Neu The History Of Apple Pie: ‘Slacking Around Gets Bands Nowhere’

You’d never have guessed, but when Stephanie Min first started The History Of Apple Pie 18 months ago she had no previous experience in music. Her partner in crime, Jerome Watson, had been in a handful of fairly low-key bands, but to her this was new. Completely new. Almost overnight she went from singing into a hairbrush in her bedroom to being hounded by record labels and industry folk keen to sign up the fledgling act after hearing one song uploaded, for fun, online.

‘It was weird getting emails off managers and press people wanting to know about the ‘band’ The History Of Apple Pie,’ Steph tells us of that hectic time shortly after their formation. ‘I mean, we weren’t even a band. We were a couple trying to make some music together out of sheer boredom.’

The duo have since recruited a few new members to enable them to perform live, but the sound has remained much the same: all noisy guitar parts and interesting harmonies; charming in that way lo-fi pop so often is.

Steph’s learnt to play guitar, too - in part so she has something to do with her hands. ‘I remember a cringeworthy couple of first gigs,’ she grimaces, ‘where I was almost a little too Napoleon Dynamite on stage than what I had hoped for…’

We’re talking in the lead up to the band’s newest single release, ‘Do It Wrong’. It’s their first for a while - a pair of 7’ vinyl having produced a flurry of excitement and a couple of solid gold pophits in the second half last year - but then they’ve had more important work to do: ‘Writing, touring [with The Drums, Male Bonding, and in Europe], recording, relaxing.’

‘We’re spending a lot of time on it [the much-anticipated debut album] at the moment trying to get it exactly how we want it to sound. We’ve gone back to the drawing board a few times as we’ve been trying to hit the nail on the head with achieving that balance between sounding well produced, but raw and energetic.

‘We’ve always felt it is important for our sound to reflect the energy of the demos we released at the start of our career, as that what our fans have liked about our music the most. We now have access to more facilities and equipment, which is great and I think has been evident from listening to our new single.

‘We’re just experimenting and mixing to get the whole record right and we’re pretty close now. We are also still songwriting as we go along, so every so often we find a better song choice to replace another with. It’s all part of the process, I guess.’

If you’re thinking that this sounds like an awful lot of work, you’d be right (well, not about the ‘relaxing’ bit - Ed). The History Of Apple Pie are no strangers to long hours, and it’s a good thing too; who ever got anywhere without a bit of elbow grease? ‘We’ve always worked hard and been very self-sufficient. We’ve thought about where we want to go, what we want to do and have always tried to achieve it without relying on others. It’s important just to keep going and keep writing, recording and interacting with your fans - slacking around gets bands nowhere these days…’

The History Of Apple Pie’s new single ‘Do It Wrong’ is out now via Marshall Teller Records.

Taken from the August 2012 issue of DIY, available now. For more details click here.