Kamikaze Shoegaze: Sonic Hearts Foundation in interview

Sonic Hearts Foundation are a newly-minted Glasgow band who have already managed to turn a few heads with their intoxicating blend of shoegaze, indie and electronic influences, not to mention their maverick approach to gigs. Their most famous performance so far ended with the band being cheered on by homeless junkies and Pete Doherty fans while being chased out of the Barras by police and angry shop owners, resulting in a hefty fine from the Procurator Fiscal.

“It was a bit kamikaze,” says singer and guitarist Anthony Henderson, describing the guerilla gig. “We just thought, 'Let's do something big, something with an impact.' So the idea came to play to a huge crowd of people as they were coming out of a gig...” They settled on entertaining Pete Doherty fans, renting a PA and generator and setting up in clandestine fashion on the roof of News & Booze, opposite the Barrowlands. When the crowd came out, the boys turned up their amps and started playing. “It just went mental,” Henderson continues.

“Now, looking back, when you think about Pete Doherty fans and how crazy they all are... Most of them are from Bathgate.” His bandmates burst into laughter. “They all jumped up on the building, and it actually started to damage the roof.” Ant nearly panicked: “It was moving while we played! I was shitting myself,” he admits. The Pete Doherty fans decided to swarm the band's impromptu stage, and began moshing.

“They were jumping about that far from the edge,” says Brian, holding up his hand to indicate a span of about a foot. “We thought we were going to get done for murder.” Thomas 'Tam' Crawford, Brian's brother and the band's drummer, pipes up: “Tell him about the guy from the Barras.” Brian starts laughing again. “The polis got us down – we all came down when the polis showed up. They were saying 'Get all your gear in the van.' We thought they meant the back of the polis van. We were like that, 'Nae danger!' But the guy was like, 'Have you not got a van?' So we got the stuff in the back of the motor and got away before they changed their minds. Then this guy from the Barras came round with a clipboard saying 'You've broken my roof!' He was going mental, saying, 'I want your names!' We told him we had permission, and he was like 'Naw youse havenae!'”

Brian goes on to explain that the tenants of a homeless shelter next door also joined the audience: “There were all these junkies leaning out the windows, throwing out towels and egging us on. We'd been crawling about on the roof and there were puddles, so we were pure soaking. They were throwing us towels to dry ourselves off.” The band crease up again, clearly enjoying the memory of the chaotic gig more than they regret the eventual fine. Singer Anthony leans back with his arms folded, looking pleased with himself: “It was all quite anti-establishment, wasn't it?”

"We're not uncomfortable with being labelled political" – Anthony Henderson

Although more than just a  straightforward 'political' band, Sonic Hearts Foundation do claim to address the big issues in their lyrics – everything they write is about either “nature, time, death, or war,” according to Anthony. With early demo Decades containing samples from a speech by the Weatherman Underground, and tracks like USA and 1984, from their new EP Into Forever, dealing with the cold war and American imperialism, they are definitely a band who trade in serious subject matter, although they are keen to steer away from polemic. “Those themes are just things that organically appear in all of the songs – it's not something that we really try and emphasise,” says Anthony. “Some songs are about specific themes or situations, others are more abstract.” Tam agrees: “We always try and leave space for the listener to interpret it in their own way. That's what keeps music interesting. They fit the song into their own life, or fit their own interpretation over it.”

Quite rightly, the band are aware that this marks them out from the glut of indie guitar bands swamping the UK music scene: “Nothing's ever as specific as you might find in the lyrics of a twee indie band – you know, a guy meets a girl, or whatever,” says Anthony. “We're not uncomfortable with being labelled political.”

The band have known each other since childhood – Tam and Brian grew up in Glasgow's Ruchill, Anthony in Maryhill, and Connor Dixon, the band's bassist, is from Cumbernauld – although, he says, “that's not even worth mentioning,” causing the band to erupt with laughter again. Their friendship was solidified by trips to T in the Park together as teenagers, with Connor joining the band last year to add some bass weight. The secret to their success as a unit is a diverse stew of influences, with each band member bringing their own taste to bear on their parts: the bands they name-check are My Bloody Valentine, Glasvegas, Wild Beasts and The Horrors, and on the electronic side, Kraftwerk, Gary Numan and The Chemical Brothers.

The result is a layered, complex sound that can swing from pulsing electronic loops to soaring vocal acrobatics and post-punk drums to echoing, reverb-drenched guitar textures, often in the space of one song. “When we record, I have always wanted to make it sound as full as possible, without it being too over the top,” explains Brian. “On our first recordings, now, when we listen back, it feels like we maybe tried to do too much. We've tried to scale it back a little bit, strip it down. But we still want it to sound layered.”

Anthony agrees that with Into Forever, the band have gotten much closer to their original vision for their music. “We're trying to create a bit of depth on the tracks, and make it interesting for ourselves,” he explains. “Some of the stuff that we love, it has all of these interesting noises here and there, which make it more interesting than just your standard guitar band. We're always trying to add stuff into the recording that might not be used live, and vice versa as well.”

