Spotlight On... Moody Moody

Having only just released their debut EP Otherlands in April, Aberdeen noisy alt-indie four-piece Moody Moody are already back with its follow-up single, Controller. The band, made up of singer and guitarist Levi Kelman, guitarist Jack Nisbet, bassist Marc Culley and drummer Phil Collingbourne, can really be heard finding their true sound on Controller, a song they describe as their "masterpiece".

Cinematic in scope, it's less saccharine than their debut offering as their aspirations of combining facets of dreampop and shoegaze into a sonic wall of sound have been realised through working with Jamie Holmes at Castle of Doom and Slowdive's Simon Scott. With the single due out on Friday 11 July, we catch up with Levi Kelman to talk inspirations, new music and why the band now favour Traitors over Made in Chelsea.

How did you meet, when did you start making music together, and where does the name Moody Moody come from?
We started after I tried to release some new music under Shangri-La, my old indie band. I spotted Jack’s ad online, where Jack was hoping to start something new and we met up for a few jams and hit it off pretty quickly. We realised we needed something new to reflect what we were aiming for. Jack had been suggesting names like Moody ‘something’ and I creatively, came up with 'Moody' (the second one) – there we had it – Moody Moody. The name also felt like it poked fun at the stereotypically dour nature of people in the North East too, which adds a bit of fun to it.

We started creating tunes at each other’s places and ended up with a huge back [catalogue] pretty fast. Not really aiming to sound like anything other than what came out of these writing sessions, it felt like Moody Moody already had an obvious feel to what it should sound like. We then started popping up at Aberdeen’s now hoaching open mics and testing out the tunes live. Before long we bumped into Marc Culley at a gig afterparty at Cafe Drummonds and asked him to jump on bass after we’d admired his songwriting from his solo work.

Thomas Reid joined on drums soon after and our first gig was booked. We played to a sold out crowd at The Cellar, filled with mostly family and friends. After a few more shows with Thomas we decided to part ways (amicably, he now has is own band Commune who are class). The lineup was then complete with Phil joining soon after and we knew this was the final Moody Moody team – Phil is an absolute powerhouse on drums and between him and Marc, they give us all the thunder and warmth to really nail what we were aiming for.

Who/what are some of the artists that inspire you as individuals and as a band?
We take a lot of inspiration from a lot of Scottish artists who are doing amazing things but the one that stands out would be Mogwai. Along with that we love DIIV, The Verve, Slowdive and The Cure amongst so many others.

Individually we’re fans of a pretty wide array of artists – it's quite nice because you can probably hear these nods to each of our individual tastes throughout our music. I lean into songwriters like Bon Iver and Phoebe Bridgers to the sounds of Been Stellar and Junodream. Jack likes a lot of shoegaze, dreampop and electronica like Deary, Alvvays and Yoo Doo Right. Phil’s pretty influenced by 90s grunge like Soundgarden, Nirvana and Alice In Chains, which we love because it really adds a weight to our music and Marc is our local Britpop and indie reference including all things; Oasis, Stone Roses etc, mad fer it and all that.

You just released your debut EP, Otherlands, in April, I’d love to know more about that before we get into the new single – what are some of the themes found across the EP’s four tracks, is there anything tying them together and what was the process like?
Yeah… we’ve been busy! The Otherlands EP was a lot of fun to make and we’re pretty buzzed with how it turned out. There’s obvious themes and story throughout it. There’s strong themes of isolation and decay in there, reflective of what feels like constant chaos in the world but there’s also some pretty big moments of euphoria and a sort of awakening.

The EP tells two stories; it’s a concept of this grim ‘otherland’ and reflections of the crazy stuff people do to each other with moments where it provokes you to ask yourself if you could do more to change something for better or maybe show some more compassion in a pretty tough world. The parallel story is of us four coming together as a band – the more the EP went on, the more we got involved with the production and finding our way with how we want to get the feel of our music across. 

It was recorded at York Street Studio in Aberdeen by Michael Macdonald. It was great to create something we’re so happy with in a new local studio which has so many good tunes coming out of it at the moment. Nobody does miserable better than Aberdeen so creating something in a new space added some excitement to cut through the grey with something we hope provides plenty to be hopeful about.

We spent more time as the EP went on recording parts at home to focus on the noises we liked and felt like it helped add some rawness to it – it probably helped us get a little more creative with things too. Lyrically, I tend to focus on really specific things but I present them in pretty vague ways – it feels like the actual specifics don’t really matter when it all boils down to high-level human impressions.

We’ve had some great feedback on the EP and bizarrely, we even signed a contract for one of the tracks to be played on Made in Chelsea – we were obsessed with MiC for at least half a season before we learned it had been cut from the show… we’re Traitors fans now.

You're already gearing up to release your next single Controller. How come it’s separate from the EP?
Controller just feels different. We write so many songs but we knew Controller had to be the follow-up single to the EP. It captures a lot of what we’re about from ethereal tones and big hooks, a lot of dynamics, a strong emotive story and a mad heavy outro. It was recorded in Glasgow at Mogwai’s Castle of Doom studio by Jamie Holmes (Joesef, Declan Welsh, Indoor Foxes). Both the studio and Jamie allowed us to capture the full depth of the track and gave it all the warmth we wanted. We knew from the start we wanted it to be mastered by Simon Scott of Slowdive (SPS Mastering; Whitelands, Deary) and it finished the track off perfectly.

Moody Moody. Image: Thomas Robertson

You describe it as your masterpiece – what do you mean by that, can you elaborate?
We’re calling it our masterpiece because it nails where we are at right now with how we want our music to sound. It’s got a pretty deep personal message in the song but we think everything throughout the story and the music fit into place so well with each part having its meaning without being overbearing. We’ve got a batch of songs that we are about to record next that fit sound-wise and will push us to get stuck into the fine details of making new music. Just like Controller did.

Can you tell us a bit more about the inspirations behind Controller?
Controller is a story about trauma and toxic people but it’s got an air of release around it which feels quite freeing. It started off as a pretty soft dreampop track [which I wrote] with some Cocteau Twins/Slowdive-style chords and a pretty obvious hook. As we played it more, Phil and Marc added a touch of a post-punk backbone to it. We thought it was finished and then Jamie, who we recorded with, messaged us the night before recording to say we needed to make some tweaks to be ready for a busy day.

When we got into the studio we played it a few times over and Jamie helped us really craft it into what it is now. The ending was always more open but during recording that outro it turned into a total brute. Jack’s guitars properly rip through it and Marc and I were screaming the vocals down. From the original idea it was still the same song but just a million times better.

What’s next for the band? I see you’re playing the Tall Ships festival in Aberdeen… Any more shows/new music lined up for the rest of the year?
Yeah we’re looking to get busy with shows now we have lots to shout about. We are playing Blue Lamp in Aberdeen on Friday 18 July. It’s part of a club night we’ve always went along to called Fine Times which is a wonky left-field night up here with DJs and bands and all sorts of mad arts, graphics and psychedelic decorations. Always good fun. So yeah, Fine Times x Tall Ships should be extra special.

Other than that we’re itching to get some gigs in the central belt and further afield, Glasgow and Edinburgh have some great venues so we’d love to get something booked up this summer/autumn.

We’ve already got recording plans in the pipeline too so need to stay tuned for all that but we just want to keep running with it for now, feels like it’s all moving pretty quick and it’s all good fun. So aye, Moody Moody in a town near you soon hopefully.

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Otherlands EP is out now; Controller is released on 11 Jul; Moody Moody play Blue Lamp, Aberdeen, 18 Jul

Follow Moody Moody on Instagram @moodymoodyband