Little Comets head south for a date at Brighton Patterns on Saturday, March 29 as part of their spring UK tour as they work towards the release of their fifth album around November time.
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00:00Good morning, my name is Phil Hewitt, Group Arts Editor at Sussex Newspapers.
00:05Lovely this morning to speak to Rob Coles of the band Little Comets. Now you were heading to play
00:10Brighton Patterns on March the 29th, and you've had such an interesting trajectory as a band,
00:16haven't you, over the years? You've been going since 2006, 2007. A few years after that you were
00:22signed to Sony, but now you say you've gone from the sort of big business model to much more of a
00:28cottage industry. Why is that? Why the change? I think over time we've kind of gradually realised
00:35that our love is in the creation of the music and being able to kind of function as artists and
00:44songwriters without the need for selling out huge venues or playing massive festivals or touring
00:51the world. I think that's been a gradual process that we've kind of, you know, grown with really.
00:58When you start out, it's more about the obvious success, isn't it? But then
01:02you mature, I guess, and change. Yeah, definitely. It was kind of very much about
01:08the accumulation. So what do we need to be successful? Let's see if we can tick these boxes.
01:13And I think at the point that we realised that we were getting no joy from having ticked these boxes,
01:18like signing and working with a label. I think sometimes some people are fortunate enough to
01:24be able to get to that point without the kind of trial and error, bad experience. But we had to
01:28kind of go there to realise that actually it was as simple as what do we love doing?
01:34Writing songs, recording it ourselves, touring, being kind of in control of what we're doing.
01:39And also the artwork.
01:41It's a shame that it's.
01:42With a label that artwork is a bit away from you.
01:46Yeah, I think the artwork, videos, you know, we're even now at a point where we promote the
01:51gigs ourselves. It's kind of like it is. It's almost. I think when you hear a lot of artists
01:56say DIY, it's DIY up to a point. There's still a lot of outsourcing that goes on.
02:02I think they're kind of referring more towards rights ownership.
02:05But with what we tend to do, you know, there isn't any outsourcing. It's.
02:10You are properly DIY.
02:11Completely self-reliant.
02:12Everything is. Yeah, which is quite scary at times, kind of juggling lots of balls. But
02:19in a peculiar way, it kind of works.
02:22And the essence of the band is you and your brother, which must be fantastic to have that
02:26closest.
02:28Yeah, it's lovely. I think we're definitely not in the kind of Nolan Liam Gallagher
02:32boat either. We're definitely yin and yang, but not in a combustible way.
02:38So we've kind of written songs together since we've been 11, 12. My dad used to write songs
02:43in the house, just not to be in a band, just that's what he used to do.
02:48So when we started learning the guitar, it was like, oh, why don't we try and write songs
02:52as well? So it almost became part of what we do with each other. We play football with
02:57each other, play tennis with each other and would go and write songs together.
03:02And I think that's the only thing that me and him have really loved doing together.
03:08So it is nice to be able to to still do that now.
03:14Fantastic. And working towards the fifth album later this year?
03:18Yeah, that'll be in November. So most of that is recorded.
03:21Nicky does all of the kind of production engineering side of things.
03:25During lockdown, we kind of built a studio in his back garden, which was a nice experience.
03:33So yeah, most of it's done. We'll be kind of releasing singles across the year in the
03:37lead up to November. So we'll be full of busy.
03:41Fantastic. And in the meantime, Brighton Patterns on March the 29th.
03:46Good luck with it all. Lovely to speak to you. Thank you.
03:48Thanks, Bill.