Handlebar moustaches, post-punk guitar bashes, party hats, pink brollies and fun time music folly… you need to MEET FEET. Avoid awkward google search results or risking sounding slightly perverse trying to covertly ask your pal “what do you think of feet?”. Get to know the Coventry quintet who bring bags of amusement and lager-downed delight wherever they go, even to the retirement home…
FEET’s thirst for a good time is reflected in their genre spanning output and entertaining performative approach, but the Coventry jokers are certainly not to be overlooked. An 18 show UK headline tour in October last year, with sell-out shows in London and Manchester, supported their Debut album ‘What’s Inside Is More Than Just Ham’ (released October 4 th 2019). Moving into 2020, despite obvious barriers on the music industry performance circuit due to a certain health pandemic, FEET supported Dublin four-piece Inhaler across their UK tour in February.
So, you know what FEET are, but do you know who FEET are? Well, the initial line up consisting of George Haverson (vocals), Guitarist Callum Parker (guitarist), Harry Southerton (guitarist) and Oli Shasha (bassist), were later joined by Ben Frith (drums), formerly of Dead Pretties. The original group met and bonded over a love of Parquet Courts, The Kinks, King Gizzard and Lizard Wizard at Coventry University in early 2016. Mixed up with their influences, including The Stone Roses BritPop classics, a bit of studying here and there, along with a visceral desire to broadcast high-jinx on their own FEET TV YouTube channel, the band FEET found their *ahem* feet! They were moving on, moving on to an abandoned barn in Huntingdon, Bedfordshire in fact. They set out with the aim of songwriting for two months, where the actual outcome mainly involved consuming Carling in the summer sun, but they still managed to write a couple of tunes, one of which aptly titled ‘English Weather’ would later go on to feature on their debut album.
As far as noisy neighbours go, it seems that FEET are never too many steps away. The band next upped sticks (and cans) from a barn in Bedfordshire in favour of a retirement village in Portsmouth. FEET’s fun-time folly, ‘que sera sera’ attitude and BritPop boisterousness must have been a slightly unwelcome backing track to belligerent elderly folk fastidiously playing backgammon and bridge. But no one is too old for a laugh, right?
But these boys are far from the butt of the joke, they were picked up by ‘The Maccabees’ guitarist Felix White’s ‘Yala! Records’, later taking their amusing, dance-inducing show on the road with a sub-genre all of their own: crease pop. Their debut album released on October 4 th 2019 with their self-made ‘Clapped Records’ label is titled ‘What’s Inside is More Than Just Ham’, is a heady infusion of BritPop, post-punk, doo-wop, funk, punk and psych-pop - without any sense of key direction this album well reflects the time and experiences of FEET’s nomadic writing lifestyles.
Stand out track from the album, ‘English weather’, written during the ‘Barn Sessions’ is an almost anthemic, swaying pop-song nonchalantly slandering Blighty’s climate, with a warm smile. “Pasty people in the park with their tops off” justifies the actions of near-translucent skinned Midland grass dwellers, “well, it’s not like we’re by the coast”. ‘Petty Thieving’, the fourth track on the album definitely cements their crease pop reputation, with the music video depicting medieval peasants being forced to hand over what little they have to the elite, until a self-styled robin hood figure (frontman George) starts to stand up and fight back, breaking out into a Saturday Night Fever-esque disco dance party in the castle temple. The video culminates in the band trading their treasures with a Del-Boy like sheepskin jacket wearing bloke for a PA system to play a gig at the local scout hut. Now FEET can add time travel to their repertoire.
Check out ‘Petty Thieving’ (Official Music Video) here
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bB0xnCI2NVg
The band continue to be a bastion of much needed joviality with their uplifting movements, including self-made record label, ‘Clapped Records’, who proudly ‘share the crease and love’ with music events in London, most recently raising funds for grassroots venues The Ramsgate Music hall and Tin Music Arts Venue to stay afloat after an absence of Governmental arts funding due to recent economic downturn. On a much cheerier note and on brand with the band’s jesting outlook, why not check out FEET’s bi monthly newsletter ‘Blog Roll’ sent to your inbox, get some laughs and find out what’s next instore for the five likely lads from the Midlands, now living it up together in London.
Sign up for their blog here https://mailchi.mp/db73ba76f402/blogroll
Joey Lee
@joeyyy_lee
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