New Hope Club Accelerates Rising Careers with Multi-Track ‘60s Pop-Infused Singles, “L.U.S.H.” and “Walk It Out”
Selling out headline shows worldwide, hitting #5 on the UK charts for their self-titled debut album, and striking a sweet spot between a danceable-pop and arena rock style, - is all just the beginning for UK’s home-bred boy band, New Hope Club. Unpublished Magazine had the opportunity to join an exclusive press conference last week with the boys of the band; Blake Richardson, George Smith, and Reece Bibby to chat about their multi-track single releases “L.U.S.H” and “Walk It Out.”
Calling in from Los Angeles, we found the three boys perched on a couch interestingly all matching in different shades of blue clothing. They reassured us that it was completely unplanned, however after chatting with the British boy band, it’s clear that the brotherly-dynamic that the group embodies speaks volumes about how they are connected creatively.
As New Hope Club has headlined multiple shows worldwide, they are famously known for having an audience that spans much farther than the United Kingdom. As the band recently wrapped a US tour this summer, George Smith reminisced on the band's time spent with fans after three years of not performing overseas due to the pandemic. “Every night on stage, there’s always kind of that crazy moment where obviously we’re so far away from home but there’s still people that want to come out to see us play and have stuck with us through such a strange time,” he shares. “It was our first real tour since being out of lockdown and we’ve been in the writing process for so long, so the gigs are the greatest payoff for all of that,” Reece Bibby concludes.
As the band is set to release a sophomore album, they tell us that they’re very transparent about how this album will be much more personal and real than their debut project. Reece offers an insight behind the building of the new album as he states, “We’ve written about our own experiences and it just feels good to be able to say this is a record made completely by us. We’ve made every decision in the process - everything in [the album] has a purpose.” For New Hope Club, this upcoming album is a huge step forward for their career.
“We’re always trying to connect with the people who we look up to the most, like The Beatles. Bands that challenge themselves, and I think we’ve done a really good job at solidifying who we are on this album.” Blake Richardson says in reflection to how they continue to evolve as artists. “It was important for us that we don’t put our sound and ourselves in a box,” Reece continues.
Vulnerability comes in all shapes and sizes. Writing music that will attach to a listener's heart, can be one of the more difficult tasks to conquer on a studio session checklist but it is an important aspect behind being an artist. We discussed writing with a vulnerable and intimate mindset with New Hope Club and why it’s important as artists to be a visually raw storyteller. “You can elaborate on such simple actions, like stepping off a train, it can be a whole story in your mind,” Reece begins. “One of my favourite bands is Gang of Youths and they always do such an amazing job at telling a story whether that be about their family or what it was like growing up.”
“I think it’s so cool to get that perspective on the noise through a song and not just through an interview,” he continues.
With vulnerability comes their freshest release “L.U.S.H.” alongside a music video that reflects a little more of New Hope Club’s personality. Set in an old-folks home with two people in the crowd eating dinner, the band is dressed to the nines while decorating the stage with British flags and having a little too much fun with helium balloons.
“We love our humour and we don’t take ourselves too seriously. We loved the idea of getting hyped up for a show, but when we get on stage there’s only two people in the crowd in an old-folks home,” Reece enthusiastically shares with the group.
Between small segments of laughter, New Hope Club expresses how in a classic music video there’s usually a love interest but here instead they wanted to showcase more of their independent personalities. They play with the irony behind “L.U.S.H.” being a very romantic and lustful song lyrically, but find themselves playing it to an empty crowd who couldn’t care less.
With “L.U.S.H,” incorporating some good old-fashioned British slang was a deciding factor. For the band, the title holds the acronym for “Love You So Hard”, - the cheeky chorus finds solitude in a confession of romantic affection.
Walking into the industry at 16-years-old can definitely be overwhelming but New Hope Club found it to be a great way to learn from the greatest people working in the industry. During their time building songs for their debut album, they had been working with a different person in LA weekly. The boys agree that this moment during their adolescent lives caused difficulty to find consistency in their songwriting.
“This new era is very honest, very real, and we didn’t want to hold anything back. We spent the whole of Covid, especially during the early parts of the pandemic, simply experimenting and that was something that we’d never been given the chance to do,” Blake shares. “It was just the three of us, bringing back that relationship we began with in regards to why we fell in love with music in the first place.
New Hope Club managed to use the multiple UK lockdowns during the pandemic to their greatest advantage as their experimenting successfully served them the best outcome that an artist could ask for. An outcome with an even more vulnerable exchange in lyrical arrangements, more complex multi-instrumentals and most importantly, they refound their love of music with each other.
A brotherly-bond with an effortless and unfiltered creative vision.