Southern rockers with a dose of soul; The Weeks are mid way through a European tour. When they aren't supporting Kings of Lean on their arena tour, they're playing the coolest intimate venues around. They dropped in to our Shoreditch store last week and we caught up with Samuel Williams from the band. Read on to find out the best place to shake your ass in Mississippi and the secret to their dishevelled do...
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| Southern Rockers with an East London wardrobe |
Did you always want to be in a band?
And if you weren’t The Weeks, what would you be doing?
I'm not sure any of us ever thought this is what we want to do forever. It just happened that way. We were all between 14 and 15 when we started the band so it wasn't really a "career move", per se. Because we started so young, none of us have any sort of back up plan. This is what we've done our entire adult lives, it's all we know. I suppose I'd be in school, with a lot of debt, working a regular job? Sounds boring.
On a scale of 1 to 10, how excited
are you to be touring the UK? And which venue are you most looking forward to?
Our
excitement level is always really high when we come to the UK. The crowds treat
us really well, are as enticed by our accents as we are theirs, and seem to
have less reservations about admitting that they love a band before they know
if it's cool or not. The UK has always had great taste in rock music and will
always be a barometer for what's on the brink of becoming successful. I reckon
we're most excited about Sebright Arms. We're playing two shows there on this
run and we did one back in October of last year on our first trip. We usually
stay at friends house in Brixton when we're here so the Windmill is always our
favorite joint to tear up. Tim and everybody that works there
are great friends and always show us a good time.
You’ve got an impressive set of
locks between you. What’s your trick to a perfect barnet?
If a barnet
is the English equivalent of a "do", our secret is never cut it. The
twins and I had really thick kind of curly hair, so the more we forget about it
and let it grow out, the better it seems to look. We've had it so long now
we've forgotten what our heads are shaped like though, so for now it's not
going anywhere.
Who/What is your biggest musical
influence?
Lately our
two biggest influences have been The Band and Thin Lizzy. The Band had an
unbelievable ability to craft songs will all kinds of instrumentation,
structures, time signatures all without outsourcing any musicians. As virtuosic
as they all were, they never stepped out too much if the song didn't need.
Their musical abilities were servants to the song. Thin Lizzy just oozes
attitude. Phil Lynott is a rock icon, and he never gets enough credit. At first
they're outwardly just attitude, but after one listen to any album, you quickly
realize how incredibly talented they were as musicians and songwriters.
What’s Mississippi’s best kept
secret?
Po Monkey'sLounge in Merigold, MS, about 30 miles south of Clarksdale in the Delta. It's
the last real juke joint that the Mississippi Delta blues music made so famous.
It's been around for over 50 years and is just a great place to have a good
time, drink some beers and dance your ass off to classic soul and R&B. We
spotted Tom Waits there once and tried to keep it to ourselves, play it cool
and just admire his presence from afar, but eventually the crowd caught on and
he was out of there in a huge Cadillac before you could blink.
We love your look. How do you pick
what to wear in the morning?
We've always had really picky
styles. We've been too skinny to wear anything but skinny jeans since we were
like 12 years old, and none of us have changed styles in years. This is just
what we've always worn. A lot of tank tops and thin button ups, because
anything thicker will have you drowning sweat in Mississippi. In the morning we
usually just pick up whatever's laying around and isn't too dirty.
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