Interview: Corella // Pulling the strings with their new single ‘Puppets’
Manchester band, Corella, have just released their new single, ‘Puppets’. Joel Smith, Ben Henderson, Jack Taylor and James Fawcett are one of the most exciting bands in the UK right now.
Having already released a string of singles and with over 1.2 million streams on Spotify, the four piece have taken things up a notch with their latest single ‘Puppets’.
We caught up to discuss the new single, producing music at home and life in Lockdown.
Hello Corella, where are you and how the hell are you?
Hello! We are living in the beautiful city of Manchester and we’re all doing fine thanks!
You released your new single ‘Puppets’ last week. It’s a belter, you don’t mess around with the length of the single. You get in, wham bam, give our ears a shake up and then get the hell out. Is that a conscious decision when you’re producing ?
Thanks very much glad you dig it! I think with the energy the song carries throughout it was definitely a conscious decision to not drop off at any point and just keep the tune driving throughout the whole song. With it being a shorter track I think it can help when people are listening as gives them little time to get bored haha.
You’ve gained a reputation of having an amazing live show and your tunes are seriously danceable. How do you make sure you leave gig goers wanting more?
I think when we play live it’s such a release of energy and adrenaline that we really give it everything we have, and try to make sure everyone in the audience will leave thinking ‘wow’. That’s always the aim anyway.
As were in lockdown right now, it’s not as easy to promote new music by getting out and gigging. But, you have taken to doing Instagram Live ‘Club Corella’. Does putting yourself out on social media feel natural for you guys or is it something you need to push yourselves to do?
I think when we first started out a few years back it was definitely more intimidating to put ourselves out there on social media. But I feel like now we’ve got so used to it and the people who follow us have gotten to know our personalities so it’s definitely not as scary now.
You released a string of singles in 2019, add Puppets to that and you’ve a nice collection of work. Is the aim to release an album or what are your plans?
We would love to release an album at some point! Writing enough material seemed quite daunting but living together has been really useful during this lockdown, as we’ve been writing so much we now have enough new songs for an album.
You record and produce your own music at home. Do you use external studios or producers or are you happy with how you are producing now?
I think the demos we make at home sound pretty decent and we always try to make sure they sound as good as possible! There might be a few things that we know can be better and need improving but then when we go and properly record the track in the studio, the small details can be ironed out but the main core of the song has already been made by us.
Barcelona has over 1.2 million streams on Spotify, which is amazing, how important has Spotify been for you to get the ‘Corella’ name out there?
Spotify has been huge for us. I think when we released ‘Barcelona Girl’ we knew it was a good song but didn’t really think about how successful it could be. Without a doubt Spotify helped massively with the play-listing, ending up with so many more people hearing the song.
You’re all in lockdown together in the same house but you’ve been living together for a few years. Has it made you more productive as a band or do you just want to chill right now?
Definitely made us more productive. We’ve been focusing a lot on writing and have been feeling really creative at the minute so been really good so far!
You’re based in Manchester, can you recommend three local bands we should check out and why?
Larkins, top band who we’ve known for quite a while now and they are smashing it at the minute! Mealtime, they’ve been releasing some cool tracks recently. Masi Masi, good friend of ours from uni who has started bringing out some new stuff which sounds really cool.
What venue are you most looking forward to get back to gigging in once we get out in the new normal?
We were meant to be playing Colours Hoxton for Close Up Festival this May but that has been rescheduled to September, so hopefully if it goes ahead it’s a venue we’ve never played but looks really cool so looking forward to that!
What are your banana bread skillz like?
Non existent haha as none of us have ever made any banana bread. We are experts for making a Sunday roast though!
Send us a band selfie?
Find Corella online
You can find out more about Corella on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram and don’t forget to tune into their Club Corella Live every Saturday at 8pm