life, y’know so we took it seriously.
MURRAY: I’d say it took us a long time to whittle the ideas down from being completely ludicrous, to being actually something we can physically make in a visual format, so, yeah, it’s lots of fun, making videos is one of my favorite things to do because it’s just completely daft.
AIDAN: So you guys have been putting out a bunch of singles, you’ve put out a couple mixtapes, is there any chance of like, a full-blown album coming out soon?
MURRAY: Mmm-hmm, yeah, we like, always talk about this amongst ourselves [inaudible] but also not in a stressful way, it’s like—
AIDAN: Yeah, because you guys are having fun with this.
MURRAY: Yeah, our stock response to that is that the album is gonna hopefully come and write itself, and be very obvious when it, we’re putting it out, and in fact like just last week in New York, we were sort of thinking like, some of the stuff we’d just written was perhaps content for the album, but, I don’t know, yeah, I think the album’s gonna come out next year, if everything, if we get the time to write it, and if we write it I guess, if we get the experience to write it as well, because with the way we write songs we can only really draw directly from things that have happened, and luckily right now we’re getting lots of exploring done and things are happening to us so it’s easy to create because of that, and as long as that keeps happening, I guess the album will come out next year, I hope, if we write it, and record it and produce it, and we don’t fall out, and yeah.
AIDAN: So just kind of very much, going with the flow with it, but like, definitely in the pipeline, in the future.
MURRAY: Yeah, a hundred percent, like, it’s definitely something that we’re considering, it’s just we don’t want to labor it, because then I think we’ll have to compromise on the authenticity of the album. So, we just want it to appear.
CASS: Also, I don’t think any of us think having an album and calling it you know, this is our debut album, I don’t think any of us are, that, it doesn’t stress us out at all, does it?
MURRAY: No, I think it’s just gonna materialize at some point and then when that happens we’ll start the campaign and start pushing music out, I don’t know. It’s weird, because we just basically put whatever music out we’ve just written, so with the last mixtape we’d written like 6 tracks, it’s like, that’s not enough for an album but it feels good as like a mixtape, so let’s put that out. And then we wrote a couple singles, put them out, I don’t know.
AIDAN: Cool.
MURRAY: Yeah. [laughter]
AIDAN: Good stuff. So now that we’ve gotten some of the fun stuff out of the way, now it’s time for business, uh, got some real questions for you guys. Do you guys believe in ghosts?
MURRAY: Yes, yes.
LEWIS: Yeah, I’ve seen a ghost.
AIDAN: Yes? You’ve seen a ghost? Do you want to elaborate?
LEWIS: It’s such a long story . . .
AIDAN: Okay, dude tell me. I’m here to listen.
LEWIS: Alright, I was about 11, year 6 in school, so last year of primary school, like elementary school, um, wow, I’ve not told this story for so long! Um, basically, I’d just broken up with my girlfriend at the time, she was called Kaya, we’d been together about 6 months, I was really upset, so I ran to the back of the field and we were on this, like, did I already say that? We were on this like field trip sort of thing overnight. We’re on a field trip overnight. So I run to the back of the field because I was really upset, two of my friends followed, anyway, out of nowhere—it was near some cliffs by the way, I feel like that needs to be stated because—
AIDAN: Yeah, because of the ambiance or whatever.
LEWIS: Like, he probably died near a cliff, but obviously a massive fence. He’s—sorry, our drummer’s looking at us like “you’re making this up” but I swear to god this is a true story.
CASS: I’m trying to think where’s this going! You’re on the edge of the cliff, with friends, you run away from someone—
LEWIS: Anyways, we’re sat on a bench, similar to this, it’s about 8 o’clock at night- Sorry, I’m really drawing this story out.
AIDAN: You’re on a field trip at 8 o’clock at night?
LEWIS: No no no, we were just about, we were—
MURRAY: Like a residential trip, right? Where you stay over.
LEWIS: It was a residential trip, yeah.
AIDAN: Okay, I gotcha.
LEWIS: I wish I’d had time to think about this story before I told it. And then, literally out of nowhere, this like, white presence just probably just over where that sort of—
MURRAY: You’re on radio, mate.
