Courting
Words and Photographs by Willow Shields
The story goes as such; we sat down in our respective zoom rooms, quietly anticipating what each party would come out with. Courting popped up with a digital background of a painting battle of Hastings, we began to talk about Castles, Sean Thomas drops in that ‘the country with the most castles to people ratio is Wales’ the pair then began to engage in a heated debate about how the name Wales came about – from someone seeing a whale and just taking the ‘h’ away?
The two were filled with electricity almost, totally rapid and talking about everything and everyone. It was at this point I realised this was going to be a challenge. When you take two people, wait for them to be so tired they become hyper again and put them in a zoom meeting with someone who they know is going to write something afterwards... I don’t know about you, but to me? That spells chaos. When I asked the two about their Twitter and beefing bands, frontman Sean O’Neill says “I think you’ve got us slightly wrong there, we’re not that mean” and then looking to bands they ‘beefed’ previously the EP. he said “what bands have we actually beefed? I once called Catfish and The Bottlemen shit and I stand by it.”
“There’s no irony in what we do. We’re just having fun, I think there’s a difference.”
Their debut EP is out and it goes by the name of ‘Grand National’ after their title track, as some of you may not know, THE Grand National is tomorrow as told by Sean O’Neill I asked them if they’d planned their EP to come out today for that reason and the short answer was no: “I’m not going to lie if we did plan it but as our official angle is: yes we did.” Courting recorded Grand National last August, coming from the perspective of efficiency, they recorded it totally live and although they say “it’s not a stylistic choice” it definitely adds a body to their tracks. They work like a well- oiled machine and everything flows so perfectly. I think if the tracks weren’t live, they would lose some character I’m sure of it. Courting are a live band through and through and you can’t miss that while listening to the EP.
If I were a band, I would dread being asked the question “Do you think you’re a meme band?” but I asked Courting anyway, just to see what they’d say. The answer was as follows, “I hope not, in terms of social media personality I’ll take it. But in terms of music, I hope preferably not. I don’t really care how people perceive us as personalities, I do care more about how people perceive the music. There’s no irony in what we do. We’re just having fun, I think there’s a difference. Were trying to be sincere, were not mocking other things... there’s a bit of pisstake involved but I don’t want to be one of those bands who are like ‘it’s all ironic’ I think it’s boring.”
When this interview was conducted, dear reader, Grand National the single had just been released and Grand National the EP was a mere glimmer of sunlight at the crack of dawn, just peeking above the horizon. I asked the two Seans what the EP was like, they replied with a very Courting answer, “It is a vibe harvest and our crops are bountiful”, and now that it’s out in the world for all ears to hear. I can say with confidence that the vibe harvest came and Courting’s crops are indeed bountiful.