aaamusic | On 05, Nov 2010

AAA Music: What made you add ‘and the Atlas’ and when/ how did you all come together as a group?

Matthew Hergarty: I didn’t want to perform under my full name any more, I liked the idea of having a moniker and the detachment you can get from that. I like the vastness the word Atlas gives.

The band came together piece by piece. Lindsay and Dave were the first to join, we met when they were both running a music night in Woking, and she booked me to play. We did some gigs together, each doing our own sets, playing our own songs. Eventually we started working on my songs, seeing how they sounded. While we were doing this, Communion offered to make a record with me, so I put some songs together and us three went into the studio. During this time I played a show at Notting Hill Arts Club and it’s there I met Harry, our banjo player. He seemed into it, so I asked him if he wanted to come along and put some banjo parts on the EP, he very kindly did, and his playing just blew us all away. He’s been in the band ever since. Our drummer Tommy is an old friend of mine; I used to play in another band with him. We had a couple of practices after we’d done the first EP in the winter, and he got it straight away. About a month later, it was our first gig, which was March.

Who or what made you decide that you wanted to write and perform songs?

A friend of mine joined a band when we were at school, I watched them rehearse a few times and I decided I wanted to try it, so I bought a cheap guitar and taught myself to play. I really enjoyed writing from the start, whether it was a guitar riff, or couple of chords strung together with a melody. In the beginning I think I got a better feeling from that than learning other people’s songs.

Now I get a buzz when I think I’ve got something good, sometimes it slips away, and sometimes you keep hold of it. It can be quite elusive, I think that makes me want to keep writing all the time. The performance part of it, is something I’ve had to work on as I’ve gone along, it doesn’t come naturally to me, but in the end it’s very rewarding.

It is a really good time for (for want of a better phrase) “modern folk.” What do you think it is about this type of music that people are identifying with so much at the moment?

I think a lot of the artists that are enjoying success right now get bundled in to the folk category because it’s easy, when it’s really a return to song writing as the main focus.

There is a lot music that is manufactured for a mass market and when there is too much of one thing, I think people start looking for something else. I suppose “modern folk” is an alternative to that. There is also a strong sense of community there as well, which I think people have identified with, and it’s been happening for a few years. There are lots of different pockets of creativity all over the UK, like the Willkommen Collective in Brighton and The Fence Collective in Fife and our label Communion who all do very different things and as a whole make it very exciting and healthy.

It is a frequent statement that all music is influenced by others; do you agree with this and who are your influences?

I think you would have to walk around shutting yourself of from everything not be, though music is not the only experience influencing music, I have an old friend who hardly listens to music, but writes some of the best songs I’ve heard, I’m constantly envious of him. I listen to loads of music though, with a list too long to mention, and I’m influenced by all of it.

You are frequently compared to Bon Iver and Ray Lamontagne; do you find these comparisons to be flattering or even accurate?

It’s very flattering to be compared to those artists. With Bon Iver I’d been switching between these long falsetto notes and my normal singing tone before I’d heard his record, but I guess it gave me the confidence to start developing that idea. I don’t really listen to Ray Lamontagne much, but I do think that any singer that has some huskiness to his voice gets compared to him. His voice is incredible though, so I always take it as a huge compliment.

You have just finished touring with Mumford & Sons, how did that come about and how was it to tour with a group that have taken off in such a big way in such a small amount of time?

We met when I did a local support slot in Reading with them early last year before I had a band and we stayed in touch after that. We then played in Edinburgh with them, which was our third show as a band as we’d only just got together. Then over the summer they got in touch and asked if we could do the tour in the autumn with them.

For me it was great to see how they had made the transition to those size venues so well, and there still the same lovely blokes I met in Reading even though there worlds have changed around them very quickly. For us, we didn’t have much tour experience, so it really helped our performances, getting to play a string of dates together. I think the last 3 show were are our best, we actually started looking forward to it and enjoying ourselves, before that we were a little bit shell shocked at the size of the venue’s and probably looked like a bunch of rabbits in the headlights.

Is touring something that you enjoy or do you prefer a studio setting?

Yeah, touring is just really good fun. Once you settle into it you don’t want to stop, the main enjoyment for me though is writing on my 12-track at home, then taking that into the studio to develop is great as well.

What can fans expect from ‘Kingdom Of Your Own’?

Hopefully a fuller sounding record than To The North it was written with the band in mind, then developed with them during rehearsals so it was a kind of experiment to see where we could go with it. It’s made me realise what I want to write now, so I’m excited about that. Everyone is singing on this record, so more harmonies and more of a focus on the band as well.

What are your hopes for the next twelve months, any big plans?!

I’ve started writing an album so that’s keeping me pretty busy at the moment. In the immediate future we have a couple of show coming up, supporting Bellowhead at The Shepherds Bush Empire and a headline show at The Luminaire in December.

Author: Josie Payne