You can do quite a bit in 10 years: prepare to be a physician, choose up and drop numerous new hobbies, or lastly make it via that stack of books gathering mud in your nightstand. Within the case of London Grammar, although, they’ve gone from youngsters making music alongside their college research to one of many UK’s most beloved acts; a band who’ve simply kicked off a huge area tour of Europe and the UK, together with an upcoming present at London’s colossal O2.
With their distinct mix of trip-hop, indie and digital music – all bolstered by frontwoman Hannah Reid’s sonorous vocals – the trio have constructed a loyal fanbase over time. Rising as a buzzy band to look at in 2013 with their first EP ‘Steel & Mud’ after which debut album ‘If You Wait’, they charmed audiences with era-defining songs like ‘Losing My Younger Years’ and ‘Hey Now’. An extra two information adopted – 2017’s steadier ‘Fact Is a Lovely Factor’, which acquired blended critiques from critics, and 2021’s jubilant ‘Californian Soil’, a document on which NME famous “London Grammar are revitalised” – alongside reveals internationally.
In some methods, although, the band really feel like their newest document, September’s ‘The Biggest Love’, is the tip of a chapter – and the beginning of a brand new one. “This album, to me, this complete course of [of making it] even, is us simply really letting go in a approach,” says multi-instrumentalist Dan Rothman, calling in from London Grammar’s studio in Ladbroke Grove. “There’s a sense of it; it exists between the three of us. I can’t clarify…”
Rothman’s bandmate Dot Main, sitting beside him, helps sum it up: “It looks like a rebirth.”
“It does!” Rothman agrees. “It’s the tip of an period of our lives. It’s just like the loss of life of our youth…”
“I might love for us to vanish completely behind the music” – Hannah Reid
It might be a rebirth, however ‘The Biggest Love’ nonetheless embraces every little thing listeners love concerning the band’s music: hovering melodies (‘You & I’, ‘Extraordinary Life’), house-flecked euphoria (‘Home’, ‘Rescue’), and blissful, slow-burning pageant anthems (‘Into Gold’). That’s to not say that there haven’t been main shifts whereas creating the document, each actually and metaphorically.
“That is the primary album [where] we’ve ever had our personal area,” Main displays, referring to the brand new London Grammar HQ, the band’s aforementioned studio in West London. “That’s an enormous shift, actually.” Beforehand, the band would write demos, then go right into a “large business studio” for just a few weeks, understanding they needed to wrap the document in that set period of time. Having their very own area, nonetheless, means “you’ll be able to go and work on one thing for just a few days, and it doesn’t matter if it doesn’t find yourself being proper,” Main explains. “There’s numerous similarities to our first album once we began doing numerous stuff on laptops as a result of we didn’t have our personal area.”
Reflecting on what’s modified for ‘The Biggest Love’ leads us to the keystones of London Grammar. One factor that’s nonetheless central 10 years in is their friendship – certainly, a band couldn’t have this type of longevity with out it. They’ve the form of close-knit household dynamic that solely a decade of working collectively, shared experiences and bunking on tour buses collectively can foster.
The group have supported one another via highs and lows, from tough conditions navigating the thorny panorama of the music business, the brutal schedule of touring and being a working band, to Reid’s expertise of rampant music business misogyny, a subject coated all through the band’s music, however notably on earlier document ‘Californian Soil’. As she mirrored to NME round that document’s launch: “If I’m strong-minded, I’m being actually ‘tough’, or I’m being a ‘bitch’…whereas for the boys they’ve simply acquired ‘integrity’ over what they do. It may be a extremely, actually tiny factor – however when you’ve got it day-after-day, and it turns into a thousand moments, it may possibly really change who you might be.”
When requested how the group outline success, Main tells his bandmates: “I actually really feel like success is how I – how we – really feel about one another. After I take into consideration the place we’re, our friendships, and the love I’ve for these two, that’s how I really feel what success is.”
This revelation is met with smiles from his bandmates. “Aw, Dot!” Reid exclaims, whereas Rothman provides: “That’s extraordinarily candy.”
“After I take into consideration the place we’re, our friendships, and the love I’ve for these two, that’s how I really feel what success is” – Dot Main
“That’s genuinely how I really feel,” Main continues. “To be at this level of our lives… not many artists are capable of get there. We’ve all the time mentioned from the start we wished to have longevity, and I feel the truth once you get there may be: ‘What is going to that appear to be?’ And truly, what it appears to be like like now’s fairly fucking nice.”
Rothman agrees: “After we performed Glastonbury this yr, there was one thing about that present that encapsulated for all of us what success is in a approach as a result of, all of the sudden, it felt like we had been on stage, wanting again at our lives, wanting again on the work that we’ve achieved, and also you’re enjoying these songs that they’ve grown over time.”
He turns his consideration to the band’s second album, ‘Fact Is a Lovely Factor’, a document he notes individuals “had been very crucial of”. It’s a self-deprecating assertion, maybe, however after the dizzying success of the band’s debut, the melancholy follow-up acquired a disparate assortment of critiques. “[Now,] our followers find it irresistible greater than the remainder of it,” he laughs. “They suppose the brand new stuff is horrible in comparison with the second album! That legacy facet of it, that basically pursuits me for the time being…”
Reid interrupts with amusing: “Aw Dan, you suppose you’re in your deathbed!”
“No, really, I really feel the other!” Rothman responds. “It’s extra I can see the long run and the previous, that to me is the success half. The physique of labor, that’s what’s so pretty.”
Whatever their standing within the business’s hierarchy, there’s a brand new confidence within the ‘The Biggest Love’ that may’t be denied, one which’s within the bones of the document. Take ‘Home’, the document’s floor-filling opener, the place Reid sings about setting boundaries: “That is my place, my home, my guidelines”. Having the ability to make these kinds of selections comes with the reassurance that solely life expertise and maturity can carry.
Trying to the long run, the band are eager to train some new boundaries and put all the give attention to the music. Reid says: “I might love for us to vanish completely behind the music, and to nonetheless make what we think about is nice music, and I hope that our followers will nonetheless be there.” Beforehand, London Grammar have urged this album might be the final time the band seems of their music movies, revelling in the truth that whereas they’re enjoying London’s 20,000-capacity O2, they’ll nonetheless stroll down the road with out being swarmed by followers.
In a time when artists’ personalities are sometimes used as advertising methods, why do they really feel snug pulling again? “I feel as a result of we preserve making an attempt, and it simply doesn’t work,” Reid explains. “I actually have tried so many occasions to be in music movies, to look good, and I simply don’t suppose it really works.” She lets out an exasperated snort. “So I’m over it now. Accomplished. By no means once more.”
“There was one thing about Glastonbury 2024 that encapsulated for all of us what success is” – Dan Rothman
Sooner or later, if followers wish to see the band members’ faces, they could solely have the choice at their dwell reveals, which develop steadily greater. The aforementioned O2 present is their largest headline date to date, and the nerves are creeping up on Reid because it attracts nearer. “I’m in denial, so I’m simply going to not say something,” she shares. “A little bit tiddle on the O2,” Main provides jokingly.
With a decade behind them, there’s nonetheless loads of pleasure for the trio’s future, too. Proper now, on the cusp of an finish and a brand new starting, London Grammar are coming into their second decade as a band with new confidence – and one of many largest reveals of their careers. Right here’s to the subsequent 10 years.
London Grammar’s ‘The Biggest Love’ is out now by way of Ministry Of Sound Recordings. The band are on tour now
