Features Beau And The Arrows

Starting life as a solo project by North London’s Beau Carter, it wasn’t long before Beau And The Arrows went from being a one-man-band to a duo, having recruited Jasmin Foley.

Now a quartet, following the addition of Layla Dudley and Jaimin Allen, their debut single ‘Fix’ is set to drop next week (4th April) through Happy Release Records. It’s taken from their forthcoming album ‘Future Kicks’, due in August.

Beau takes a break from ‘making a few plans’ and ‘sorting a few upcoming shows’ to tell us a bit about themselves.

How did Beau And The Arrows form?
Well Beau and the Arrows was started by myself about two and half years ago after I was recovering from throat surgery. I met Jasmine in a photography class at college and we immediately became good friends and started working together. The band itself was a duo for a longtime until we made the decision to start playing gigs. We knew right away we would need another guitar player and a fulltime drummer so we hired Layla Dudley and Jaimin Allen for the job and we have been a four piece ever since.

Do you get out of London much?
Not really. We have played a few shows in Brighton which has been loads of fun. Brighton has a lot of love for Beau and the Arrows and we can’t wait to play the Great Escape Festival on 12th May. We can’t wait to do a few more shows across the country as we go on. Our first single is getting a distribution in independent stores all over, including Manchester, Leeds, Newcastle, Cardiff and Glasgow, so it’d be great to visit those places.

Your debut 7’ is out soon, and your debut album is expected this summer. How do you go about making your music? Do you record / produce much of it yourselves?
All the music you hear from Beau and the Arrows is solely produced by us. We once worked with a producer but he didn’t understand what the band was all about and since then we have chosen to produce by ourselves. Also, with the fact that we have all the necessary equipment in my home studio it’s pointless looking for a producer when we can do it all ourselves.

How’s the album coming along? Where abouts are you in the process?
Well the album is finished and now it’s just waiting to drop. The funny thing is, me and Jasmine made the decision to keep recording for months and months before we ever played any gigs. So when I come to think about it, we had nearly a whole albums worth of material before we made a live appearance which has worked in our favor.

This isn’t the first time you’ve had an album in the pipeline - what happened to the one kicking about at the end of 2009?
It’s pretty much the same album! At the time, we had no management deal and so we were going to self release it. Now we are in a much better position to release it so we definitely made the right decision to wait a little while longer.

Has your music evolved much since then, do you think?
Not too much I don’t think. We’ve always been quite confident with our sound and the sort of music we wanted to create. At times its more complex and we added a synthesizer last year, I guess it’s safe to say the music has progressed but not a great deal.

What’s the first song of yours you’d recommend potential new fans should check out?
I would say ‘Fix’, which is the debut single. It’s the first song me and Jasmine wrote and recorded together and I think it set the standard for what the band has become today.

Beau and the Arrows - Fix by beauandthearrows