Spring King talk newfound attention: “I don’t know which of the seven Gods is looking down on us”

In the new, October issue of DIY (out Friday 2nd October), Spring King discuss what it’s like to suddenly be the name on everyone’s lips.

On 1st July this year, Spring King’s Tarek Musa was recording music in his bathroom. As usual. He was treating the day like any other, either putting down songs for his go-to project or mixing other bands’ music. Then his phone buzzed. Email alerts started flashing up. And it kept happening. Either he’d forgotten it was his birthday, or something really strange had happened.

As it turned out, his life had taken a very sudden, ridiculous turn. A few minutes before Musa’s phone went apeshit, a familiar voice was on air. “We’ve spent the last three months trying to build this radio station and now we can build no more,” said enthusiasm-volcano Zane Lowe, introducing the first song on Apple’s newly-launched Beats 1 station. “There’s been one song we’ve been coming back to. I’ve referred to it lyrically.” And then out stepped ‘City’. Being fair, this was already Spring King’s breakthrough moment, only on a much smaller scale. Make no bones about it - they weren’t the talk of the town.

One radio play can do a lot, but nothing on this scale. When Beats 1 launched, everyone was listening. Not just musos and diehard fans. Tech geeks were tuned in. Reporters worldwide at least had it on in the background. When Spring King’s ‘City’ launched Apple Music’s flagship station, it also launched these DIY diehards. “USA Today… Wired… Entertainment Weekly did an article on us,” says Darlington, listing off the new fans. “But in terms of day to day life, it’s exactly the same,” he claims.

Tarek doesn’t completely agree. “Things have definitely changed, though. I’ve been at the post office every day, posting out t-shirts. There’s been more and more people at the shows. I never expected that. It’s just an accumulation of the whole year. Somehow, I don’t know which of the seven Gods is looking down on us…”

Alongside a chat with the band, we get word from Zane Lowe on why he picked out Spring King’s ‘City’. “It was this record that I genuinely referred to constantly. It came with me from the UK over to America, and I couldn’t stop listening to it. I listened to the lyrics in a different light. And whenever we’d do these demo runs, we’d go down to an office room with a microphone, and I’d record links. Just to give an idea of what kind of broadcast we’d be bringing. And I’d always use Spring King. It was in my head as Beats 1. That’s what it sounded like to me. That’s the fucking song,” he says.

Read the full interview in the October issue of DIY, out Friday 2nd October. Pre-order a copy below.