The rhythm section of the band addresses those electronic influences: “We use a lot of loops – digitally-triggered samples,” explains Tam. “We've been trying to integrate different pad noises and things like that, just to keep things interesting. It's an odd, experimental phase – we never started out thinking we were going to incorporate these kinds of sounds.” Nevertheless, the band have always had an experimental bent, especially when it comes to live performance: “We did a single launch last year, and at that point we had two different sets, I think there were like 8 or 9 songs in each set,” says Anthony. “We integrated all of the songs together, continuously. So we had the song structures, and all of the different parts, but then we had other sounds and loops and effects which integrated it all.”

The band all “tinker” with music on their own, but it is only when they play together when they feel they have created something unique. “It doesn't really sound like Sonic Hearts Foundation when it's just one person's input – it becomes our sound when everybody starts to play their own part,” Tam explains. “If you just heard Brian's guitar part, it would just sound like him. It's when I put in my drums, and Anthony puts in his guitar part and vocals, and Connor plays his bass – that's when it sounds like us.”

Brian's guitar work is central to the band – when the band supported Team Ghost earlier in the year, the audience got a chance to gaze in awe at one of the most gigantic, complex pedal arrays they had ever seen. Nicknamed 'Bertha the Board,' and described by Connor as “a spaceship,” it's the secret behind Sonic Hearts Foundation's dense and textured guitar sound. “Aye, Bertha,” says Brian. The look in his eyes is one of deep affection. “That's her name. I'm just trying to figure out if there's anything else I can fit on it...” The other band members are less enraptured: “It was spawned in hell!” Connor offers. It looks less like a Satanic device, however, than a spaceship, despite the fact that Brian claims he has “never seen Star Wars.”

“Before I started driving, I used to carry all my pedals in a big holdall,” Brian explains. “It was a nightmare – it took me 40 minutes to set up when we were rehearsing. Just a big line of pedals, man. So eventually, I had to get a board. At first I had a home-made one, but I wanted one I could actually carry about. Not that you can really carry Bertha about...” Anthony clarifies Bertha's role in the band: “We just don't really like to limit ourselves. Collecting all those pedals was about seeing how far we could get, how far we could push it. To get beyond the parameters of what a band can do with the same old effects.”

This extends to the visual side of the show as well. “We try and keep it as interesting as possible for the audience; as interesting as it is for us,” explains Anthony. “We like to try and have as many songs as possible, so we can mix it up a bit.” By his count, the band are sitting on a stack of about 35 tracks at the moment. “It's so we can make every gig different. We try and make it as visually interesting as possible – we like to have smoke machines, strobe lights, projectors.”

Anthony also describes a gig at the Glasgow Art Club, where the band got to play on a Quadrophonic system worth £160,000. “We were playing in between the speakers. A lot of people didn't get it, we hoped they'd come and dance between us.” This ambition to play unique gigs makes them a natural fit for larger venues: “We'd like to play bigger venues – it's not so much the capacity we're bothered about, it's more about having space for our sound,” Anthony explains. “Especially with Brian's guitar – it's such a big sound. It doesn't really get projected perfectly in a small room.”

Tam names Stereo as their favourite Glasgow venue, simply because of the size of the stage. Connor recalls a less well-situated gig at Edinburgh's Banshee Labyrinth: “My first gig with the band, in May last year, we were supporting Duke Spirit at King Tut's. Because it was my first gig, we set up a gig the night before in Edinburgh, as a kind of test run to see if it worked alright. The stage was that small that Thomas had to put his drumkit backwards. People were coming up to him and saying how cool it was. But honestly, it was the only way we were going to fit on the stage!” Brian chimes in: “At least you were on the stage, I was standing on the floor!”

In terms of their plans for the future, the band have one more EP and a clutch of singles and videos lined up to drop before the end of the year – hopefully this will lead them to bigger venues, bigger stages, and bigger crowds, although it may be hard to top that highly illegal Pete Doherty after-show. They plan to gig regularly, and keep things ticking over online: “Having content on Facebook and so on will pull in new people, but if people bring their mates to our gigs, and that's the first time they've heard us, I think it paints a better picture of what we're like,” says Tam. Anthony adds: “These days, music is so disposable. People get bored so quickly that you have to make sure you do keep releasing things regularly, because people just forget about you. If you constantly have stuff coming out, they are more likely to come and see you live. There are thousands of bands in all the cities across Scotland, so we're just trying to give as much as possible to try and make us stand out from the rest.”

With their intriguing lyrical themes, their densely sculpted neo-shoegaze sound, and with two feet planted firmly in the classic indie rock camp, this gang of wilful experimentalists are an interesting proposition, their music offering flashes of Killing Joke-style industrial drums, weaving, shimmering MBV-esque guitars and anthemic, meaningful lyrics. And as singer Anthony confirms, they've got plenty of confidence, too. Asked who their allies or influences in the Glasgow scene might be, he smiles confidently. “I honestly don't think there's any band in Glasgow that sounds like us,” he says.