In the honour of the 10 year anniversary of Record Store Day, I sat down with two of Ashby-de-la-Zouch’s finest indie musicians – Henry and Oliver from Young Knives to talk records, tea and the worship of vinyl.
What does Record Store Day mean to you?
Henry: It’s like mother’s day for music, a celebration of records.
Oliver: It’s a day where people get together and worship vinyl.
Do you buy alot of records yourself?
Henry: Not as much as I used to.
Oliver: Neither do I, but I’ve got a decent collection at home. I accidentally broke one of them and saw online that you could melt vinyls into bowls, so I gave that a try and it turned out pretty well! I did go out and get a new one for my collection though, as the old one wasn’t fit for purpose anymore.
Do you prefer vinyls over CD’s?
Henry: Definitely! You can compare vinyls and CD’s with loose tea and tea bags; Tea bags are decent enough and pretty convenient, but if you really want to sit back and enjoy a proper brew, you want the fancy loose tea. Sure, CD’s are fine, but you don’t get the same unique sound quality that you do with vinyls.
Are you buying anything today?
Oliver: We’re planning on having a look around later, but I’m guessing alot of the good stuff will be gone by then.
As artists, what’s your opinion on digital downloading and streaming?
Henry: I guess we just have to accept it and find a way to work within it. Record companies doesn’t want to take any risks, so unless they’re certain you will produce a bunch of hits, they’re not willing to put any money into you. We recorded our newest album at home and did most of the work ourselves. And actually, compared to the one we did before that cost a whole lot more to make, this one sounds alot better.
Have you participated at Record Store day before?
Henry: It’s one of those things we’ve always wanted to do, and every year we would get to mid-March and be like ”aaah, too late again..”, but this year we really got our act together, and we released an EP on blue vinyl called ”Something Awful”. A Record Store Day special with only 500 copies made.
Oliver: We did a fanzine for it as well which has contributions from lots of people, including Paul Smith and Maxïmo Park.
Do you see a future for physical music?
Henry: I hope so.
Words & photography: Ella Stormark
STORMARK MUSIC 