I was approached recently (not in a park after dark) by a guy called Jonny Hughes who is the guitarist from a band called Sandra’s Wedding. He went on to tell me that they’re from a place called Goole in East Yorkshire and that they have received a fair amount of interest from their local ‘BBC Introducing team. I listened to their latest album ‘Pleasure Grounds’ which sounded immense, so much so, I wanted to learn more about the band. Read on to find out how they formed, their musical tastes, dream Glastonbury Festival lineups and whether they would fight a dinosaur sized chicken or ten chicken sized dinosaurs (we get ALL of the info in our interviews…)
You’re called Sandra’s Wedding, I am keen to learn where the name originated, please do tell…..
Joe: There’s no interesting story, unfortunately… It deflates me every time we have to give this answer because I would expect an interesting origin story too. I suppose this is the perfect way to always open conversations about Sandra’s Wedding: Crushing disappointment right out of the gate.
Please tell me a bit about the band, how and when you formed etc….
Jonny: A few years ago I followed someone on Twitter who at the time I’d never met. She was from Goole and we regularly tweeted each other about our favourite music. She clearly recognised I was a frustrated musician, so one day she said “I know someone who’d be good for you to play guitar with,” and so long story short I ended up randomly driving twenty miles down the road eventually meet Joe. We just set up our gear and played in a closed pub in the middle of nowhere - I genuinely didn’t know if I was going to get mugged. Thankfully I left with my wallet in tact and we just went from there starting to work on songs. I know we live in an age where social media is pretty divisive and polarises people most of the time, but it actually brought me and Joe together.
You’re from Goole, please describe the music scene there?
Luke – It’s on its way back up. It went a bit quiet for a while but there’s some good bands and artists coming through again. It seems the kids are back to picking up guitars which I don’t think has happened for a few years.
What about live venues, are there many to choose from?
Joe: There aren’t any venues per se, any events are billed as ‘band playing at…’ a working men’s club or this pub or that pub. There’s nothing wrong with that but there’s nowhere like Fibbers in York or Adelphi in Hull where it’s wall to wall music and like minded people. It’s a much smaller town, I suppose, but it would be nice if there was somewhere like that. If I win the Euro Millions, I’ll start a dedicated live music venue in Goole and buy one of those machines that love you.
You’re not that far from the East coast, favourite seaside destinations?
Luke: Whitby for the vibe, Scarborough for the fish and chips.
Joe: My fiancée is from Bridlington so I’m contractually obliged to say we love Brid… I don’t think I’ve ever enjoyed having fish and chips in Brid, Whitby, Scarborough etc – it feels too obvious. It makes me feel like I’m on the Truman Show or something. Sitting next to a giant bin pretending to be really enjoying a fish and chip with loads of other ashen faced people. Not for me, I’d rather go to Spoons and admit defeat. We’re all just trying to look like we’re normal functional people when we’re not really.
I can clearly hear The Smiths and The Housemartins in your music, would you cite these as key influences?
Jonny: For me, I’d never have picked up a guitar were it not for The Smiths. It’s probably that straight forward. I guess your first influences are the ones that hit you hardest and stay with you the longest, so I think it’s always in your DNA to approach playing guitar in that style, but more importantly I think – or at least hope – it works with the type of songs that Joe writes.
Joe: Paul Heaton is a big influence, yeah. I’ve ever intentionally aped him which I think would surprise people because it’s often “You sound like Paul Heaton”. It’s nice but I think what makes it slightly unsettling is because he has such a unique voice. It can make you neurotic thinking, “Don’t try and sound like Paul Heaton…” When you’re singing but it’s just my natural delivery, so you just end up having to get on with it. I’d love to meet him but I feel like I’d just get on his tits.
Do you all share the same music tastes or do you all bring something different to the table?
Jonny: I always think we’re a bit like a Venn diagram – I imagine most bands are – and we all sort of converge in the centre and have some key things in common. For instance we’re all obsessive fans of The Beatles, but Luke is massively into Kraftwerk, I like a lot of the 70s CBGBs bands like Television and some stuff that might not necessarily be what you’d associate with the sound of a typical ‘Sandra’s Wedding’ track. As far as I know there are no closet death metal fans in the band, but for the most part I guess we probably sound a lot like our influences and we make music that we’d listen to ourselves.
Luke: As Jonny said, there’s a lot we have in common, and there’s a lot we don’t too. I like a lot of electronic and new-wave, and psychedelic stuff, there’s a little bit of a cross-over with Jonny there, and I love the songwriting of Andy Partridge, which I share with Joe. Then there’s those albums which you wouldn’t dare play to the others for fear of being kicked out the band, so yeah, we all bring something different into it.
Joe: I’ll listen to most things. You can get a little idea from anywhere.
Your lyrics include references to Northern life, what is it about the North that creates such incredible bands and music?
