Bad Sounds are the alternative band you need to be listening to. Having released their debut album Get Better in August and the band about to embark on their biggest UK headline tour to date, we spoke to Callum about the band's inner workings, their highlights and plans plus the dreaded pigeonhole of 'indie-funk'. Spoiler alert: he's a funny guy. 

I’m sure it’s been a whirlwind year with the release of your debut album in August. Has the reception of the record been as you expected?

 I have no idea what the reaction has been to be honest, haha. I haven’t seen anything absolutely slating it yet. Music is such a subjective thing so all we can really do is make something that we like, and are proud of, and fingers crossed other people like it. Our mum likes it. She gave me a lift somewhere the other day and it was on in her car. Thats really all I was aiming for. I did have to turn it off though - it's not a great look cruising around Chippenham with your mum listening to your own album. 

You released the video for your single ‘Wages’ last week …what was the inspiration behind the martial arts and Chinese restaurant? 

Welllll we just have a real soft spot for kinda naff martial arts movies with very little plot. It has absolutely nothing to do with the song. We had visions of making ‘Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon’ pt.2 but I think what we ended up with is a bit more ‘Kung Pow’. In a way that's better. Keeps us grounded. It was our first time filming through the night and it was super fun. The guys who owned the restaurant stayed up all night too and made us some incredible food. One of those guys even made into the final cut of the vid. 

Your sound has been described eclectically as ‘funky’, ‘baggy 90s indie' and ‘70s’ (to name a few) … how would you guys best describe your own sound? 

Yeahhh we’ve had some descriptions of our music that we really don’t relate to. Ewan and I listen to a lot of different genres from different eras, and the music that we make tends to be a bit of a cocktail of everything that we’re into. It's definitely tricky to pigeonhole and that can be a blessing as well as a curse. Every time i read “Indie-funk” i feel like crawling into the foetal position and crying for a few minutes. Doesn’t that sound like the worst college band you’ve ever heard? We kinda identify with a much more hiphop and sample based process of creating music, but at the same time, we write quite melodic, hooky “songs”. I really hope we sit closer to Gorillaz and Gnarls Barkley than we do to Arctic Monkeys and Courteeners on the genre spectrum. That isn’t to say anything negative about indie bands. I think that people should be open to as many different genres of music as possible. 

You’ve previously toured with Rat Boy and had a huge summer of festivals including Reading and Leeds - how does it feel to be about to embark on a big UK headline tour?

 It feels exciting. We’re all very keen to play a full show and some of the “deeper cuts” from the album. Ewan is playing guitar for a song (he’s very excited about all the “shredding”). We have some prrrreettyyy questionable concepts for the show which could well divide our audience, but regardless I think it will a be a tour unlike any that we have done so far and hopefully the start of something really cool. 

What’s been your favourite show of the year so far and why?

Reading and Leeds were both pretty incredible for obvious reasons. There’s a lot of prestige with playing such a legendary festival and we had an amazing slot. The tent was full and it was just one of those moments where everything clicked into place for us. Playing festivals is a very different thing to playing your own headline shows because you don’t have the time or the resources to put on the production that you’d like to, so it all comes down to the performance and your connection to the audience. I also really enjoyed playing a run of stripped-down acoustic sets in record stores around the country during our album release week, purely because it was so different to what our live shows are normally like. 

You’ve got a reputation for putting on a party in your gigs - do you have similar plans for your upcoming  UK dates? Can we expect confetti?

I’m giving nothing away. You know we’re not just gonna get up and play the songs though.

What should our readers be listening to? Is it Dylan Cartlidge and Indoor Pets supporting you on this tour?

Yep. They’re both incredible, and I can’t wait to see their live shows on tour. Generally I feel like it's good to just listen to a many different things as possible. Variety is really good (especially if you’re writing as well). So right now I’m listening to Dylan Cartlidge and Indoor Pets (obvs), but also Donny Benet (kinda 80s OTT chilled RnB vibes…but not from the 80s), Kurt Vile (probably the best lyricist around right now, and he just dropped his latest record), August Greene (hiphop/jazz super group ft. Common, Robert Glasper, and Karriem Riggins). I’m kind of obsessed with Karriem Riggins. I really admire his musicianship as a drummer. He’s an incredible jazz drummer as well as a super inventive beat maker. I listen to his Alone/Together and Headnod Suite records A LOT.

What’s the plan for next year, more touring of the album? Will you be writing on the road or putting new music on hold for a while?

We’ve already started writing new music. We kinda never stopped to be honest. We had so much stuff that we couldn’t put on Get Better so i’m looking forward to going back and knocking those into shape. Ewan gets kinda angsty if he goes more than a day without making music, so it's been really good to stay busy. We’ve been doing a lot of remixes and collaborations too, which is a totally different process but still really fun. It's exciting for us to show different sides to what we’re into. I think the remix we just did for Broods might be our favourite so far. I guess we don’t have a solid plan for next year yet, but it’d be really great to keep doing what we’ve been doing while at the same time performing Get Better as often as possible… I’d love to do more shows abroad. 

Bad Sounds play Manchester's Gorilla on Sunday 28th October.