Away Fans

“It sounds a bit stupid when having a name like Away Fans, but we didn’t mean to have a football name. We were in the pub, and we were like, what names can we come up with, nothing laddy, nothing stupid. Just happened there was a game on the speakers, and every three four minutes there was another goal at penalties. One of the commentators said ‘all the away fans are just going mental’, and we thought, ‘that sounds good, innit?’ so we spent the whole evening trying not to make the name a sporty thing, then we left the pub going ‘that’s it! That’s the one!” Says David, the bassist and vocalist. 

“We tried to be the least laddy band possible,” vocalist Tom adds. “It was always done a bit tongue-in-cheek. The amount of times we’re approached by other bands who go ‘you’re a bit laddy, innit’, we go, no we don’t, it’s ironic!” 

The concept arises when we start discussing perhaps Tom’s chief influence, The Streets, as Mike Skinner famously decried on his track “Not Addicted” from the 2004 album “A Grand Don’t Come for Free”: “Now I don’t know the first thing about football”. What was it about Mike’s work that stood out so much to Tom? ““I loved guitar bands when growing up and it wasn’t until later that I got into dance and electronic, but The Streets were always there on the periphery. Lyrically, Mike Skinner is unmatched in finding the beauty in these mundane experiences we’ve all had growing up, dumb chats you have with your mates, arguments on nights out, and it’s really easy to just cast them off as nothing, but to find the beauty in that, for most people, life isn’t these big exciting things, it’s these small mundane events, going out with your mates, going to Spain once a year. There’s beauty and poetry in that.” 

It’s the first time Away Fans have had the opportunity to discuss their latest single This is It, a mesmerising blend of influences from UKG and Liquid DnB to killer guitar bands. Mike Skinner even gets a name drop. Tom cites this new track as the most personal song he’s written to date.

He says: “As you get older, there are people you love who you drift apart from as you become different people. When I was younger, I tried to fight that and force that a little, but then you come to the realization that we grow up, grow apart and become different people, and this track’s about accepting that.”

One of the band’s chief priorities is to maintain a consistent live sound to all their records, despite the presence of pre-built tracks: “We are a band,” Tom adds. “We’re not two blokes in a bedroom making stuff. There’s five of us, and we start these tunes in a room with the aim of playing them live.”

After years of making music together, Tom realised that something was missing. They found that vital ingredient when fellow vocalist Alice joined the band just over a year ago, adding a richer vocal sound as male and female voices intertwine. 

“There was something about Alice’s voice that had this quality of those early noughties drum and bass music which had this clear female voice over the top,” says Tom. “We don’t consciously think we want this reference or that, but having Alice in over the last year or so has opened up a load of stuff we wouldn’t have been able to do previously.”

As for Alice, joining the band after its inception was a peculiar experience: “I was just a big fan of the band as they were before I joined. When we were collaborating and I was doing more backing vocals, I didn’t know they’d ask me to join as an actual member of the band. I thought I’d be dipping in and out, but Tom will write things for my voice that I hadn’t imagined my voice doing. He hears it before I can even do it. He says, ‘do that, but an octave higher’, and I’m like, I can’t do that, but when I do it, it’s like, yeah I can do that.”

Away Fans are now, rightly, one of the buzzier names on the indie circuit, offering a genuinely fresh and introspective flavour, and recently embarking on a bunch of exciting live dates. Why, though, should you check out This is it: “Any of you guys want to jump in?” Tom asks his bandmates. Alice and Davie shake their heads. So, let’s hear from Tom. 

“We want to be the meeting point between the people who like smashing twelve pints on a Friday night and putting their arms around their mates and singing Oasis, and the people who like smashing twelve pills and going out dancing all night. “This is it” is that middle ground.”