Interview: Get to know Southampton’s Burning House

Burning House are a new up-an-coming art rock band with heavy melodic influences drawing comparisons to 90s ‘soft’ rock bands such as My Bloody Valentine, Sonic Youth and Slowdive, with a more modern flavour to the classic genre.

Originally from Southampton, they’ve been garnering a loyal following of discerning suburban 20 somethings lately. We spoke to Aaron Mills, Singer/Songwriter of the group, about what’s on the cards for the lads this year, and how this suburban indie scene started blooming:

Southampton isn’t particularly known for it’s thriving indie scene. How did you form in the first place?

The group formed initially, from the usual avenues: adverts etc… but also people would see the various and drifting lineups of the group and would offer to play with me. The current iteration is borne out of this.

You describe yourselves on Bandcamp as an amalgamation of art rock indie, slow-core and noise pop reminiscent of my Bloody Valentine (which I can definitely hear). That’s quite a lot of genres rolled into one! Can you break down your style a little bit more?

The idea of MBV was what most excited me; that you could utilise guitars in a very unorthodox manner – almost painterly. When it comes to arrangements, b u r n i n g h o u s e is largely about focus and intensity… songs do not always take conventional structure of verse/chorus… I am trying to recruit facets from my psyche in order to create maximum emotional impact. Aesthetically I am very interested in corrosion and decay… things that provoke nostalgia or hiraeth *a word that denotes a sense of nostalgia or homesickness for a place you’ve never been – that sense of the palpably real that mass media seemingly negates. (active) Listening is an archaeology: The listener is hopefully engaged in a process of unearthing the sublimated emotions and textures. I want people to identify with it – recognise that brittle remainder of humanity among a society of alienation – a clawing need – as one might, on inspection, see a face on the moon or in a plume of smoke.

Your music has been described by ClubDasEnde as ranging from the most “beautiful and melancholy soundtrack to the loudest of feedback driven post rock. They have certainly mastered the soft/loud dynamic of Swans, Mogwai and low.” Do you think this is an accurate summary of your sound?

That’s a very old description! but not entirely inaccurate… The album we have just completed ‘anthropocene’ is a fatigue of the senses.. A strange genus of noise-embroidered guitar orchestras we have given to song. Sonically speaking we’re interested in driving things as far as possible: playing the most intense music as we can: a totality of intoxication\’85 and then ”resetting’ dynamically, building the brick wall again from scratch. It is my firm hope that we are exposing and awakening dormant or nascent human emotions..nerve endings… it is a vulnerable workout.

For your forthcoming gig this weekend with Moon Duo at (The Joiners, Sat 11th June) your back at Southampton after playing various pub gigs around the U.K. Do you feel your steadily building up a loyal army of fans in your hometown?

Southampton has some good bands both emerging and established. Friends of ours Dead Rabbits and Co-Pilgrim attest to this. There are also some woeful acts that are the nadir of music in general that I shan’t name! Generally, we’ve found kids coming to shows being very receptive to what we do. One ought to divest themselves of preconceptions when seeing us – the trouble is the sort of music classification we’ve been given ‘shoegaze’ is synonymous with a ever-narrowing cultural constraint. That said, we’re fortunate enough to have had people like BBC6’s Steve Lemacq and various promoters absolutely connect and understand what we do. This has led to supporting some exceptional bands: Wire, Shonen Knife, The Chills.. all legends and masters of their craft. So we’re at a stage now where we’re getting opportunities.

What’s the rest of your tour plans for the Summer? Can we expect some gigs in London anytime soon?

We have some exciting news coming soon! Yes we will be playing London.. that is of paramount importance.. it’s where the audience for our music truly resides!

Written by Natalie Wardle.