Get To Know... VILLANELLE • Neu • DIY Magazine

Hello and welcome back to DIY’s introducing feature, Get To Know… which aims to get you a little bit closer to the buzziest acts that have been catching our eye as of late, and working out what makes them tick.

Chances are, the name VILLANELLE will already ring some bells. Whether a reference to the Killing Eve assassin or the form of French verse, your guess is as good as ours, but most else about this London trio is far less ambiguous. Fronted by Gene Gallagher (yes, that one) and completed by guitarist Ben Taylor and bassist Jack Schiavo, they have - unsurprisingly - already gained traction in the live arena, notching up a Miles Kane support tour and a string of headline shows of their own. The proof of this pudding, though, is in the playing; and crucially, VILLANELLE have the ingredients to back it all up.

Distilling the spirit of ’90s grunge titans like Nirvana and Smashing Pumpkins with refreshingly sardonic, especially British sensibilities, their debut EP ‘Measly Means’ promises to pull absolutely no punches. To mark its recent announcement - and the arrival of incendiary new single ‘Placebo’ - we caught up with Gene, Jack, and Ben to talk hair of the dog, artistic integrity, and sure-fire scrapping tactics…

Describe your music to us in the form of a dating app bio.
Never needed a bio, let the pics do the work.

What’s your earliest musical memory?
Seeing the music video for ‘Firestarter’ by The Prodigy on TV as a two year old and being actively terrified.

You’ve described your latest single, ‘Placebo’, as a song “about heightened visualizations of post session anxiety”. What’s the worst morning after fear you’ve ever had? And what’s your go-to hangover cure?
Not getting hangovers has broadly meant that I have nothing inhibiting me from drinking more, so I am almost perpetually suffering from the fear as a result. As a hangover/fear remedy, hair of the dog is the only answer. Maybe a Nando’s… with a cold beeeeeer.

What do you hope your debut EP ‘Measly Means’ says about you as a band? Why did you land on these five tracks as the world’s introduction proper to VILLANELLE?
We hope it demonstrates how our sound has developed; we’ve written this material in the last few years, so it should give people a chance to see both our softer and heavier sensibilities. We think these five songs really demonstrate what our tastes are and what we have in store, so we can fine tune it on the next body of work.

“I never wanna be a band that makes music that other people tell them to make. As long as I like how it sounds, I’ll be happy with it.”

You are perhaps, more than most new bands, in a position where people may have a preconceived idea of you as artists. How have you found the experience of carving out your own musical identity? Is there anything in particular you’ve learned along the way?
I make music that I like the sound of - I never wanna be a band that makes music that other people tell them to make. As long as I like how it sounds, I’ll be happy with it. And that’s all that matters.

Would you rather fight one horse-sized duck, or 100 duck-sized horses?
One horse-sized duck. Fundamentally, 100 of pretty much any animal with intent to harm is gonna quite quickly overwhelm one man. Even at the size of a duck, a horse’s bite is gonna suck and 100 at once is an absolute mare. Get one good swing in on the large duck and you should walk away unscathed. Enough slices of old bread and you could distract it for a while too.

Finally, DIY are coming round for dinner - what are you making?
Double vodka lime sodas - eating is cheating!

‘Measly Means’ is out on 6th May.

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