WQHS Interviews Tom McClung of WU LYF

WU LYF is nothing, four dumb kids calling out heavy longings for a place to call home, two brothers greet two brothers and play heavy pop. I don’t feel at home in this place, like your hearts drunk on kerosene and all you need is a spark. A lil’ flare of Lucifer.

Those four dumb kids from Manchester (but don’t call them a Manchester band), England made their North American debut at Philadelphia’s Making Time event last Saturday night (11/5) at Voyeur Nightclub. WU LYF (short for World Unite Lucifer Youth Foundation) has made quite the name for themselves, as much for their early refusal to speak to press or publish photos of their faces as for their interesting musical style (they call it heavy pop) and their soul-rousin’-foot-tappin’-finger-lickin’-good shows. Despite playing a fairly short set this weekend, they did not disappoint, spitting out each song with a frenzied yet earnest intensity, somehow managing to do justice to a collection of songs recorded in an abandoned church across the Atlantic. It was a raucous celebration of youth, and Philly was feeling it. Before the show, I got the chance to sit down with bassist/vocalist Tom McClung to talk about creativity and the recording process and even play some word association. See the interview after the jump.

WQHS: Thanks for taking some time to chat today!

Tom McClung: Yeah, no problem.

WQHS: So how’s it going? You’re in Philly now, I take it?

TM: Yeah, I’m in my hotel room. Um, the Comfort Inn.

WQHS: The Comfort Inn?

TM: I’m about 20 minutes from Love Park. I can’t wait to go. I can’t wait to see the city, it’s going to be amazing, I think.

WQHS: Is it a comfortable inn, would you say? Living up to your expectations?

TM: Ah, well. You know, they definitely…they definitely advertise well with the name. There’s two double beds, and it’s warm, you know, I feel good!

WQHS: Well alright, great to hear! So to get things started, I was wondering if you can tell me a little bit about the work that the Lucifer Youth Foundation is doing around the world?

TM: Okay, well… the Lucifer Youth Foundation these days sounds like it’s some sort of misinformed charity or something, with the name. But it’s really enabling us four, as individuals, to travel around the world and play music to people who want to hear it. It’s enabling four people to be creatively self-sufficient, and giving them like a soapbox to stand on, so they can, you know, put across something that they think is relevant, in terms of creating something for other young people to connect to. And then in the future, it should be able to reach out to more people, and be like an outlet for them as well. We’re extending the team to some more people, like in our immediate circle, who are photographers and illustrators and painters and stuff. To put out their work and to give them some publicity as well. And hopefully the Foundation can keep growing like that so it can have, well, basically an unlimited sort of range of contributors from around the world.

WQHS: So your artwork, the digital stuff on your website, is that all done by friends, new members like you said?

TM: Right now all the stuff that comes out of the LYF is sort of created by us. I mean, I remember when we were first putting a website together and Ellery was really into making collages, and you know we all liked them. And we all thought they fit the mood of the music we were creating at the time. And they became our artwork for them. And when we came to make the album, Joe had an idea for the album cover so he did the painting there that ended up being the LP cover, and like more recently we’ve done these scarves that have like a We Bros emblem that I designed, so I mean, right now it’s all really self-sufficient, and that stuff just comes from us four.  But if there’s stuff we like coming from any of the LYF, when we can properly extend it fully, you know, we’re totally open to anybody else’s artwork or ideas being part of what we do.

WQHS: Nice! Now, can you talk a little bit about what your creative process is like as a group?

TM: Okay, well, I’ll tell you about the album. We had a really cramped box of a practice room that we sort of wrote all the songs in. I mean, but we used to practice in Joe’s practice room, which was basically his basement in his house, and then we got a different one that was slightly bigger but very cold, and then we ended up having this box of a practice room, with all these shelves of songs that had just come about, too, like jams and stuff. Then the last real creative process before we got to record in the church was just kind of sitting around, not really cooperating very well with each other. Going in day after day and not doing anything because someone was in a bad mood or people weren’t really willing to cooperate with each other, and just waiting for a day where things would click. Because no one really wanted to force each other to create anything and no one was really forcing each other to think of something before they came in there. Everything that was thought of during the album process, there was an unspoken rule that it had to be thought of when we were all together, so it felt like the most natural thing, like a response to someone else’s communication, you know? And so it ended up taking a while to write the songs.

WQHS: How long do you think you spent putting together the album?

