Top image: Ten Fé. Photography by Kate Bellm

The fact Ten Fé means ‘have faith’ isn’t coincidental for a duo driven with potency to create music. Leo Duncan and Ben Moorhouse were friends long before they started writing songs together, but when they did, something just clicked.

Built on a love of the classics, the pair incorporates elements of Americana and soul into an otherwise contemporary pop sound. Just as happy playing songs to passersby on the streets of London as they are to larger crowds across the UK and Europe, it’s clear they’re not only a band with something to say, but something to share.

Recorded in Berlin with Ewan Pearson [Jagwar Ma, M83, The Rapture] their upcoming debut album Hit The Light is the result of a mutual respect for each other’s opinions and ability. Like the record’s title suggests, the eleven-track play epitomises renewal and shimmers with emotion and energy, featuring acclaimed singles In The Air, Turn and Elodie. Through soaring synths and grooves that just won’t quit, the duo’s sonic arrangements amplify their innate understanding of music – not only as musicians, but also as listeners.

“We’re actually a bit more under the radar. We jump on the [Underground] carriages and really get in people’s faces.”

Clementine Zawadzki: After other music projects, how did you know Ten Fé was the one?
Leo Duncan: I guess it took us a long time to realise it, but we first knew from just listening to songs that we love together. A lot of our friendships started that way. Because we both loved the same kind of music, it was natural that we’d like the songs that each other wrote.

CZ: What were some of those influences?
LD: When we were young and we met, we were just into really old rock ‘n’ roll…
Ben Moorhouse: Elvis, The Beatles, Bruce Springsteen, and The Rolling Stones…
LD: Singing them in harmony. Hours and hours of singing them together in a room – singing for nobody, really – and then just staying up all night watching videos of The Cure and U2 playing live. That was another thing that made us want to start a band, the simplicity of songwriting, those massive songs, you know? They just write good songs with a strong sentiment to it. We’d been in different bands for quite a long time in London, and it felt like in the scene it wasn’t really cool to write songs that simple. It just wasn’t the done thing a few years ago.

CZ: Are you both from London?
LD: I’m from East London.
BM: I’m from a place called Walsall, which is just north of Birmingham.
LD: There’s just nowhere more exciting than London. Just to be here and bounce off all that energy in a totally real everyday sense, not in terms of who’s here industry wise. We still busk. We were busking last week.

CZ: What’s the reception in the Underground like? I can imagine it’d be pretty interesting…
LD: We’re actually a bit more under the radar. We jump on the carriages and really get in people’s faces.

CZ: Do you get in trouble for that?
LD: Yeah, we’ve been arrested plenty of times. You get in trouble because it’s more extreme but you’ve got a captive audience, so if you’re good people will listen. There’s nowhere they can go, there’s nowhere they can pass, but it also means that there’s nowhere for you to run if they don’t like it.

CZ: That’s pretty strategic…
LD: It is! There’s only so far that you can go. To be honest, the reaction we get is positive 99% of the time.
BM: We’ve got a strong staple of the old songs with some 80s pop in there for a bit of variety, but we never play our own songs on the tube. It’s about playing songs that people know and are really relatable in that situation.

CZ: You’re just making the commute a lot happier…
LD: Well that’s it. We started doing this way before we wrote songs together, and we’re playing songs that have lasted 50 or 60 years. It’s pretty naked, just two voices and two guitars. If a song can translate to a bunch of people who are pissed off, cold and want to go home and it makes them take their earphones out and applaud you, then I think it’s no coincidence that we, as a band, want to write songs with that kind of clarity.

CZ: You’ve had some of your songs remixed too, for example Make Me Better by UNKLE. What’s that like?
LD: A total privilege. I’m sure there are examples in other forms of art where you are able to hear how your idea is developed by someone you’ve got massive respect for, so yeah, each remix we’ve loved. And we’ve just started doing remixes ourselves, so it’s a bit of a dark art for us.

CZ: Tube by day, remixes by night
LD: Exactly.

CZ: What’s your writing process like?
LD: I think we are quite different personalities, if we’re honest, and as a result it’s not like we can share all processes of the evolution of a song together, therefore it’s about giving each other space at the beginning, so we’ll both really write the nucleus of a song on our own – the words and the melody – and then come together for affirmation. It’s that kind of collaboration where you really trust the other person. If they think it’s good, then that’s enough. It’s not like they need to write 50% of it for them to say it’s good. That then preserves the difference in each track. It’s about recognising the particular thing someone’s come up with.
BM: Leo was coming in with songs I really loved, and we started working on them together, like the fleshing out of it, the ways it could sound and stuff, and then it was the same when I had a song. We really like just going for the vibe that one of us has started. There’s a slightly different feel with each one…
LD: And obviously, subconsciously, if your best mate comes to you with a song he’s written and you love it and you play it, you’re going to add to it naturally…

“I guess the songs that were written around this time for the album are a response to living in London a certain amount of time and just realising there are really quite serious emotions that are associated with different places in the city.”

CZ: The chemistry obviously needs to be right for it to work creatively…
LD: I mean, I think it’s something we don’t think about too much. It’s probably not good to think about it. Certainly doing more interviews and talking about the band more, it’s no coincidence that we knew each other for years without even thinking about writing together, but there’s just a natural love of playing music together that isn’t to do with industry or releasing songs or anything like that.

CZ: It’s like being friends with someone for ages and then deciding to go out
LD: Exactly. And they always last forever those marriages. The chemistry of it is dictated by something other than making music for a particular purpose…
BM: In that way it feels quite open at the same time and it means it’s more about where we’re at as people and where we’re at with the band and it feels musically like this thing doesn’t really have boundaries on what it can be and where it could go. It does feel malleable in quite a big way. That the sound will develop as we go on.

CZ: What do you find yourselves drawing upon to write a song?
LD: I always channel something personal. I guess the songs that were written around this time for the album are a response to living in London a certain amount of time and just realising there are really quite serious emotions that are associated with different places in the city. It wasn’t just a playground anymore – I’d fallen in love here, I’d lost people here – and I guess kind of maturing too, so I’m always looking inwards. I try to think in as broad strokes as possible. I find it really hard and I’m envious of writers who are able to write a whole song about their shoelaces or something.
BM: I think I initially like to get a vibe going where there’s a feel of a groove and melody working together and the way the lines are naturally falling on top of that, dictate the way a song’s going. In that way, the actual message of the song as such isn’t the first thing in my mind, it’s more about figuring that out down the line.
LD: When Ben comes in with a song, it’s all about the atmosphere he’s created in the song. With me it’s more about the message. I think my songs probably change more after we play them to each other than Ben’s in that respect…

CZ: What songs on Hit The Light standout to you?

LD: I’m going to choose one Ben sings on, Don’t Forget. All the themes on the album are there and I just love the vocal on it.
BM: I’d choose Burst. It blew my mind when he first played it to me, and there’s such intensity to where he’s coming from emotionally. You’ve been living in London a long time and you want to break out of stuff that has kind of been in the way. I think it’s a great one.

CZ: What’s next for you guys?
LD: We’ve got a nice juicy tour of the UK and Europe. It’s the first proper big tour we’re going to go on with the band. We’re just hungry for it. Starving.

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