Written By Amy James
Welcoming Ollie, Ryan, Julien and Jay who collectively make up the band 'The Great Leslie'. Creating the group back in 2020 they have had a huge amount of success including becoming BBC Introducing's track of the week with their single 'Money' to having a track played on Channel 4's Sunday Brunch. They are a force to be reckoned with. After reading this interview with them you'll be lining up the watch them perform live.
Welcoming 'The Great Leslie' to the blog! Introduce yourselves, what your names are, where you are from and the style of music you make?
Hi, we are The Great Leslie. Ollie, Ryan, Julien and Jay! We’ve all come from different areas in the UK but we’ve all come to hang our hat in London. We like to call our Music Dance Rock, because that’s what we want people to do when they hear it, dance and rock, and we think we achieve that!
How did the start of ‘The Great Leslie’ happen? Did someone suggest the idea? Well, we had a previous project with some of us, but we just wanted to change it up and do something new, so in the middle of the first lockdown we decided to come together (virtually at the time), and start The Great Leslie. What has been your favourite performing moment as a group? Or your favourite moment as a group? I think as we’ve only officially been together for about a year it is hard to say what our favourite moment has been as we just haven’t done that much yet! However, performing is always the highlight of what we do. Writing and recording is great fun, but being in front of an audience is what we’ve loved most so far. We had a great gig back after all the lockdowns to a sold out crowed, headlining Paper Dress Vintage.
What’s a piece of advice someone told you that has stuck with you? ‘Trevers, you could do well. You just need to do some f*****g work’, is probably the best advice I’ve ever received. Are you able to explain the creative process behind making your music? Does it start with an influence such as an event in life? Each time we write a song it is different. Usually I will bring in a bundle of songs for the guys to have a listen to and see what they like. Then we arrange and develop those songs together taking them from one guitar and lyrics to a proper rock banger. In terms of contextual ideas, the lyrics are always true to me and about things that may have happened in my life and/or how I feel about something. Your latest single is ‘You Lost Yourself’ which was a Halloween hit. Is there a story behind this song? Initially I was exploring the idea of losing myself because of various things that have happened in my own life, but then I decided to flip it around and write it from the perspective of some witnessing a change within someone else, which is something I have seen several times. It’s an amalgamation of all those times I’ve seen anyone close to me change but for the worse. When I brought it to the band they were trepidatious about taking it forward at first, but our manager was insistent this was going to be a banger, so I stayed behind after practise and worked on the song with Julien changing up its rhythm which helped bring the others around.
"It’s an amalgamation of all those times I’ve seen anyone close to me change but for the worse" - The Great Leslie on writing You Lost Yourself.
‘Money’ and ‘Out Of My Hands’ were some of your first songs released on Spotify back in 2020, do you feel as if your music has changed since then, if so how? I think our music has developed since then but not changed drastically, as we have now honed in our sound to what we like best. Since those releases we’ve explored other avenues of what we could do as a band and set out a clear spectrum of indie to alternative rock which we have placed ourselves in. Going forward now we define ourselves as dance rock, which allows our songs to be a wide variety of things whilst being coherent. Are you influenced by any other artists/groups? Are you influenced by any songs? As individuals and as a group we have hundreds of different influences. Every artist is influenced by other artists, that’s the nature of the game. You have such a passion for what you do because someone else has inspired you; those inspirations will always be influences. As a band and with our sound I think you could pull any number of artists and see the influences, like Circa Waves, The Killers, Panic! At The Disco, Bowie, Queen, Nothing But Thieves, so so many. Do you feel any social pressures from the industry? Do you feel you need to promote yourself in a certain way at all? I don’t think we do. We just write the best music we can and perform our hearts out. Obviously we’d be foolish to not be aware of what is going on in the industry, but that’s not pressure, that’s just going with the flow and being aware of what is happening. In terms of promoting ourselves, we know that we have to deliver a certain amount of content to keep people involved and entertained, but we enjoy doing that; it helps with the demystification process by which our fans truly become part of what we’re doing and fully connect to us and our music. Do you have a goal of where you would like to head in the future in terms of music? If so, where would that be? We want to be one of the biggest bands in the world, playing the biggest festivals to the biggest audiences. That’s our goal. We’ll see you at the top.
The Great Leslie have a single 'ANNA' due to come out on the 26th November 2021
The Great Leslie Website - https://thegreatleslieband.com/about/
The Great Leslie Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/thegreatleslieband/?hl=en