TM: Well we started putting the album together about three or four months before it was recorded, but in terms of how old the songs are, some parts of the album are about three and a half years old, but then other parts of the album were written about 15 minutes before we recorded it, so it was kind of like this weird amalgamation of all these different parts that we liked in the past and that we put together. And then because we had this extra time in the church when we felt like we could improve some parts, so obviously we just made it up on the spot. It was a lot better to just kind of jam in the church, cause it was a little more inspiring than that cramped practice room in Manchester.

WQHS: Being labeled a “Manchester band,” how have you seen that shape people’s expectations for you?

TM: Um, I see it as a positive thing. I mean in some ways it’s positive. You can say that if you’re a Liverpool band, they have a musical heritage. Maybe it’s only about four band in most people’s eyes, but if you say you’re a Liverpool band, it’s a lot better than saying you are from…Slough. I don’t know if you know where that is?

WQHS: Yeah, I’ve seen The Office.

TM: Of course, yes. So you know exactly what I mean. And then it’s the same for Manchester. We can say what people have said about us, “They’re a Manchester band! So they have all this rich musical heritage, and they must be so inspired by their forefathers!” And all these things get assumed of you, and it’s like, okay, so thanks for taking notice of us because of the city where we’re from. But you’re kind of expected to give a gracious nod to everybody. Which I’m not…I like most bands. I like, uh, I think it’s good that the Stone Roses are reforming. But I also read a review the other day that was like, the reviewer was really excited about the Stone Roses getting reformed, and he was doing a live review, and all the way through he kept talking about the Stone Roses, cause we were from Manchester. And he finished up the review by saying, like, “so WU LYF are brilliant, they’re a great live band! But, I don’t think they’re the next Roses.”

WQHS: Oh, harsh.

TM: And I was like, oh, okay… I mean, it’s great to be here!

WQHS: Well, I’m really excited to see your Philly show and make up my own mind. Is Philly the first leg of your US tour?

TM: Yeah, yeah, this is the first date. It’s the one date where we won’t have done a lot of driving beforehand, so we could be pretty fresh. We should be nice for you I hope!

WQHS: Yeah! All right, so who or what inspires you as a person, or you as a band? What do you look to for inspiration?

TM: I get inspired by people’s work ethic. I get inspired by guys like Mike Watt, the bassist of the Minutemen. His best friend, who was also the lead singer of the Minutemen, died, but still, within the next year of him losing his best friend, his life sort of coming to a halt, he got a call from this guy called Ed, who heard that he was looking for a new guitarist to start a new band, and he sort of just took him up on that offer and kept on making music and hasn’t really stopped since, except for maybe illness or something. That kind of stuff’s really inspiring to me, because he’s not one to sit on his laurels, he’s always being creative. He’s a force, you know, he’s a force of nature, sort of, and he’s a real original bass player. Being a bass player myself, gotta take notice of the greats. I don’t mean like John Entwistle. I mean like Mike Watts.

WQHS: Great! Well I don’t want to take up too much more of your time, maybe let you get back to bed soon, but I thought I’d end with a little free word association game? So I’ll say a word, and you’ll say the first thing that comes to mind, makes it a little bit easier to write headlines like that. So are you down?

TM: Yeah, sounds good.

WQHS: Alright. So, Shakespeare.

TM: Hehe. Leonardo.

WQHS: John Lennon.

TM: Instant Karma.

WQHS: Harry Potter.

TM: Dead.

WQHS: Pippa Middleton

TM: Uh. Jesus Christ. Uh…Pippa Middle—?

WQHS: I think that counts as your word.

TM: …yeah.

WQHS: Manchester United.

TM: The best.

WQHS: Manchester City.

WQHS: All right, so I just about exhausted my knowledge of British pop culture, so I think we’re at a good stopping point, but I just wanted to thank you for your time—

TM: It’s okay, you can finish doing that one association thing if you want.

WQHS: Well actually, I only had a few left.

TM: Well make sure you put that Manchester City are sore winners.

WQHS: Haha OK. I’ll just throw one more at you: Carlos Tevez.

TM: Hehe! Carlos Tevez. Ogre!

WQHS: Ogre? All right. Uh, potatoes?

TM: French.

WQHS: French? Heh. Satan.

TM: …Wrong.

WQHS: Hot dogs.

TM: Breakfast.

WQHS: Well all right! This is really about it…

TM: Okay, that was great!

WQHS: Thanks again for your time, look forward to seeing you guys!

TM: Okay, sweet. I’ll be the guy on the stage.

WQHS: Alright have a great show!

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Tune into Iowa’s Just Gonna Play a Song For You this Thursday (11/10) at 4:30 EST for a live recording of the interview!

-         - Amelia Wilson, Iowa’s Just Gonna Play a Song For You (Thursdays from 4-6pm @ WQHS.org)