Get to Know: The Orielles
The Orielles tell us about bowling buddies and beating boredom ahead of their appearance at Stay Fresh Fest 2
Whether due to an alarming celebrity mortality rate, the rise of the 'alt-right', or even the widespread use of the inaccurate portmanteau 'Brexit' ('UKexit', more like), we can probably agree that 2016 wasn't a vintage year. Halifax trio The Orielles could be forgiven for suggesting that they'd had a fine old time, however; they began the year preparing for a funded trip to play Canadian Music Week, and ended it as Heavenly Recordings' latest signings. Not too shabby at all.
Sisters Esme (bass, vocals) and Sidonie Hand-Halford (drums) and Henry Wade (guitar, vocals) make up the band. Their music is an effortlessly breezy combo of simple pop melody, shonkily somnabulant guitar hooks and an irresistably exuberant sense of personality tying it all together. They play Stay Fresh Fest 2 at Manchester's Deaf Institute on 28 January, alongside a host of the best talent from the North of England and beyond – but first, let's meet the band...
The Skinny: When and how (and why!) did The Orielles begin?
The Orielles: We began a while ago but only started taking it more seriously around two years ago. We all met at a party where we bonded over similar cultural interests and decided to have a jam the following day, despite two of us having no musical instrument knowledge at all! The initial reason we started was to combat the boredom that living in a small town came with; however we soon released we were all super-passionate about expressing ourselves via music and writing/playing together.
Tell us something people would be surprised to learn about you.
We're big fans of disco, soul and hip-hop music. I guess this is surprising, being in a guitar band? We're also all sick at dancing, for real!!
'Orielle' is a Latin-derived word meaning 'golden' – if, in a fit of rock'n'roll excess, you decided to purchase one luxurious, gold-plated object, what would it be and why?
Good question! We'd get a gold-plated life size Danny Devito statue for our practice room.
What does Halifax mean to you?
Living in Halifax makes us work harder as it's not been an easy ride coming from a small town instead of a city like Manchester or London. It's given us the drive to go out on our own to seek opportunities. It's also a great place to escape the hustle and bustle of city life in Liverpool, Manchester or Leeds, where we spend a lot of our time.
Which of the other acts at Stay Fresh Fest 2 are you most looking forward to watching?
We're very excited to finally see Luxury Death live as they've put out some tight debut tracks! Also our bowling buddies Mums always play a really sweet set so seeing them again should be cool.
What does the rest of the year have in store for you?
We're releasing a few new singles via Heavenly and gonna do a tour in April to coincide with this which we're psyched about! In the more distant future, there are plans to record and release our debut album which is a bit scary but we're mostly excited to show everyone the new stuff we've been coming up with.
We'd like to tour the rest of Europe properly too, we got a taster of Europe gig life last year when we played at The Paradiso in Amsterdam. Promoters are so lovely over there and really accommodating towards bands which is nice. The mini-fridge was full to the brim with bevvies which is always a bonus.
And finally: What do you like to do outside of The Orielles? Any projects we should know about?
We're all students in various cities across the North of England so side projects are few and far between due to time restraints! Aside from usual downtime activities, Henry is a part-time paper checker guy for the NHS, Esme delivers papers on a Sunday morning and Sidonie is (slowly) writing a screenplay for a film we all came up with whilst killing hours at a venue in London.
The Orielles play Stay Fresh Fest with Henge, Strobes, Luxury Death, Mums, Seize the Chair and Patty Hearst @ The Deaf Institute, Manchester, 28 Jan
Buy tickets here