Neu Real Lies: “The London scene has been a disgrace for the past fifteen years”

Photo: Phil Smithies / DIY

The three that make up London trio Real Lies used to live on the outskirts of their chosen city. They were on the fringes, seemingly stifled but equally lured in by the bright lights that existed just miles away. When they arrived, individually they were confronted with bands that meant nothing to them. “The London scene has been a disgrace for the past fifteen years,” claims Tom Watson. The very thought of being a part of this apparently going-nowhere movement, even as a bit-part, “would have absolutely disgusted me,” agrees Pat King. “It was never our intention to be in a band.”

Even today, the three of them don’t have specific band roles. Guitars and electronics entangle, with Kev Kharas obsessing over loops or barely-there samples before applying lyrics that, when executed, walk a tightrope between spoken word and melody. He cites one of Pat’s loops (for ‘North Circular’) that reached up to 2,000 plays before it even became a song. “I let it sink into my brain. That was the ambient noise I was hearing wherever I went,” he remembers.

Some of the trio’s songs were coined on a whim. Others took two years, going back to early days where Watson and Kharas took residence in a permanent party house by a reservoir. They describe the place as “artless”, anything but a “music house”. One night, the music was being played so loud that a chancer climbed through Tom’s window and stole his laptop, containing a recording of new song ‘Dab Housing’, which was finished on the very same day. Hence why it took so long for some of these recordings to come to light.