NEW SINGLE: HEART OUT TODAY
1.Who are Pleasure Centre?
Charlie: Pleasure Centre is a 5 piece alt rock group from the North Yorkshire Coast, now based in Leeds. Made up of Aneela, Fredi, Charlie, Billy and David who met at college in Scarborough where the band was formed in late 2019.
2. For someone that is yet to discover you, how would you describe your music?
Charlie: Our music is a whole blend of things at this point, because we all like similar but also quite wide ranges of music which ends up coming together. In general we’d go under a mix of alternative guitar music, leaning on the heavier side when it comes to it. We’ve also got some roots planted in shoegaze and punky rocky stuff from when we first started the band.
3. What inspired you as an artist?
Charlie: I think that might differ between all of us, but we all find an important feeling in being able to play together and create sounds that make sense and make us feel something. Also because we all love music, watching big bands and also bands we know growing currently in the music world is a constant inspiration to us.
Aneela: I think growing up in Scarborough and being surrounded by the music scene really inspired us to start creating music. Our whole friendship group was based on the soul fact we all enjoyed going to gigs and all had a similar taste in music. We’ve also always been surrounded by artists and musicians so I constantly feel inspired by everyone around me.
4. What is your process for preparing to perform live? Do you have any Diva demands?
Charlie: We don’t really have anything yet. When we have some time to relax before a show we put some music on for a mood boost and to hype us up. On some of the important shows we’ve done over the last couple years we’ve all gotten very quiet and nervous bro quite knowing what’s about to happen and I guess that translates to every show it’s always a rush.
Aneela: We usually put some music on to hype ourselves up and personally I just jump around to loosen my body and get myself pumped to perform. Sometimes before we get on stage we also just have a little group huddle and motivate each other, which I think is so cute and I would highly recommend it, it’s important to be intertwined with each other to put on a good show.
5. Where do you feel you fit into the music ?
Charlie: I don’t think we could answer without appreciation for the fact we’re a part of the Leeds scene. It’s such a special place especially for alt rock at the moment which is starting to shape the national landscape a bit so we’re very glad to be a part of that no matter how small that part is
6: What are your favourite musical genres, and are there any you dislike?
Charlie: Favourites have to be most of alt and art rock. Personally shoegaze has always been a huge part of my musical enjoyment. We’ve really gotten into electronic, some ambient, some goth and jungle aswell.
Aneela: I’m really into a lot of different things but at the moment I’d say i’ve been listening to a lot of electronic music, ranging from New Order, Nabihah Iqbal and Radiohead to club tunes like The Dare and Charli XCX.
7. Is there a story behind the new single’?
Charlie: After a gig in Manchester David asks to play a demo in the car on the way home, and it was basically the verse chorus section of the song and we all instantly loved the guitar parts, thought it had a special hook to it. From there we took it to a practise room and made what basically is the recorded song, of course now with Aneela’s spoken word which came from a coming together of her poetry work. It felt good to be able to just birth a song from playing together when we used to go off fully developed demos in the early days.
8. What would you say is your greatest strength as an artist?
Charlie: We can be very loud.
Aneela: I think we put on a good show and it’s clear to see how connected we are on stage. We’ve been friends since being 16 and I think it shows.
9. What would you say is your greatest weakness as an artist?
Charlie: Can be a bit perfectionist haha.
10. What can fans expect from your new single ’ ‘The Heart’
Charlie: A new continuation of our sound. A pretty raw but concise track that gets
you pumped up.
11. What music artist would you say have influenced your work?
Charlie: The main one is definitely Radiohead, we all have that in common, we
all listen to them together and individually and alot of their albums have a big effect
on us as musicians.
12. Who would you most like to collaborate with artistically?
Charlie: After going on tour and getting to know English Teacher earlier this year, I think we’d all love to work with those guys. They’re such a great group of people, and their debut album which is smashing the whole nation at the moment has also been a big inspiration to us.
13. What was your worst performance?
Charlie: I think some of the first shows we ever did were just awful. But on the English Teacher tour we had a bit of an equipment meltdown on the first date in Oxford which from our perspective was very disastrous but in the end it still went well
14: What was the most difficult obstacle you have ever faced and how did you overcome it?
Charlie: We’ve struggled to keep ourselves focused over the last couple years, going through uni and now progressing into a new part of life has been difficult when our perspectives have all changed a lot. But I think the band was the thing that got us
through that rough spot.
Aneela: I think our mental health throughout uni and even now, navigating the world
as a young adult is a really tricky one that we need to talk about more, especially in
the creative industry, it’s scary out here but you’ve just gotta keep motivated and
keep pushing and that’s what I feel this EP is.
15: What is your creative process when making music. Do you work with others or is there just you?
Charlie: We’ve progressed a bit when it comes to making music. We used to go off and make demos individually and then bring them to the others, which still happens but now we’ve gotten better at creating songs together in a room whether that’s practising or just making demos from scratch. A lot of the new stuff has come from having ideas and really expanding them into full songs in the practise room.
Aneela: When it comes to writing lyrics I prefer to do that on my own, I think solitude is something that really gets all those emotions out of me, then it’s easier to bring what I’ve written into practice and add it to songs, then I can change it from there as the song develops. But usually I write for the sake of writing, not for the goal that it’s going to end up in a song. Recently Fred and I did a collaborative writing session where we took Bowie’s writing trick and each wrote down phrases we had previously written on some paper, then ripped it up and formed poetry through randomisation of our written work, and I think that might be something I want to do for the next music project we work on
16: Where do you see your musical career in 10 years?
Charlie: That really is just something we’ll have to see when it gets there. But we hope to have made some albums and been able to tour around, being able to play together around the world would be a true bucket list item ticked off.
17: The UK seems to have gone in to melt down regarding the Oasis Reunion, are you bothered by It?
Charlie: I’m sure a lot of us don’t care haha, but I did try and fail to get a ticket. If I got an opportunity to go to one of those gigs I’d definitely take it, it would really be a once in a lifetime opportunity to see some of those songs live in that form.
Aneela: I really do not care. I just want Radiohead to tour again.
