After delivering their long-awaited debut album 'Song For The Small Places' earlier this year, Britpop icons Giant Killers are continuing the support for their recent LP with its standout single, 'Who Am I Fooling?'
Bringing back more of that rich and shimmering aesthetic they are known for, 'Who Am I Fooling?' sits as one of their more euphoric additions to their latest collection. Brimming with this broad and emotive energy throughout, they have certainly looked to make 2024 their most impactful year yet.
So with the new single doing the rounds, we sat down with them to find out more about their origins and what has been inspiring them most over the years.
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What was the first instrument you fell in love with?
Michael: The one I first aspired to was very specifically a punk rock electric guitar – which is different to your everyday variety of electric guitar. It has an angrier, more driving sound.
Jamie: Are you sure it’s not the person who is playing the guitar who is angrier than your average everyday guitarist?
M: No, no, definitely the instrument. I mean, have you ever heard of a punk rock electric banjo?
J: You’ve just proved my point buddy. So, Giant Killers is definitely a guitar-based songwriting duo – and I think this is the entry point for most young aspiring pop stars. We heart guitars.
What kind of music did you love when you were younger?
J: On reflection, I seem to have always been much older than my years, I loved any great singer, Nat King Cole, Sinatra, James Brown, George Michael, Amy Winehouse, Nina Simone, but also, anyone who understands a melody – I don’t mind a bit of Manilow if I’m honest. I’m a sucker for a show tune too.
M: I was always impressed with anyone who looked and sounded like an otherworldly being – you can’t get much better than Bowie for that. But I liked most anything from the canon of UK and US Punk and New Wave – I’m irresistibly drawn to angry shouty stuff as long as it’s got a melody. As my first instrument is a tenor saxophone, I’ve listened to lots of Jazz, and Swing, but love a bit of Disco and Dance too. I guess I was musically promiscuous from a young age!
What was the first album you remember owning?
M: That is the 1978 second generation punk classic – Inflammable Material by Stiff Little Fingers. I still have it. Vinyl of course, with a dog-eared cover – it’s much loved.
J: I leaned to more poppier tastes. It was Michael Jackson’s Off The Wall. Setting aside what we now know about Jackson – it’s a great album.
M: Jamie has neglected to add that he shoplifted the album from Rayners – a record store that was local to us.
J: I resent that accusation. If further pressed on the subject as a result of this interview I will deny it. And Rayners closed down decades ago.
M: Your actions may have been a contributory factor to its closure.
What is the one song you wished you could have written yourself?
M: Can we extend your question a little and go for an album…
J: I’m going to take the words right out of your mouth buddy and say Nevermind.
M: That is the word I was forming for sure. For many of our generation – this album was one of a tight handful that soundtracked our lives.
J: I’d like to think, despite it being so stylistically different from Giant Killers, that a little bit of Smells Like Teen Spirit lives in all our songs too.
Do you have any habits or rituals you go through when trying to write new music?
J: Well look, we are completely self-taught – which probably means we have done everything wrong, and all arse about face.
M: Arse about face! That might be a colloquialism too far mate. What my friend means is that our approach to creation may be a little unconventional.
Usually, Jamie has a melodic idea for the topline verse and chorus, and then I create a lyrical framework over that. It’s the lyrics and the melody that we lead with.
J: Then we construct a chord progression, sketch out an arrangement and develop motifs for the other instruments using a guitar and a tenor sax.
M: And all that goes into the studio, where we aim to work with better musicians than Jamie and I to evolve the frameworks into something that is more sophisticated.
J: Hopefully more sophisticated!
Who are your favourite artists you have found yourself listening to at the moment?
M: I’ve been listening to The Goa Express, Bug Club, but given my penchant for punk, I’m really drawn to Amyl and the Sniffers. They’re amazing.
J: A bit of Nadine Shah and Nia Archives for me – love that stuff. But… I can't stop listening to Giant Killers.
M: Same, but I was trying to avoid admitting it, and you’ve just outed us both.
J: Well maybe we should be allowed a little bit of self-reverence – we’ve waited nearly 30 years for the work to come out!
If you could open a show for anyone in the world, who would it be?
M: It would have to be a back from the grave performance – Bowie.
J: Taylor Swift.
M: I took my daughter to see her play Wembley – she blew us both away. What a writer, performer and musician. I had a dream afterwards that she covered our song, Around the Blocks.
J: I so want that to happen!
What do you find is the most rewarding part about being a musician?
M: The act of bringing together a few like-minded souls to collectively build out a genuinely collaborative piece of music, that relies on multiple musicians being present and in the room in actual physical time and space and all locked onto a single aim to make music live in the real world – and to see something emerge from what could be chaos – well then that is genuinely uplifting.
And what is the most frustrating part?
J: For me, it’s about how modern artists have changed. It’s not enough to be a great performer, writer and musician anymore – to stand out in the music industry the artist has to invest equal time into any talent they might have for promotion and marketing. Tasks which might have been delegated to a manager or label back when we were cutting our teeth.
And what is the best piece of advice you have received as a musician?
M: It was from a business perspective. Mainly to be aware that signing to a label is not necessarily the answer to all your dreams. As we found, with two major deals under our belts, getting the deal is often the main goal for aspiring young artists early in their career – as if success will naturally follow once the ink on the contract is dry.
J: We used to think that getting the deal was like winning the lottery, but we learned from bitter experience that it was more like buying the ticket – you’re in the draw, but there’s no guarantee you’ll win anything.
M: I guess to flip your question, our advice to others is, once you’ve signed don’t rest on your laurels. Don’t think, because you now have people at the label to take care of business, that now’s the time to fly off to a barn in Tuscany to write that concept album you’ve always dreamed of.
J: Always be taking care of business – keep your weather eye on the people in the business to make sure they’re representing your best interests.
M: And make sure you yourself are aware of what your best interests are.
J: And finally, always take the advice of a jaded pro with a pinch of salt.
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Giant Killers' new single 'Who Am I Fooling?' is out now. Listen to it in the player below.