Easy does it

Eastbourne is not rock music’s most fertile breeding ground. That is the unambiguous thread running through much of Easyworld’s discussion of their home town. “It’s so conservative, in both senses of the word,” says singer Dav Ford. “The vast majority of the population is over 70. Basically it’s a town with no music venues and 150,000 retirement homes.”

When Ford got together with bass player Jo Taylor and drummer Glenn Hooper two years ago, he was convinced that they were “the only three people forming a band in Eastbourne who fulfilled the criteria of a) wanting to do it, and b) not being in Toploader already.”

In this rarefied climate, it was obviously tough for the band to take off. But it wasn’t long before the sheer talent of the members, and songwriter Ford’s notable pop sensibility started getting Easyworld noticed.

Now, two years down the road and with a solid album on the shelves, Easyworld’s mild bitterness towards their beginnings has evaporated, and they haven’t a bad word to say about anything. “We’re in that bizarre limbo period,” continues Ford, “where the album is out and we’re just sitting back and watching. It’s in the public domain, and our job is largely done.”

As well as supporting Cooper Temple Clause and The Bluetones on national tours, they’ve done two headline circuits themselves, and will hit Reading and Leeds in August.

Meanwhile the British music press has been throwing plenty of praise at the three-piece, and the band’s ascendant popularity has grown further. Ford, without hesitation, explains Easyworld’s hook in one word: “Honesty. One of the good things about guitar bands is it’s one of the few genres of music [in which] you can actually be honest. If someone out of Linkin Park got up in the morning and felt really happy, there’s no way they could get away with writing a song about it, because their career is utterly dependent on churning out misery.

“Whereas if I wake up in the morning and feel utterly pissed off I can write a really pissed off song and put it in our set. At the same time... if I feel happy, I can write a happy song and put that in the set. I can afford to be honest, because I don’t have any in-built manifesto that says, ‘Because of the kind of band you’re in you have to sound like this’.”

Sure enough, This Is Where I Stand has a satisfying spectrum of light and dark, upbeat and downbeat, as all good albums should. “The only thing a band should be concerned about,” concludes the front-man, “is doing what they do and doing it for the right reasons.”

This Is Where I Stand is available now on Jive Records