FEATURE: Spotlight: Yard Act — Music Musings & Such

FEATURE:

Spotlight

Yard Act

___________

IT is great when I get to…

PHOTO CREDIT: James Brown for DORK

feature a band from the North in this feature. I think a lot of attention is still on London acts so, with the Leeds-formed Yard Act in my sights, it is a chance to go further north. I am going to end by bringing in a review/assessment of their new E.P., Dark Days. Before then, I want to introduce a few interviews with the band (James Smith, the band’s vocalist, actually fields most of the quartet’s interviews). Back in November, The Line of Best Fit focused on a great new band on the rise:

“Yard Act wear their politics on their sleeve. Telling disparaging stories about exploitative grifters, and parodying politically ignorant middle-class men who revel in their inability to mispronounce foreign names, it's not difficult to guess where their political values lie. “I feel the lyrics are pretty obviously quite left-wing,” James Smith, the band’s lyricist and vocalist, tells me. “A lot of what I believe at the core is probably more extreme than most people would accept. Like my core value is that I'm completely anti-capitalist.”

But for a band with such a clear message, their formation owes more to happenstance than didactic ambition. Formed by Smith and bassist Ryan Needham in Leeds during September last year, Yard Act started as a project in waiting. “I’ve known Ryan for years and he ended up living in my house for a few months when he was between homes. That's when we started doing the band,” Smith says. While the two were already “pub associates”, living together for four months provided a “turbocharged bonding session” and the chance to finally start the band they’d spoken about for years.

The duo was soon joined by George Townend on drums and, after a brief stint with another guitarist who parted over disagreements with the group’s direction, recruited long-time friend Sam Shipstone to take over six-string duties. “He was in the band for about four months before we managed to practice with him because of lockdown, but we were like, ‘It's official you're in the band, you're in the band!’”

With Needham a member of Menace Beach and Smith previously fronting Post War Glamour Girls, Yard Act are entrenched in their local Leeds scene. “Secretly everyone's jealous when somebody else gets more successful, but overall it is really supportive,” Smith says about his locale. “It's always been a really good incubator for bands. I think maybe it's too good at doing that and then you get bands like mine that aren't very good at branching out of Leeds”.

Short, repetitive loops form the foundations of their songwriting and pushed Smith to change his vocal style to suit. Placing more rhythmic than melodic focus on his lyrics, he inadvertently found himself pursuing a poetic form of wordplay and building free-flowing narratives over the songs’ beats. Lyric-writing is now smith’s main focus in the band and the novelty of their narrative vocals has become their prime appeal. Their breakout single, “Fixer Upper”, centres around a rambling stream of consciousness, while their latest song, “Peanuts”, sojourns into a mid-song monologue that sits closest to spoken-word poetry.

“I think it comes from lack of ability to edit myself,” says Smith candidly about his lyrical style. “I feel like I'm taking liberties now where I'm just going, ‘Oh yeah, the song should just stop for a bit so I can talk for 30 seconds,’ and the band have gone along with it. At one point I’m going to take it too far and everyone’s going to go, ‘you’re no longer allowed to pretend you’re a band. This is just a man talking with some music at the start and end”,

I think that, even though it is early days, Yard Act have a long future. They are among the most important bands of the moment. In October, Loud and Quiet talked with James Smith about the disruption of the pandemic. We learn more how some people view their music:

“In a year where gigs have faded away to non-existence, it would have been easy for a band like Yard Act to slip through the cracks. Fortunately, this Leeds outfit have all the ingredients for lasting intrigue: a whip-smart take on current affairs, a line-up that reads like something of a West Yorkshire supergroup, and a bulging back pocket of infectious-yet-unpredictable songs that satisfy both brain and feet. 2020 might be a write-off for most, but in the Leeds suburb of Meanwood, things are only just getting going.

“It has all happened pretty fast, but I suppose we’re not totally out of the blue,” explains James Smith, the band’s vocalist. “Me and Ryan [Needham, bass] have been passing friends for years – he played in Menace Beach while I was in a local band called Post War Glamour Girls, and we ended up on a split seven-inch together through Jumbo Records. Bumping into each other all the time turned into intentionally meeting up down the pub – we kept saying we were going to start this band, but just never got round to doing it.”

PHOTO CREDIT: Oliver Halstead for Loud and Quiet

With Needham moving into Smith’s spare room last September, housemate status allowed a productivity that meant early demos could be racked up at speed, finally turning those pub chats into reality. Pinching two extra members from Leeds group Treeboy & Arc, the now four-piece laid down their debut single ‘The Trapper’s Pelts’ with Bill Ryder Jones; a slice of strutting post-punk that manages to recall Nick Cave and Franz Ferdinand while sounding distinctly of the moment. Industry interest was piqued, but a mere three gigs in, everything came to an unexpected halt.

“We came straight out of the gates in January, then headed right into lockdown,” says Smith. “We wanted to keep everything going, so we got Ross Orton to remix this live demo we had as the second single, ‘Fixer Upper’. In the process, Sammy, our original guitarist, actually left. It was all amicable, he just wasn’t really feeling the vibe. Now we’ve got a new guitarist called Sam in, so very little difference there! And that’s pretty much the potted history of Yard Act – the tiniest pot available.”

