Eagulls

Interview by Julien Van de Casteele
Photos shot by Smoke&Dust

Eagulls vocalist George Mitchell claims he hasn’t left the house much since coming back from the US, so one could say he’s in full-on cocoon mode. But living and working with two other band members can make things pretty hectic in the house – to the point where it can easily transform into a claustrophobic prison.

Do you have a cocooning ritual?

I sit and draw. I like to work on the band’s artwork. As a band we also cocoon a lot when writing music. We usually all lock ourselves away from each other, then we join up, put it together, then I’ll go away, be the king of the cocoon and write down lyrics. When we first started as a band, we wrote one song sort of together and it was disgusting. So we just leave it to me and my cocooning moments.

How was life at home as a kid?

A few years after my parents got divorced – I was four – Mom and I moved to a house that had big fields behind it. I really enjoyed being able to play in the fields, I was out there a lot. I think that’s how it goes for a lot of creative people: they’re usually the people who are going out a lot and exploring the world when they’re little and when they get old they just cocoon a lot.

When did punk music come into the mix?

I used to BMX and hang around with older people at the skate park – some of them were probably ten years older than me. All these older kids would give me their American BMX videos with this punk music on them. So we used to record music on to the tapes of the videos and listen to these really lo-fi, shit recordings. I think that at some point my mom had mentioned to my uncle that I listened to punk music, he really appreciated that and decided to give me some of his records by bands like Siouxsie and the Banshees and obvious ones like The Sex Pistols and The Clash. I just made my way from there, finding my own sort of way.

Those bands surely influenced the music you make today?

Musically, punk bands obviously have an impact on what we produce because that’s the kind of music we’re all into at the moment. But lyrically, it’s different. When I write, I don’t really listen to anyone vocally to get inspiration from. But it’s weird because I’m not really sure where all of this comes from – probably from somewhere in the back of my head.

You’ve just come back from a trip to New York. How was it?

We mainly went to do two shows, and then we had to talk to our label, Partisan Records, located in Brooklyn. We also actually managed to get on Letterman! It was pretty surreal and good fun.

I read about that tattooing experience.

Yeah, yeah. We got pretty drunk and one of the guys at the record label thought it was a funny idea to bring one of their friends with a tattoo gun. We all decided to tattoo one another. Some of us have got tattoos anyway so didn’t really care. I had never had a tattoo before, but yeah, it took me two beers to be convinced. However, my tattoo is the only one that stayed in. Everyone else’s started to fall out. It was done pretty badly and we were all so pissed, which made the blood probably so thin that the ink just fell out. Tom (bass player) also got Bill Murray tattooed on his arm to commemorate our performance on Letterman the next day. So the next day at the TV studio, Bill Murray just walked through and laughed and started kissing his arm.

So now interviewers will have something to talk about other than that letter you posted on your blog a while ago…

Man, I am fucking bored of talking about that letter  The thing is that before that there was not really much material about our music online and only five pictures. Then that letter came out, and that was all people could talk about or relate to us about. So yeah, now when people ask us to talk about that we just tell them to shut up and do their research. As for the tattoo, I am not the one who got the Bill Murray tattoo so I’ll just pass the question on to Tom and retreat to my cocoon!

Eagulls play EKKO, Utrecht, on 13 November. The show is free for members.