News Thumpers: ‘We’re Adamant We Want The Record Out This Summer’

Childhood friends and former bandmates in Pull Tiger Tail, for John Hamson Jr. and Marcus Pepperell Thumpers was a clean slate for a couple of guys who knew each other’s musical visions like the back of their hands. For a lot of us, seeing the ‘Sound of Screams’ track emerge last year out the blue seemed like a spontaneous, exciting arrival. But as we discover in this interview with the pair, Thumpers is a project that’s taken its time. Before they even announced themselves to a pool of friends, they’d readied an album. And they’d perfected a sound that’s both enlivening and celebratory, catered for mass-appeal but just as likely to get furrowed-browed hipsters tapping their feet. John and Marcus spoke to DIY/Neu about their beginnings and their aims to get an album up in time for the Summer.

Thumpers’ ‘Dancing’s Done’ single is out now through the Kissability tape label (50 cassettes) and Transgressive imprint ParadYse as a 250 pressing of 7’ vinyl.


When did Thumpers begin? Did you stumble upon your sound or was it the product of ‘musical brainstorming’, so to speak?
John Hamson Jr.: Marcus began sending me demos around 2 years ago when I’d just started moonlighting with Friendly Fires. Out of a big bunch of songs there were a few that touched on this almost 90’s R&B pop vibe which I thought could be really interesting to explore as they were so different from the other, I suppose more straight ahead sounding songs.
Marcus Pepperell: It was really freeing to write songs that I thought would probably
end up being sung by someone else, and it let me, in a way, anonymously explore different writing styles.
J: In terms of the sound, we knew we wanted to mix lots of raw and heavy sounds with lush and colourful ones. So we experimented with that for a few months and finally felt like we got the right balance on ‘Sound of Screams’ at the beginning of last year. Every other thumpers song sprang from that point.

How’s the past year been since unveiling ‘Sound of Screams’? Obviously there’s the single releases and the live shows but has your outlook changed at all?
M: When we posted ‘Sound of Screams’, we only shared it with our friends, so we were definitely surprised when it left that circle and people began picking up on it and blogging about it. It was a real
confidence boost, especially as we’d just began recording more songs.
J: We knew we wanted to finish the majority of a record before we started playing live, but when the interest picked up around SOS and people started asking when it was happening, we spent the majority of last year worrying about how we were going to do it.
M: We knew the songs we had recorded had a strong sense of identity and playing live cemented that.

Are there any lessons/ideas you’ve taken from previous projects to apply to Thumpers?
M: Do as much as possible yourself. Don’t be precious about what you’re doing and free yourself from how you think people perceive you, otherwise everything you do will either be reactionary or wilfully conservative.
J. making a record was always something we wanted to do before we really ‘launched’ ourselves. It just means you know exactly who you are as band and focuses you on what you want to achieve with it. Also there’s the importance of being a live band that people actually want to go and see.

When ‘Sound of Screams’ came out, did you have to make lots of decisions in light of label interest, etc.? Did you expect all of this to happen?
J: the only decision we made was to put people off for a bit whilst we recorded. As we said, we didn’t expect ‘SOS’ to reach past our friends so we had to be a bit aloof about it all. We were confident with that song and the band we were becoming at the time so I think we did hope that we would connect with people.

‘Dancing’s Done’ sounds primed for festival stages and big crowds.Do you have an audience in mind when writing your music?
M: Well there’s definitely something in the melody that works well with gang/group singing, and I wanted to write collectively uplifting songs, so that combined with the production, I suppose it does lend itself to those stages. But we didn’t have festivals specifically in mind.

Can you envisage expanding the band at all, bringing other musicians, singers onstage or taking part in collaborations?
J: Because of how the songs turned out, we knew early on (after the fretting) that we’d need more people to do it justice. At the moment we have 4 other people touring with us which includes girl vocalists, a guy on keys and a trumpet player. The idea is that the live set up can be as expansive as we want.
M: A few collaborations are already underway. We’re hopefully doing a cover with a group which we’re really excited about and we’ve already recorded a few other people for guest spots on the record. There’s one quite big female solo on one song who we have a long list of people we want for it, we just need to work up the courage to ask them!

What can we expect next from you guys in 2013? Another single release or do your ambitions lie elsewhere?
J: We’re adamant we want the record out this summer. It needs a home and some mixing, but we’re happy with how it is. I think we also want to explore writing and producing for other artists and we have one or two things lined up - we just need to find the time to do it.
M: I think our ambition is to not be a selfish band, which means working with other people and engaging with as many opportunities as possible. We just want to be busy making music or playing it, however it comes.