Interview Temples: ‘You Never Know Where A Song Is Destined To Go’

Heavenly Records are busy knocking it out of the ballpark when it comes to new signings. Following from the dreamy tendencies of TOY, and the glam-rock leanings of Charlie Boyer & The Voyeurs, their latest beauties, Temples, are gearing up to unveil their second musical offering, having already played The O2…

“Obviously we’ve talked about it since, and it was a great gig and stuff,” begins the band’s frontman, James Bagshaw, on the Vaccines support slot, “but I think, for me, it was more surreal sound checking than the gig. Everything is alight and you can see how big the place is. For the gig, every stage is the same because there’s not a spotlight on the crowd, so it’s just a rather big stage.”

Having only formed in mid-2012, a few months prior to the release of their debut single, Temples have caused quite a stir. Signing to Heavenly after founder Jeff Barrett stumbled across a handful of tracks on YouTube, the four-piece’s first 7” single has since become a collector’s item, whilst they’ve had invitations from the likes of Suede and Johnny Marr to head out on tour. No mean feat for a band who haven’t even celebrated their first anniversary.



“That first single was sort of just done on a handshake,” offers bassist Thomas Warmsley, when we bring up their representation. “We’re such big admirers of Heavenly; they’re probably one of the best independent labels who are doing stuff now and have a roster of current artists. There’s a real group of musicians there that are doing something that appeals to us. I don’t think we’d want to work with anyone else.”

Now that they’ve warmed themselves to the art of touring, the next step for the band is the follow-up single. Having showcased their warming psychedelic melodies with ‘Shelter Song’, they’re set to return with the aptly-titled ‘Colours Of Life’.

“We didn’t consciously think about what we were gonna do,” explains the frontman. “We’re always writing and because we just record just at my house, it’s very accessible all of the time. There were quite a few tracks that we were working on, and I started working on this particular song. Then, Tom and I just worked on it together, with no idea. You never know where a song is destined to go, whether it’s to be a single or not, but the moment you know that, it’s not right. We played around with it and it seemed to just work when we rehearsed it. It had a lot of energy to it. You want the singles to have energy and you want them to be able to hit people in the face.”

“I think,” continues Warmsley, “we were a band for three months when we released our first single ‘Shelter Song’, not that it was rushed, but we formed and released that quite instantly. So, it’s been nice to start this year with a new song. We’d written it a month or so we had posed it to be a single. Yeah, for us in many ways it’s like another first single. It’s still early on.”

Early on it may be, but there are already whispers of an album, and with such a proactive nature when it comes to recording, could we be expecting one sooner, rather than later? “We don’t know when it’s going to be,” answers James. “I mean, we could potentially release a record tomorrow because we record a lot. It’s not a case of us working on demos for an album; there’s a lot of stuff recorded. I just don’t think people would be ready for it. We’re always progressing so we want to wait until we’ve progressed enough to feel we warrant releasing an album.”

“We wanna take our time and enjoy what we’re doing now,” adds Tom. “If, as James said, we were occupied with an album, it would offset what we’re doing now. But it will come!”



Temples’ new single ‘Colour To Life’ is out now via Heavenly Recordings.

Read the full interview in the new edition of DIY Weekly, available from iTunes now.