Welsh post-rock quintet False Hope For The Savage are a rare specimen for the genre; complex without coming across as pretentious, experimental while staying accessible, a unique combination of atmospheric and heavy. False Hope For The Savage create intricate sonic textures with a trio of guitarists; Edd Clemas, Alex Davis and John Harman backed by bassist Oliver Myles and drummer Ray Thomas.
Surrounded by one of the UK’s most vibrant experimental music scenes, False Hope have found their place in the community playing alongside post-rock icons such as Bicurious, Nordic Giants, And So I Watch You From Afar and The Physics House Band. We caught up with the band before one their biggest headline shows to date at Le Pub in Newport, with support acts Aaronson and Who Are The Monsters? showcasing some of the best up-and-coming talent from the Welsh post-rock community.
If you were to describe the band to someone who’d never heard you before how would you sum yourselves up?
John: “It’s hard to compress it down like that, the idea behind it really is the mix of like, delicate and fierce with a lot of very simple parts intertwined. A lot of modern post-rock music is very technical, like, clinical and virtuosic. Ours is like, lots of simple patterns working together. I’d say we’re greater than the sum of our parts.”
Edd: “It’s supposed to be more like 90’s post-rock, more emotive and less music by algorithm, if we were going to sum it up in three words we’d probably say effecting, atmospheric and fierce.”
Post-rock can be a bit of an intimidating genre for newcomers, how did you get into it and what about the genre first attracted you?
Edd: “We all had different journeys that led to our particular style of post-rock, for me personally it was through heavier bands like ISIS and I just fell down the rabbit hole of post-rock when I found bands like Sigur Rós and Mogwai. When we formed False Hope For The Savage that kind of thing really stuck with me more than the heavier stuff.
John: “For me it was kind of weird, I used to be a proper nerd and bought a lot of video game soundtracks. For me post-rock was the perfect marriage of storytelling through music and this atmospheric, cinematic feel with the alternative music I liked at the time. I was really into bands like Hundred Reasons, that British alt-rock/post-hardcore scene so post-rock was heavy like the bands I was into but also telling a story without lyrics.”
Alex: “I got turned onto Mogwai, MONO and Godspeed You! Black Emperor while I was in uni and branched out to other instrumental bands from there. For me the most important thing in music is the atmosphere it conveys rather than the songwriting or lyrics, the idea that you can make people feel something with just sound appealed to me.”
“I’d be much more interested in doing collaborative work in something like live theatre or cinema or providing the soundtrack to a video game.”
You just released the first single ‘Cinders’ from your debut album, what was the inspiration for the track?
Alex: “The main musical theme that runs through the song was borrowed from an old unfinished track from about a decade ago and the rest was built up over the course of one two hour rehearsal which is really rare for us, we basically jammed it through once and then fine tuned it. In terms of where it sits in the album I think it represents what we try and do in a reasonably concise four and a half minutes.”
John: “Yeah I think it has all the elements that make us unique as a band, that “better than the sum of our parts” thing is definitely there with these simple guitar melodies intertwining with each other but then you have this combustion of the big rhythms and heavy moments as well. It’s a really good introduction to the band. The tone very much inspired the title too, this idea of looking into a fire and the reflective mood you have thinking about your life and decisions. I actually pitched the name ‘Cinders’ because of the bonfires from Dark Souls, it made me think of the music from the game and it fit really well in the end.
You’re getting ready to release your debut album, what can you say about it at this point and how is it different from the EPs you’ve already got out?
Alex: “There’s far more variety than on the EPs, it’s a lot cleaner in terms of production too.”
Edd: “I think we used to rely on a particular template for a lot of our songwriting, I wrote a lot of the first EP and Alex wrote a lot of the second one, the album is much more of a collaborative effort, there’s lots of influences from all of our backgrounds. Before we kind of stuck with one vibe and one theme, now we’re floating between happier, more uplifting songs and heavier, darker moments.”
Alex: “I’d also say that, compared to the EPs it flows better as a collection of songs.”
With the band you’ve already played alongside some great bands, who would be your dream act to play alongside?
Edd: “I think we’ve all got slightly different answers for this, we’ve been lucky enough to support And So I Watch You From Afar which is one of my personal favourite bands, at the inception of the band they were one of the ones I looked up to. Right now, we’ve got an upcoming slot at ArcTanGent Festival and a lot of those bands tick that box for me.
Alex: “I’d say a band like Radiohead, someone who isn’t a post-rock band but is fairly experimental. I’m sure it would be a big stage too which would be fun!”
John: “For me it’s a hard one because, although I adore post-rock, I don’t really want to play with any of the big bands from the genre, you almost start to feel like a copy and compare yourself too much. I’d be much more interested in doing collaborative work in something like live theatre or cinema or providing the soundtrack to a video game.”
And finally, what can we expect from False Hope in the future?
John: “We’re expecting to play a lot more gigs in the future as well as some great festivals. We’ve had our EPs out for a long time now but we’re gearing up to release something that’s more representative of who we are. With the album out soon we’ll have much more to show people and hopefully more of a platform to get people to come and check us out live.”