They may have strained their necks trying to catch a peek, but visitors to Belfast’s Victoria Square who happened across the band’s recent gig at the centre’s glass summit, won’t need me to tell them that The Lowly Knights have gone up in the world.
Invited as part of the Trans Festival to play at the city’s newest (and highest) venue, the sprawling, choral-indie outfit, serenaded hundreds of shoppers, and, for the few lucky enough to gain access to the gantry, proved every bit as intriguing a spectacle as the old town’s hills and cranes.
“It was great fun,” beams Neil Mullan, singer, guitarist and, alongside, Stephen Caswell, the band’s main songwriter. “It’s such an amazing space for a gig – you’re just surrounded by glass and this panoramic view of Belfast. I forgot to sing backing vocals at one point because I was looking out at Cave Hill.”
“It’s quite a small area, though,” says Stephen. “You need to take a lift to get up there and it only holds about thirty people at a time. So we were a bit cramped. At one point someone kicked over my drink and it spilled across the floor. I hadn’t really noticed until this guy appeared from nowhere and, in the middle of the song, started mopping up in front of us. Safe to say, it wasn’t your normal gig.”
But then, when you have eleven members, the idea of what constitutes a ‘normal’ gig is open to interpretation. Given that The Lowly Knights could enter two teams (and a referee) in a five-a-side tournament, it’s hardly a wonder that some venues hesitate before giving them a call. But according to Neil, this reluctance has worked in their favour.
“As soon as some promoters find out how many of us there are, they don’t want to know,” he explains. “But there are other people out there who hear about us and are drawn to the fact that we’re not like your average band. I prefer it that way – it means we tend to get invited to more interesting kind of gigs and events. I mean we’ve played on fire escapes, in parks, in pubs. Logistically speaking, we’re never going to be a band that’s out gigging every night, so when we do play, we try to make it a real event.”
Stephen’s initial idea for forming the band came about after hearing a track by A Silver Mount Zion. A fan of Spiritualized and Broken Social Scene, he was intrigued by the prospect of restructuring his songwriting to accommodate a choir. With Neil a willing accomplice, the pair quickly gathered together a rag-band of interested souls, and before long were relishing the creative possibilities suggested by the new set-up.
“There’s a lot to learn if we want to do it properly,” says Neil. “There’s much more to it than just picking a third and a fifth and adding to them. It’s definitely changed the way we write songs. Having just written tunes for years with the intention of getting on stage with a couple of other blokes with guitars, this has been a massive change. We’re on a big learning curve, and it’s a challenge. But it’s made us think about songwriting differently – approach it in a compositional way. It’s been absolutely amazing.”
As evidenced by their forthcoming debut EP, the pair have adapted brilliantly. Mixing the kind of literate folk pop that The Decembrists would snap their pencils for, with spacey, wide-screen, vocal backing, The Lowly Knights could, potentially, rise higher than the dome where they recently played.
“It’s pretty idyllic in a way,” admits Neil. “When we practice, it’s like a get-together. It’s not always perfect, but we all get along, like hanging out together, like going out in a pack for a few drinks.”
At the moment, this set-up – buzzing with harmony and collective goodwill – sounds perfect. However, surely the prospect of eleven people remaining blissfully undivided is remote.
Stephen doesn’t seem overly concerned.
“Well there are no relationships so far,” he smiles. “Except for Ruth and Michael (Aicken), but they’re married, so that’s okay. In fact the only problem we’ve had so far was when they brought their kids along and one of them pissed on my guitar. But even that was cool. It was easier to clean off than I thought.”
As for ambitions, with all of the band in full-time employment (“We meet the likes of Kowalski and General Fiasco and feel like pensioners.”), there’s little stomach for launching grand promotional campaigns.
“We’re not waiting on being signed or anything like that,” says Stephen. “It really is just about writing better songs, playing better gigs – seeing where we can push this thing creatively.”
“We’ve had a lot of firsts – first record coming out, first interviews, first gigs in interesting places,” Neill adds. “That’s what excites me: that the band is still experiencing new things and that it’s always as fun as it is at the moment. I’m like Cazi, my ambitions are pretty modest. At the minute, I’d just love to record a radio session. Get the lot of us in a studio with the headphones and microphones. I’d be made up with that.”