Neu Get To Know… The Orchestra (For Now)

Describe your music to us in the form of a dating app bio.
Bill: Orgy
Neil: Open to anything

⁠Congrats on the imminent release of ‘Plan 75’! How does it feel to have your debut EP out in the world?
Bill: It’s always strange having something you’ve been living with for a while be set in digital stone and thrown into the mix. It’s relieving, like draining a cyst.

Why did you feel these four tracks were the right ones to introduce you as a band to the world? What do you hope the project reflects about you (as artists, and/or as people)?
Neil: They weren’t written as an EP, but we thought they compliment each other. These songs made up the bulk of our live set at the time, and we picked tracks that were darker in tone to get a kind of cohesion.

Bill: We didn’t do it to say anything about ourselves, we don’t need people to think we are a certain way. We wrote these songs when we first started writing together, the EP is capturing that conception.

What were the first songs/albums you first bought with your own money, and why?
Bill: Talk Talk’s ‘Spirit of Eden’ was the first album I bought. It’s a really good album, it has a really strange rhythm. My dad loves it, and when you’re younger you listen to what your parents listen to.

Neil: Mine was Aidan Grimshaw’s album, I was a big X Factor fan at the time. One day I’d like to take part in the competition - hopefully as a judge, otherwise being a contestant will suffice.

As a group with seven members, we can imagine the creative process can get a little complicated… How do you navigate writing sessions? Do a small number of people take the lead? Do different members pen different tracks? Give us a bit of an insight into that dynamic.
Bill: Sometimes one member will bring a whole song, and they take somewhat of a lead there. However, even in that situation, there’s a lot of suggestions or input from other members. At other times, the songs are formed from different ideas from different people. It demands a lot of respect and listening from all the members, but does mean that we can write pretty constantly, because even if one person is in a slump, others take the slack. Joe writes all the lyrics, and the songs are almost always instrumentals first.

⁠Last year, you won Green Man’s Rising competition, which means you opened the festival by performing on its main stage! Can you tell us a bit about this experience? How did it feel to get that kind of recognition so early on, without even having released any music?
Bill: Honestly, I can’t remember. It’s a lot to play to that many people when you’re not used to it. It still felt great, but we knew we had a long road ahead. We still know this.

Neil: I remember it clearly. It was pretty swell. Joe and I kept grinning at each other during the performance because it all felt so ridiculous. And it was fun walking around the festival afterwards, being recognised and seeing people wearing our t-shirts.

Tell us the best and worst advice you’ve ever been given.
Bill: I don’t respond that well to advice. I was once told that “there are two types of people in life, the quick and the disappointed”. This is coming from a man who is now both quick and disappointed.

Neil: Live laugh love.

Finally, DIY are coming round for dinner - what are you making?
Bill: A bed that’s the size of a whole room with walls that are covered in cling film.

‘Plan 75’ is out tomorrow (28th March). 

Tags: Get to Know, Neu, The Orchestra (For Now)