In the wake of the industrialisation of music in an X-Factor, generic pop generation, we must seek shelter from the after-shocks in the comfort of our local scene. Each one individual, each one growing.

I moved to Sheffield in September’16 and instantly found an active independent music scene engulfing not only bands but venues, writers and festivals. When you think Sheffield you might think Pulp, or Arctic Monkeys; I think Vultures.

I caught up with front-man, Luke…

Tell us a little bit about the band. Who are you / how did you form?

We’re Vultures, a 5 piece psych band hailing from Sheffield. We formed in late 2015 after myself and Nathan’s previous punk project wasn’t going where we wanted it too, we decided to make a new band and try out a new sound neither of us had worked with before.

Was there a specific moment when the band really solidified and you knew you were onto a good thing?

Well it took us about 4 months to find a solid line up, however we always felt there was something missing. We invited John McCullagh down for a practice with us and it went down a storm, and ever since then we seem to gel perfectly as a band.

Who are your main influences as a group?

Nick Cave n the bad seeds, Joy Division, New Order, The Cure, Tame impala we could go on forever

What do you like most about the Sheffield music scene?

It’s like a bit of a family really. The scene has really come together over the last couple of years and you’ll find that most the crowd at local gigs are in fact members of other bands.

Having all come together from past bands and musical ventures, do you think that experience helped? Or was it hard adapting to one another?

The experience definitely helps. John had a successful solo career before joining us and his knowledge of the touring scene has definitely helped us when it’s come to gigging. When we were recording our first single, we found it quite a struggle to get the sound of us across properly because the sound we wanted was pretty new to us, but we felt we got it across in the end

What’s your favourite song to play live? Why?

I think the others may disagree but mines probably the song we always end on, Swarm. I get on bass for it and our bass player Dillon goes onto synth; it’s just a big climax to our set and we always leave the stage on a huge high.

There was a rumour floating round that Vultures was over but you’re back. What’s changed / what’s new about vultures 2.0?

We never really went, well maybe we did, or maybe it was a marketing ploy, I’ll leave it to your imagination. We’ve come back with a new attitude more than anything else, before we had a break we’d hit a bit of a writers block, then when we had our first practice back we wrote probably our 2 best songs in the space of 3 hours.

Do you think the music industry in general has become more welcoming to up and coming, local bands? Or do you think having industry interest and deals etc is less necessary now?

Not at all, it’s near impossible to get a major deal outside of London and to a certain extent Manchester. There’s so many amazing bands outside the capital that just don’t get the attention they deserve down the fact major labels rarely look outside London. There are a lot more small indie labels popping up which are out there to help new bands though, I’d say if you plan on recording an album label backing is needed, but for singles/EP’s in a band our size it’s easy to get away with it without label help.

Who are some of your fave local bands?

Femur, The Blinders, TRASH, Beat the Bandit, The Vellas, ROOD, Saints.


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