Cover Feature Where The Wild Things Are: Circa Waves

“This year I’ve said I’m just gonna throw myself in at the deep end and, whatever makes me feel uncomfortable, I’ll just do it,” Kieran Shudall begins matter-of-factly over a pint in a mostly-empty Camden pub.

The Circa Waves frontman is talking about life in general, but his newfound attitude of embracing new challenges could be read as a comment on the band’s second album too. ‘Different Creatures’ waves goodbye to the sunkissed indie-pop of 2015 debut ‘Young Chasers’ and replaces it with a fistful of rock riffs. It’s a change that not many would have predicted, but one that was a direct reaction to the amount of success the Liverpool band found after that first album. The record entered the Top Ten in the albums chart and constant touring led them to bigger and bigger venues, including a sold-out show at Brixton Academy.

Great, you might think, but when it came to having to play the same songs over and over again, it had a definite impact on the music Kieran would want to make next – namely forcing him to try a completely new direction. “With some of the first record, it was a bit throwaway,” he says now. “Not that I don’t think it was good, it just wasn’t really thought out.”

For most of Circa Waves’ existence, they opened their sets with the record’s title track. Its creator sings the first line (“Not much as such, not much of a problem”) and shakes his head. “Over two years I was like ‘what the fuck, that doesn’t mean anything’. It’s fine, it’s a hooky thing, but I wanted to sing something that means a little more.”

‘Wake Up’, ‘Different Creatures’’ opener, was the first to be written in his new, improved regime. Having demoed it after the band finished their US tour with Foals at the end of 2015 Kieran was initially apprehensive about the beefier sound he had created. “I sent it to a few people and they were like ‘this is cool, you should push forward with it’. It was like ‘OK, I haven’t gone mad!’”