Interview Gigs and Tours

part 1. Introduce yourselves! Where are you all from and how did your band form? We are Jack, Tom, Alex and Jimmy of Idle Hours. We’re pulled together from Worcester, Preston, Macclesfield and Middlesbrough respectively, but we all call Manchester home now. After meeting during the first few weeks of uni we haven’t been able to get rid of each other.

part 2. How did you arrive at the name ‘Idle Hours’? It’s actually taken from the name of a painting by William Merritt Chase. When I was at school the painting was used as a Microsoft background with the name ‘Idle Hours’ in the corner, for some reason when it came to choosing a band name my subconscious decided to throw that memory at me, those years of slacking off in ICT finally came in useful!

part 3. Who are your main influences and how have they shaped the music you make today? I think we all have our own individual influences due to being raised on different genres. We all have a mutual love of Bloc Party, but our influences are more broader than that. Recently we’ve found influence in elements of kraut-rock and post-punk which we’re currently experimenting with. Artists like Ulrika Spacek and Blur, we’ve really been looking at as a source of inspiration, but we’re aiming to stand out amongst the crowd a bit more and create something unique.

part 4

part 5. What’s the best gig you’ve played so far? That’s a tough one. I think it would probably be our first gig back after the pandemic in August last year. It had been 18 months since we’d last been on stage and we sold out Castle Hotel which was incredible, I don’t think I’ve ever had a rush of serotonin on stage like I did that night! I’d also have to mention our show in YES Pink Room back in January supporting The Lounge Society. We’ve watched so many bands in that room and it was absolutely packed when we played so it was quite surreal to perform on that stage. We watched Wet Leg in the Pink Room the following day which made it even more surreal.

part 6