Looe Music Festival is three days (29th Sept - 1st Oct) of superb live music in a magical setting on the stunning Cornish coast. A ‘grown-up’ music festival where camping isn’t a prerequisite, where you can visit for the day or the weekend, stay in comfort and eat like a king.

For three days in September the little town of Looe in South East Cornwall gets hit with big music, manic entertainment and a smattering of culture for good measure. The festival pops up from nowhere to transform the beach and the streets, giving locals & visitors from all over the world a chance to mingle and enjoy the show. Everywhere is the venue, everybody’s welcome to the party. And every year, we try to push it one step further.

We heard that a truly amazing band (who we have seen a couple of times before) called TANKUS THE HENGE are set to play the festival so we thought that a chat with the front man Jaz Delorean was in order, here's how we got on....

Please take  a moment to introduce your band and tell people why they should come and check out your set at Looe Festival this year

My name is Jaz Delorean. My band is Tankus the Henge, who will be playing on the Main Stage on Sunday night. We last played Looe two years ago, and we are excited to return. It's really one of our favourite festivals. We have strong links with Cornwall, and it feels like coming home when we play there. OK, let me talk to the reader for a second; When YOU turn up to a live show, several things happen. The atoms in your body are radioactive. They enjoy being next to other atoms in other bodies, which they may have known in the same star billions of years ago. We can feel this thermal radiation. It is electromagnetic, around the level of 12 microns. When we play music through a big sound system such as the one on Looe beach, the wave-forms meet each other in mid-air and perform a pas de deux of electrical energy, above our heads and hearts. The excitement felt by all of us is no illusion. We create it together. We are on the stage, you are dancing in the sand, but the unique moment we conjure is mystifying and we do it as a group. Don't miss it. We need you and your electricity! 

Looe Music Festival always puts on a great range of bands, both local, national and sometimes international, which acts are YOU most excited about seeing this year?

Too right. It has a great line-up this year. We'll be losing our shit to the psychedelic bhangra grooves of RSVP, who we played with in Italy, and Holy Moly & the Crackers, who channel the grit and grind of life into a twisted carnival party. Can't wait to see those guys again.

UK festivals can often be messy affairs, please tell me your top three tips to surviving one?

Festivals all over the world can be brilliantly messy. There is a growing global festival movement, and apart from the ones taken over by huge faceless corporations, most of them are based on the very real and much needed pillars of liberalism, acceptance and community. We are here to enjoy life and to help our neighbour enjoy life too. 

When it comes to surviving a festival, it's pretty simple. Keep your boots dry, drink plenty of water and remember it's a marathon, not a sprint. 

You're a London band, how did the opportunity come about for you to perform at this year’s festival?

We are indeed a London band, but in actual fact we have members from all over the world. Italy, Brazil, England and Wales. London is a huge melting pot for music and culture, and there are genres being smashed to smithereens every night, if you care to go down the rabbit hole and discover them. 

I can't remember the original conversation, but I do know that a few people had asked for us to come back, which is flattering. We have some surprises this year, and it'll be a great finale of Summer 2017 (yes, 1st October is still summer dammit). 

Looe Festival takes place quite late in the year, have you been to any other festivals this year either to play or just as a festival goer? If so, which stood out most for you?

I lost count around August. I think we have played at twenty-eight festivals this summer in six countries. The maddest crowds this year were at Buskers Bern, in Switzerland, where we played to ten thousand people in total. It's kinda crazy over there. There's also a fast flowing glacial river which we jumped into off a bridge. Nearly had a heart attack. Apart from that, Glastonbury Festival was special this year. We played three shows to some wonderfully loopy crowds. Really humbled that people come out and see us, and give us as much as we give them, you know? It's a two way thing, a live concert. It's a love-hate-love-love relationship sometimes. On occasion you're wrenching your heart through a mangle, because to get the audience to believe, you have to believe every word, and they're thinking about something else. That's fine though; humans have oversized brains and they like to get distracted with stuff. On other occasions they're with us and we're with them, all the way, and it's akin to riding a rollercoaster off a cliff, and no-one is strapped down. We're just holding onto complete strangers for dear life HOLY SHIT THIS IS THE LAST THING WE'LL EVER DOOOOO WROOOAGHHHHHHHHHHHHHH LETSDOTHATAGAIN. You know what I mean. It can be like that. That's why we drive through the night with hamster eyes cramped into weird positions, just to get to the people that grok the thing. Tune in to eachother! It's good for you!

Picking the three headliners for Looe Festival must be quite a tall order, who would YOU choose for 2018?

I'd love to see The Flaming Lips get down to Cornwall. They'd love it. Alabama Shakes? They'd be great. And Dr John in the legend spot. He's a hero of ours. 

Lastly, there are a ton of bands and acts out there, please tell me the name of one that we should invest some time in?

The band we've been banging on about this summer is Shishko Disco. They're an international group of inspired musicians from Israel, Palestine, India, America and UK, based in Goa and Berlin. They are friends of ours, but recently they have finished a new recording, and we played the same festival in Switzerland. The gig was near riotous. You know when you are present at a performance and it's not just a performance, it's a moment. It was like that. We were all there. Arabic King Crimson, and you get halfway there. Hands down the best gig we've seen all year. 

Thanks for asking the questions. Keep asking questions. See you on the beach. JD

We'd like to thank Jaz for gifting some of his minutes to us to chat, we wish him and the band every success at Looe Music Festival and any other shows they're putting on for the remainder of this year.

You can keep up to date with the band's whereabouts at the following sites;

Facebook

Website

Twitter

For more information about LOOE MUSIC FESTIVAL, click HERE