Joe: I’m always really curious to know what people from the south genuinely think about the North. I do worry sometimes that people in the North get a bit obsessed with being from the North. I include myself in that; I suppose that’s essentially what the Blur/Oasis thing was at its very root; that inability to associate with what the other one was saying so everyone on either side just went “Look at those idiots.” It’s just life, as opposed to Northern life. There are people in places down south who have had similar experiences in terms of how their towns have changed in the last 30/40 years, de-industrialisation etc. Scotland, Wales, Ireland also… I think great artists and lyricists can be very specific but at the same time very broad in what they’re saying. Look at The Clash, The Pogues, Deacon Blue… they could have been singing about Doncaster or Wigan but it was still very of its’ place. Slightly off topic…
In terms of our lyrics, I think I’ve always been drawn to that kitchen sink style of writing. I couldn’t go in for overly surreal or overly generic but they’re skills in themselves. I always want to improve the quality of the writing which I think is a good sign, I understand now what people mean when they say if you lose that drive and hunger then that’s when you know you’ve had enough and should stop. Like when Cantona (Eric - Footballer) retired at 30 – people were beside themselves but… He made the decision to finish on his terms and he had said everything he wanted to say. What a way to go. What was the question again..?
There is something fascinating about Northern towns and cities, some might say they are depressing but I think that they’re the complete opposite, what are your views?
Luke: Never been to Goole have you?
Joe: I agree, I find them fascinating. But then, I find anywhere fascinating. I love thinking about how people perceive their surroundings. Like when you go to Spain or something and you see a local builder just having a pint with his mate at a bar and it seems really exotic and other worldly but he’s just text his partner and said “Having a pint with Gerard, be half an hour.” This sort of goes back to my earlier answer about fish and chips – I think it’s the not wanting to look like you don’t belong. I hate doing touristy stuff, like posing for photos with monuments or funny street performers. People who live there are just thinking, “What are you doing, why do you care about that old house I see it every day. Pathetic.”
Michael Eavis has just called and asked you to nominate the 3 headline acts for Glastonbury 2022 (please ignore that Billie Eilish has already bagged the Friday night slot), who are you going to have as the headliners and why?
Jonny: Personally I’d like to see Red Hot Chili Peppers now that John Frusciante is back in the band up there. He’s an incredible guitarist. That said, a Sandra’s Wedding curated Glasto would be very random. I can’t imagine they’d come out of retirement, but with their new album to promote perhaps we could coax ABBA into playing a greatest hits set. No holograms, the real thing – I want to see grown men singing Mamma Mia and crying in a muddy field at midnight.
Luke: Have to have one each wouldn’t we, so if I can nominate one act for each of us,
Friday – Jonny – Patti Smith
Saturday – Luke – Kraftwerk, was supposed to see them at Playground Festival earlier this year but they were replaced by Culture Club at the last minute. Not worth the drive…
Sunday – Joe – three hours of Deacon Blue.
Joe: I don’t think I’ll argue with the above for Sunday. What would a really amazing Glasto Sunday headliner be… Thinking of Box-Office… I can’t think. Just stick those ABBA holograms up on Sunday and watch the cash roll in. People would lose their minds. I’d go watch that. Patti Smith, Kraftwerk and ABBA. We need to just pack in being a band, honestly. We’re 32 years old and our dream Glastonbury is an actual disgrace.
‘Pleasure Grounds’ is your 4th studio album, has your sound changed much since you released your debut album ‘Northern Powerhouse’ in 2018?
Luke – It’s definitely evolved, it’s a bit less meat & potatoes than it was back then. It’s been nice working with different people who all bring their own ideas to the table.
Joe: The base ingredients are the same but we’ve learnt to make more dishes. Onions, garlic, tomatoes, chilli. Those four ingredients are the start of every great dish, essentially. We’ve kept those four ingredients and just started wandering down some different aisles in the Supermarket.
Would you say that the pandemic and the lockdown affected the way that this album sounds?
Joe: We made an album in lockdown so I think we got all that out of our system to be honest. It was good we did that, it meant we could use our energy on something of its’ time and then once that box was ticked, we started work on Pleasure Grounds as new tracks. I just kept saying I wanted it to be breezy and simple and for the most part I think we managed to do that. I would have liked to have had a lot more tracks on there, but I say that about everything we release. I suppose the pandemic did influence the sound in that respect, I don’t think we would have gone as care-free had it not been for that long period between. We almost had to go back to the egg to start again and get some momentum.
Do you think that it would have been a completely different album had we not have been living through the pandemic?
Joe: As I just said there, it probably would have had some differences… But everything is there as part of a progression so I don’t think it would have been a radical departure. We knew we wanted to simplify a little bit. We were like those people in The Cube. “Would you like to simplify?” “Yes Philip, we’re going to simplify.”
You recorded ‘Pleasure Grounds’ on a barge in York, tell me more about this….