Like the politically outspoken IDLES or Sports Team, it is undoubtedly true that as Yard Act’s star begins to rise, there will be people waiting in the wings to take a pop at their presumed performativity. A recent Facebook comment from a fan who took umbrage at the band’s post in support of Black Lives Matter was a teaching opportunity for Smith, who had perhaps naively assumed that he would be preaching to a progressive choir. “I was really surprised at that response, but then that’s what happens when you sound like a punk band from the ’80s,” he deadpans.

“Some of that older generation still hasn’t moved on, but I suppose the whole point is that it’s good to have the conversation. I’ve seen other bands have it where right-wing fans have questioned their politics, and they’ve basically just said, ‘fuck off then, don’t listen to my music.’ I don’t think I always agree with that. I have that strange advantage as a relatively middle-of-the-road white man where I can Trojan horse into conversations with working-class men a little bit faster than the people that they see as different from themselves and will cause them to put their guard up. So I think it’s important that I don’t wage war on them if I could maybe help them understand. You plant seeds; no one changes their mind in the heat of an argument.”

Coincidentally, it’s the planting and harvesting of musical seeds that have brought Yard Act to their exact place of eclecticism. The ’80s punk rock sound that Smith mentions is certainly audible, but it is filtered through all kinds of other retro touchpoints that he carries from childhood – ’90s hip-hop, ’70s Italo-Disco, even a touch of ’00s indie’s more cerebral moments. Seldom suffering from writers’ block, Smith estimates that the band have at least 60 demos on lock: “Whether it’s any good or not is another thing, but I’m not too precious about stuff until it gets to the final stages”.

I you have not discovered the music of Yard Act, then go and follow them on social media and have a listen, as they have put together a wonderful E.P. with Dark Days. When speaking with DIY this year, Smith talked about his writing process:

“Even though the songs can sound really specific,” James explains, “I think it’s really important that you can still take different things away from it, and there’s never necessarily a statement being made. That’s not something I’m particularly interested in; putting my own opinion on things to a point where I’m telling people that I’m right. Life itself is such a complex thing that people should just let [the songs] wash over them, and take what they want from it.

“Writing in different characters has been really liberating,” he nods. “But you have to remind yourself, and everyone else, that these people do exist and the world isn’t this place where people are perfect. People are fundamentally flawed and that’s really important. It doesn’t make them bad people. Everyone has their issues, or their problems, and we can detest them or laugh at them, but it’s just part of life and cracking on with it.”

It’s this potent narrative that has already marked them out from the crowd; despite having only been able to play three shows to date, they’ve already bagged spots on the 6 Music playlist and have “been selling t-shirts to Brazil and America.” James is even working on a companion book, which began life as a 2,000 word short story and has now grown into a 30,000 word novella. Safe to say, they’ve gained an opportunity that - thanks to previous musical endeavours in Post War Glamour Girls and Menace Beach - isn’t lost on them.

“I think part of the reason that Yard Act has been doing quite well quite quickly is because we’ve learned from past mistakes,” James agrees. “Even after ‘Trapper’s Pelts’ came out, we knew it was different to anything that either of us had previously done. Something was registering, and both Ryan and I made a pledge to each other of, ‘Yeah, we’ve been doing this for years, we clearly wanna do it so let’s make sure we do it properly and not fuck it up.’ So far, so good…”.

I am going to bring things to a close soon. I want to source from a Louder Than War interview where, at the top, they provided their thoughts regarding Dark Days:

“Their fabulous EP, a compilation of sorts, is an assertion of this idea. The Dark Days EP was released last month and presents what Yard Act has had to offer up until now. The latest songs, Dark Days, and Peanuts, released in January and featured on the EP, oozes a kind of calculated rant those familiar with Yard Act will now understand as foundational; yet also point toward new directions of experimentalism and adventure. An EP representative of their desire to bludgeon structure and torch chords and say no to the orthodox tropes and pale traits, which paint people into particular corners of convenience and accessibility. They have quickly established their sound as being a combination of different interlocking parts which draws from a range of different sources (Wacky, Postcard jaggedness; jittery, dizzying, dissonant early 80s Creation angst; Northern post-war brutalist industrial robustness, and tight, tessellated, breezeblock electronica); therefore enabling them to play with, and rearrange a basic, impressive formula of thoughts; a clever process of putting together different pieces; assortments of oddities which haven’t even been rehearsed by the band themselves thanks to…well yeah, that thing.

But no matter. They’ve been busy.

Hampered not one bit have Yard Act been despite the rules and regulations thrust upon the public. Instead, ever the restless minds; trying to make sense of this notion that the grass is, and has always been, rumoured to be greener on the other side.

The grass is artificial.

They have seized the opportunity to write and record, a bright, striking burst of creativity in lockdown, and briefly together when we could breathe. In either case, a definite feeding the fire continued to spread. One which burns from within them and peels back the cloak which covers the country to reveal the characters tumbling throughout each Dark Day. I had the pleasure of interviewing, and simultaneously investigating where Yard Act fit on this maddening, modern map. More to the point; what their frontman, and mouthpiece James Smith; wants Yard Act to be…or not to be (inside joke between me and the man himself which will never see the light of day so help me god)”.

It has not been an ideal last year or two when it comes to playing live and trying to launch a band. I bet Yard Act must be full of energy and impetus regarding new music and getting that onto the stage! They have announced live dates on their official website, so keep an eye out and go and catch them if they are near you. When venues open, the stunning quartet will surely…