Listen up

Talking tape recordings, girls and Manchester’s music scene with Wedding
By Clementine Zawadzki | Music | 18 November 2015
Photography Neelam Khan Vela
Above:

Photo by Neelam Khan Vela

A band of transcontinental proportions, Wedding began when Thomas Craig traded the comfortable confines of England for Berlin, where he met New Yorker, Zachary Taube. It was there that Craig began to write songs again, after years of feeling somewhat disconnected from exerting an artistic license of his own. Wedding’s nostalgically tinged melodies permeate sensitivity on their debut effort; a four track EP released via cassette and download on RIP Records. The analogue process is particularly evident on lead single Ruth, with echoes of Kurt Vile to Captured Tracks’ roster explained in conversation about the band’s beginnings, and how it was also a beginning for himself.

Clementine Zawadzki: So, let’s introduce Wedding. How did the project begin, and what’s happened since signing with RIP Records?
Thomas Craig: So, Wedding started properly in January of this year. I moved to Berlin last autumn and while I was there I started writing for something – I didn’t know what it was going to be – and then I found my friend Zachary on Craigslist and we started working together, we bought a cassette recorder and started demoing, and then it developed into a thing. We recorded an EP and a few other tracks and we were going to start this new band in Berlin, find musicians and stuff, and then I kind of ran out of money. There weren’t enough jobs in Berlin to sustain it, so I moved to Manchester in the summer.

CZ: Has music been a constant for you?
TC: I’ve been in bands since I was about fifteen. I studied also music, but it was kind of a plan B, getting forced into thinking you need to go to university, but I just wanted to move to London, and it was a good enough reason. The whole time I was there I couldn’t write, it was like I lost the buzz I had writing for myself, so I joined another band called Charles Howl, and I was a touring musician for them for a few years.

CZ: Are their any other bands you’ve worked or spent time with?
TC: Let’s Wrestle, and Proper Ornaments, and Younghusband. I also went to New York and stayed with Beach Fossils for a while, and they’ve been big influences of me and my music, and even just in terms of how they live. It’s really hard to put yourself in a mind frame where you think you can actually do this properly. It’s all very well recording to yourself and just having fun with it, but it’s also great to see people like Dustin [from Beach Fossils] who just took a chance, moved to New York, worked in a supermarket for a while, did his thing and got noticed.

CZ: So how did you meet them?
TC: I met Jack [Beach Fossils] when I was in Seattle a few years ago, and he was in a band called Craft Spells at the time. He said I should come to New York and visit, and that’s how I met the rest of the band. I’d like to move over to Canada or America one day, somewhere more suited to where I’m at musically.

CZ: What’s the story behind your recently released debut EP?
TC: The first single Ruth is also the first song I wrote for this band. It was kind of about re-finding my passion for writing music after a long time of not really knowing what to do, and it was such a release to remember that I can write stuff that makes me happy. In London, I just felt overwhelmed by life in general. I couldn’t really focus on anything properly. It’s also about a girl, as things often are.

CZ: Do you think it’s easier to be a fish out of water in some respects? Do you feed of that unfamiliar environment and become more creatively confident than if you were just at home?
TC: Yeah, when I was in Berlin I had no idea what was going on. I didn’t speak the language, I didn’t really know anybody, and so you can’t feel underwhelmed by anything because I was in a completely new place. There’s a really inclusive scene here [Manchester], so within a month or two of moving here I already met really nice people in bands. Not that people aren’t nice in London, that’s not true.

CZ: How often to you go to Berlin?
TC: I’m actually going back next week, for like a month or so. Zachary, who I started this with, still lives there, so he’s like an honorary member now because we can’t be in the same place at the same time. We still write together when we can, and this whole EP has him on it. It’s still a very important place for me. I’d love to live there some day, when I plan better. I had no plan before, but it was perfect in many ways. I did exactly what I went there for.

CZ: What’s next for Wedding?
TC: We’ve started recording the next stuff, with my live band here, maybe for an album, but not entirely sure at the moment. I’ve got so many songs – too many! I’ve got like 30 songs or something, but various hitches come up, like the tape recorder I use is really old and stopped working last week. But, it’s happening.

Wedding’s self titled EP is out now via RIP Records. 

Follow Clementine Zawadzki on Twitter @clementinelaura

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