Joe: We contacted Jonny Hooker of Young Thugs studio in York (Highly recommended, great guy and great studio) and we had the week booked in for some time. I think it was a few days before I spoke to Jonny on the phone and he signed off with “Great, I’ll send you the postcode for the boat.” And I thought, “What boat?” And after further discussion we realised that he had secured this amazing old renovated barge to work on over the summer and into Autumn as part of a community project or something (apologies, I can’t remember exactly!) so the studio was temporarily on the canal bang in the centre of York. We loved it, it was a great experience and we’re already looking to go back and work with them at Young Thugs. I think they’ll be back on terrafirma by then, they’ve been doing a lot of work on their main place. It’s like we played an F.A Cup final at the Millennium Stadium when they were building the new Wembley. We’re a pub-quiz question.
Which tracks from ‘Pleasure Grounds’ are you MOST proud of and why? (You can’t say all of them!)
Jonny: I think for me the title track is really nice. It’s just so summery and kind of encapsulated the whole feeling of the recording process really well. Plus it’s always a thrill to have someone who can actually play their instrument properly involved on a track, and Anthony Thompson who plays trumpet on there is just brilliant.
Luke – The title track is one I’m most proud of as a whole, but it was nice to emulate a Ringo-style Tomorrow Never Knows-type thing on Council Pop. I’ve wanted to do something a bit more psych for a while so it’s nice to get it out the system.
Joe: Most proud of Pleasure Grounds as a complete track – my favourite is probably Love Everyone. I don’t know why, I just like that track. Sweet and simple.
Would you rather fight a dinosaur sized chicken or 10 chicken sized dinosaurs?
Luke – Ten chicken-sized dinosaurs obviously. You’d just stand on them wouldn’t you.
Joe: I’d rather fight a dinosaur sized chicken. As you haven’t stipulated which dinosaur, I request that it be the size of the Oculudentavis Khaungraae. “The Oculudentavis Khaungraae was presented as a hummingbird-sized toothed bird—an avian dinosaur that fluttered around prehistoric Myanmar about 100 million years ago” I would boot it into next week. (I wouldn’t really do that.) That could be what Meatloaf was singing about in I Would Do Anything For Love? He would fight a little chicken but he wouldn’t boot it into next week.
I see that you’ve had support from BBC Music Introducing in York, how does it make you feel when you hear your music played on the radio? Any other local DJ’s or radio stations that deserve a shout out?
Luke – I think it’s great, I think there’s something classically romantic about radio broadcasting and so it’s always nice to hear your own songs played. Got to be FM though. DAB doesn’t have the charm. Radio York have been good to us, as has Burnsy on BBC Radio Humberside, he’s great at supporting local and unsigned music and is quite happy to broadcast it outside of the Saturday night Introducing ball-pit.
Joe: Don’t say ball-pit, sounds horrible.
Hopefully you’re planning some live dates to help promote the new album, where and when can we catch you? Any festival bookings confirmed for 2022 yet?
Joe: We have a couple of things in the works, the best way to find out would be to follow us on all the socials. Insta/Facebook/Twitter. Just search Sandra’s Wedding!
There have been some fabulous albums released from some killer bands in 2021 already, what are you currently grooving to?
Jonny: I think Lana Del Rey’s “Chemtrails Over The Country Club” has been my most played album of the year. I remember sticking it on the turntable back in the February lockdown and it’s been spinning on it quite frequently ever since.
Luke – The new Audiobooks album, Astro Tough, is great, although it feels dangerously close to a novelty record at times. Thought the last LUMP album was top-notch too. I really enjoy what I’ve heard of current indie-darlings Wet Leg so far, looking forward to the album when it releases.
Joe: I’ve had the new John Grant on a fair bit… I liked the new Taylor Swifts. Sue me.
You’re all over the socials, where is the best place to keep up to date with your musical happenings?
Luke – Facebook (www.facebook.com/sandraswedding) or Instagram (www.instagram.com/sandraswedding) is probably the best place to keep informed. I think we’ve got a mailing list somewhere too…
Lastly, if you were stuck in the largest department store overnight with access to ANYTHING, what would you spend the night doing?
Joe: I’d go into a big Tesco that has a café and just cook everyone a breakfast for when they opened. A really horrible manager would say, “We can’t eat this, it will all have to be thrown away.” And I’d go absolutely crazy. I’d say, “What is your problem?”
And there you have it, everything you’d ever really want to know about Sandra’s Wedding, thanks to the band for taking the time to wade through my questions and come up with some fascinating replies. Please go and check out the band in more detail, if you’re ‘Up North’, why not check and see if they are playing in your local area and go and see them, mention that you saw this feature on musomuso.com and no doubt they’ll buy you a blue raspberry flavoured Panda Pops and a bag of ‘salt n shake’ crisps.
Interview by Steve Muscutt
