PENNY EYES are a four piece Indie/Rock band hailing from Newquay in Cornwall. Despite only having formed about a year ago they’ve already made quite an impact on the scene with them playing at various sold-out gigs and having been asked to perform on the QnA Tours of such music industry legends as Alan Mcgee and Shaun Ryder.
The band released their debut EP “Bad When It’s Good” in 2019 and featured on BBC introducing with “Real This Time” and were picked as ‘fav find’ of the week. Following on from these successes the band have launched their second EP “How Do You Feel?”.
Penny Eyes are actively writing and gigging, including BBC intro stages, they create all their own design work, marketing and music videos, and with their latest release are set to generate some serious attention!
The Songbird recently caught up with the band for a little chat.
Hello and welcome! Please tell us a little bit about yourselves.
Who are you, what’s your roles within the band and how did you all meet / form?
Hey, how’s it going! So we’re Penny Eyes, an indie pop/rock band made up of 4 mates from the UK surfing capital Newquay, Cornwall. The band consists of Harry Bird (Lead Vocals/Rhythm guitar), Jack Clinton (Drums/Backing Vox), Adam Barbery (Bass/Backing Vox) and Ed Perkin (Lead Guitar). 3 of us went to school together so have known each other for years and Ed who’s originally from Bristol moved to Newquay a few years ago and completes the band. It all started developing at the end of last year when we all got together for an overdue catch up and play some tunes, it’s just gone crazy from there really! Being mates for so long really helps with the dynamics of the band and hopefully comes across a bit more natural and with less bollocks.
Who/What are your musical influences?
There’s been so many influences from so many bands and artists that we love, your big names have to be in there like Oasis, The Strokes, Arctic Monkeys, Nirvana, The Kooks but also icons like Pink Floyd, Sex Pistols, Stevie Wonder, Bowie, The Rolling Stones have all rubbed off. We used to watch a shit load of surf and skate films being from Newquay so quite a lot of new bands came from those. It’s also been the people that have surrounded us growing up that have played a big part too, Jack’s late dad for one had a huge love of music and genres from all over the world, so we’re very lucky to have had that. Recently though artists like Sam Fender and Catfish & The Bottlemen have ticked a lot of boxes for us, the whole British sound is something that we want to keep a hold of and do justice. Keeping things a bit raw but relatable.
What sort of genre would you consider your music to be?
Indie pop/rock. We’re trying to make the songs pretty catchy but still a bit rough around the edges.
What’s your favourite song of yours and why?
Yeah… that’s a hard one! We’ll have to split that…
Jack – ‘Body Moves’ for me, everyone wants to dance to that one, pretty cool to see on stage.
Harry – ‘Jealous Boy’ is a new song we’ve been working on and reckon it’s got some potential.
Ed – ‘What I Have’ it’s just a really happy track and to top it off it’s a pretty fun one to play.
Adam – ‘Bad When It’s Good’ I just like how it’s happy but a bit twisted, think people can relate to it one way or another!
What do you consider the best lyric you’ve ever written to be?
There’s a new song we’ve been working on called ‘Jealous Boy’ that Harry mentioned,
it’s got some pretty cool lyrics…
“I can’t help thinking of bad news, when I’m at work your both in the bedroom, and all my fears are one, I’ll stand you both in a line loading my gun”
What’s your favourite song of all time by any other band / artist and why?
Again that’s tough one, ok first ones that come to mind would be…
Harry – ‘Another Brick In The Wall’ Pink Floyd
Adam – ‘When The Sun Goes Down’ Arctic Monkeys
Ed – ‘A Day in the Life’ The Beatles
Jack – ‘Beat It’ Michael Jackson
What are you listening to at the moment?
Adam – Arctic Monkeys, Baxter Dury and Tom Misch.
Jack – Catfish & The Bottlemen, Sam Fender and Khruangbin.
Harry – Biggie Smalls, The Verve and Pink Floyd.
Ed – The Beths, Hooton Tennis Club and Hush Mozey
What’s going on with you at the moment?
Do you have any gigs planed or upcoming events?
This debut year has been amazing, we’re so stoked with the momentum so far. Now we’re into winter we’ve been focusing on developing our sound and hit the ground running in 2020, working on thickening up the sound with harmonies and have a couple of new tracks coming through that we’re really excited to unleash. We had a cool gig in November near London for Oasis founder and general legend Alan McGee and we’ve got another with Shaun Ryder from the Happy Mondays on the 17th January in Frome. We’ve also had a load of festivals confirming us already for 2020 which is sick, but one we’re definitely looking forward to playing is Boardmasters in our hometown for the first time!… that could go off!
What’s been the best gig you’ve played so far and what would be your dream gig to play?
There’s been some beasts for our debut year, BBC introducing was a highlight for sure.
Our very first gig at ‘The Dead Famous’ in Newquay was nuts, people were being turned away at the door it was rammed! The Louisiana in Bristol is right up there too, it was our first gig out of Cornwall with all the boys bundled in the van… The venue was iconic and it was so sick to see all the posters on the walls of bands that have played there before, such as Kings of Leon, Stereophonics,
White Stripes you name it! Fully gave us the bug!
Who would you most like to share a stage with (past or present)?
Freddie Mercury, but we’d just sit back and watch!
What’s the best thing and worst thing about being in a band?
The best thing is definitely writing and making music with your mates, we’re a weird bunch and it’s just class! We also do all of our own marketing and music videos ourselves too which lets us be really creative. The worst thing… currently is the consistency of McDonalds drive through runs.
What three words best sum you up as a band?
Sexy, Talented, Modest!
321 GO
Oasis or Blur? Oasis
Liam or Noel? Both… can we do that?
The Beatles or The Stones? The Beatles… but that’s close.
Mod or Rocker? Mod but depends on the mood, love both.
Tea or Coffee? Coffee (Decaf)
FOLLOW
Social media links
Instagram – https://instagram.com/pennyeyesband
Facebook – https://facebook.com/pennyeyesband
Twitter – Don’t have it… leave that for Trump.
Website – http://pennyeyes.com
Finally, we’s like to say a massive Thank You to PENNY EYES for Talking to The Songbird xx
The songbird 