LEWIS: Yeah, okay. Probably about a hundred meters away. Um, and I was like, “Mate, mate, are you alright?” Cause like, obviously we were terrified, we’re like little kids, and there’s just like a white man, dressed man, I dunno. Anyway, we started walking away and he started coming closer towards us, so we started running, and then all of a sudden I turned round and he was gone. And I got back and I burst into tears, and everyone was like, “Why’re you crying Lewis?” and I was like, “I saw a ghost,” nobody believed me, and yeah it drove me to insanity, and now I’m actually absolutely, absolutely, insane.
AIDAN: You know what? I believe you.
LEWIS: Thank you.
MURRAY: What makes you ask that anyways?
AIDAN: Dude, I gotta have some fun with this, you know?
MURRAY: Do you believe in ghosts?
AIDAN: Yes, yes, one hundred percent.
MURRAY: That’s amazing.
LEWIS: I wouldn’t believe in ghosts if I hadn’t seen a ghost. *a capellas*
MURRAY: Yeah, not everybody does believe in ghosts. In fact, I’d say less than half the population, from my survey. Not many people believe in ghosts.
AIDAN: So two more questions, you guys are familiar with Mr. Blobby, right? You guys know Mr. Blobby?
MURRAY [laughter]: Yes.
LEWIS: Yeah.
CASS: Mr. Blobby?
JORDAN: I know him.
AIDAN: Okay, uh, are you guys willing to go on the record and state that Mr. Blobby is actually kinda sexy?
MURRAY: Mr. Blobby—
LEWIS: Looks like a pedophile.
JORDAN: A bit sexy? Who says that?
MURRAY: Mr Blobby is sexy. Yeah, I’ll go on the record and say I would bang Mr. Blobby, and Mrs. Blobby, probably.
AIDAN: Alright good, glad we got that on the record. Anyone else want to interject with their Mr. Blobby opinions?
CASS: No idea what Mr. Blobby is.
MURRAY: You don’t know what Mr. Blobby is?
CASS: No.
JORDAN: If I think he is who I think he is, he’s like a bowling pin.
AIDAN: Yeah, he’s like a bowling pin.
CASS: I don’t want to know what he looks like—
MURRAY: What show was he on? He was on the BBC somewhere wasn’t he?
JORDAN: Like Rolf Harris s***?
AIDAN: Yeah, I think so, that sounds right.
LEWIS: No, no, no, he was not—
JORDAN: Was he with Noel Edmonds?
MURRAY: Yeah, Noel Edmonds.
JORDAN: His first show on the BBC.
AIDAN: Okay, last question, this one’s kinda personal. Do you guys know why my wife left me?
LEWIS: Because you’re a massive twat. [laughter] Sorry, no I’m joking, sorry. That was a horrible response.
AIDAN: Dude, no, that was good. Thank you.
MURRAY: Thank you?!
LEWIS: You’re really not a twat, you’re actually a lovely man.
CASS: Why?
MURRAY: Why did your wife leave you?
AIDAN: Dude, that’s what I’m asking!
MURRAY: You’ve not got a wife, right?
JORDAN: Let’s all give ourselves ten seconds to think of the worst thing we could ever say to somebody.
MURRAY: No, I think she left you because you were too good for her.
CASS: She wasn’t good enough for you.
AIDAN: Wow.
MURRAY: She knew that.
AIDAN: Thank you so much.
LEWIS: She knew you needed to be free to fulfill your destiny as a . . . male stripper.
AIDAN: She couldn’t handle it.
CASS: She couldn’t handle you going to be a male stripper.
AIDAN: No I mean like, the fame, the fortune, it’s just too much for some people, you know what I mean?
MURRAY: It’s difficult to stomach that sometimes.
AIDAN: That’s all the questions that I have for you guys, thank you so much for coming out! It was a pleasure to meet you all.
MURRAY: Thank you!
CASS: Thank you, man.
LEWIS: I loved those questions. I wish every interview had questions like that.
AIDAN: Dude, glad to be of service.
MURRAY: Ghosts are real.
AIDAN: Ghosts are real? Alright, cool. Any parting words for our viewers, our listeners, other than ghosts are real?
MURRAY: Recycle your plastic.
AIDAN: Cool. Thank you guys so much.