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Five Questions And A Playlist: Something Leather




Released via feminist indie label We Can Do It Records, Something Leather’s debut EP 'Midnight Reverie' ties together an array of synths and electronics to create a modern texture for its otherwise vintage sound of 70s organs and motoric drum rhythms.

We caught up with the group for a round of quick-fire questions following a successful 2019 that saw them gain attention for their explosive live shows and support slots with Black Midi, Calva Louise and Squid.



Who were your favourite bands / artists as a teenager?


Phillie: I changed my mind constantly. I basically always had a flavour of the month. The ones I remember are: The Kills, The White Stripes, Muse, The Hives.

Greg: Those years were definitely the formative ones where I basically explored rock music history backwards by constantly asking “what was there before?"

So I started off with Sum41 and Blink-182, then Pixies on to The Ramones and The Clash to Iggy and The Stooges, Led Zeppelin, Jeff Beck, Cream, The Rolling Stones, Chuck Berry, Muddy Waters, Robert Johnson…

Mike: My family only really listened to classical music and I was only properly exposed to other music late into my teens so mostly listened to indie bands like Arctic Monkeys.

When did you realise music could be a career?


Phillie: Every time I went to see live music.

Greg: When I was 10, I stayed at my great-aunt’s for a few weeks in the summer while my parents were sorting out their divorce. She dug out some instruments she had in her basement: an acoustic guitar and some toy synthesizers. I wrote songs and recorded them over some cassettes I had. I don’t have any trace of them anymore but I remember one of them was about how I Ioved my cat. All of them were pretty terrible but I really enjoyed the creative process and how songwriting helped me cope with what was going on in my life at the time. I don’t know if music will ever be a proper career, time will tell!

Mike: When I first started trying to actually write original music not just play along to songs.

Do you have a job outside of music?


Phillie and Mike have office jobs and Greg is a PhD student studying cognition in bees.

How well is live music supported in your hometown / city?


Brighton has a great live music scene. There have been some venue closures in recent years sadly, but there’s some great local promoters still working hard to bring good music to the city and loads of up and coming bands and artists around town. It always feels like there’s good shows to go to.

If you could make one change to the music industry what would it be?


For us diversity would be the focus. Obviously it’s a bit of a hot topic at the moment in some circles of the music industry and we’re fortunate to have had some support from promoters, bookers, press etc. focused on supporting bands with female-identifying and non-binary members – it’s just a shame that they’re desperately needed in order to give them a voice. And it extends beyond gender into things like social class, race, age etc. – but the focus really needs to be on a diverse source of creators. People inside and out of the industry need to be exposed to all the music being made by artists from a diverse range of backgrounds.



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