It feels as though the winds are finally shifting in noise rock’s favour. After a strong few years for the genre—spearheaded by the pioneering work of Gilla Band—a new wave of young artists have taken up decibel destruction with the same fervour as New York’s no-wavers. Among them are London’s paper hats, who, despite releasing only one single, have built a word-of-mouth reputation through a string of explosive shows at venues like the Windmill, where under red strobes their glitched-out guitars, frenzied drums and finely tuned noise collide. Ahead of their slot supporting fellow experimental four-piece University at the George Tavern, we sat down with the band (Clemente Contreras on guitar/vocals, Sam Eccleston on guitar/vocals, Gabe Khitarishvili-Awde on bass/vocals and Conn Perry on drums) to talk about everything from sleeping on strangers’ floors to why Gabe nearly quit after the first rehearsal.
When and how did paper hats come about?
Clemente: It started with me and Gabe, we met together in a festival, and I went to Gabe, “you like music, and-
Sam: Tell us the specifics, what festival?
Clemente: Oh, Wide Awake 2021. To be specific, it was the Squid set that we met. I got dropped on my head. It was like when I was a child. But yeah, we met there and exchanged numbers, and then I sent Gabe some demos and the band started. And then Sam on my right joined after our devious attempts to make him join – he finally gave in.
Was there a definitive moment where realised paper hats was a serious project and not just like another hobby?
Clemente: Probably when Con joined and we had the first gig back at the Windmill, that was mental. It was a really good gig – first gig after like two months and the turnout was great, everyone was buying t-shirts. And it was like, oh man, we’re going somewhere.
You described yourselves as a live band first. How does that translate once you’re in the studio?
Gabe: So my name is Gabe – I produce and I also play bass in the band. Honestly, I really don’t know. It’s really chaotic. Our ethos has always been to try and capture exactly the kind of nonchalance and the aggressiveness that we have on stage. We spent a long time recording stuff in my uni, we had no time at all, everything was really rushed.
Sam: I think the aspect that it was rushed meant the only viable way to record it was as live as we could. This guy (Conn) had to leave midday to see his grandma.
Conn: It was her 80th birthday dinner. And it’s Nana, it’s not grandma.
Sam: And because of that, we had to record the guitars at the same time, so everything was recorded live just out of necessity, but we didn’t actually plan for it to be.
Your debut single D’Artagnan came out recently, but it was written four years ago. What’s the story behind that?
Clemente: It was the first song I wrote after the previous band I had with Sam ended, so it was the first song that paper hats had and the first song that we played together. D’Artagnan is the origin of paper hats, so it made sense.
Sam: Yeah every song comes from that, like everything that was cultivated in that one fucked up track has made everything else in paper hats, you know? It expanded through that. That was the big bang pretty much.
How do you think paper hats has developed since you did that song four years ago? Do you think much has changed?
Sam: Oh, definitely. The first rehearsal we had, I wanted to leave the band immediately because I couldn’t tell if the songs we were playing were the same as the ones that had been sent to me. And the first gig I had to play was literally the week after the first rehearsal. The whole intro to D’Artagnan, they basically told me to just make noise and I was never really happy with just like hitting the guitar in random ways – until I found ways to just make fucked up noises on my pedalboard. I like it all now anyway.
D’Artagnan was named after the musketeer from the novel by Dumas, right?
Clemente: Well, technically it’s not one of the musketeers because the three musketeers aren’t D’Artagnan. It’s the fourth musketeer.
Conn: Bro you just mansplained D’Artagnan, you didn’t even ask for the question. That’s just rude.
Does literature influence your work much? Are paper hats avid readers?
Clemente: I’m not much of a reader, but I do appreciate it from the back – let’s put it that way. I kind of wish I was a bit more into it, but I still see that as a very cool block of art to look at.
Sam: We’ve got political influences, I think we all know where we lie on the left of the political spectrum. A lot of my songs aren’t out yet, but they’re kind of more overtly political, I guess.
I like film a lot, as well. I think film influences some of the stuff. One song we’ve been playing for ages is called Motorway, and a lot of that came from watching Twin Peaks. Must have watched that like three years ago with my dad, and I was like, whoa. There were just so many awesome images in that film.
If paper hats was a film, what would it be like?
Sam: Oh, fuck, wait. Cars.
Gabe: No, we’d be like Shrek, because we’re like onions. There’s layers.
Clemente: What’s a good answer? I want to say Donnie Darko. There’s a lot of emotion in that, I think it’s very atmospheric and it doesn’t really make much sense as a film – and if you look at a lot of, some of the earliest paper hats songs, they don’t make much sense, but there’s definitely a vibe, you know.
You guys are playing Left of the Dial next month. How are you feeling it?
Conn: Exciting! It’s gonna be so fun.
Sam: The only time we played in Europe, we played at an art university in Dusseldorf, Germany. And, like, that was a nightmare, we basically got coaches around, and we basically, we got scammed by, like, coach drivers. We had to sleep on people’s floors. I mean, that’s kind of how you do it, but Left of the Dial is gonna be luxury in comparison.
Do you think you’ll approach that set any differently to a headline show in London?
Conn: How long is the set?
Gabe: It’s like 35 minutes, so I think we’ll play, like, all the hits. We’ve two in one day, so we’re probably gonna cycle through everything. I think it could be nice to try out some of the new songs that we’re working on, see how it feels. Because if we fuck up, they’ll never see us again.
Last question, where do you see paper hats in a year, what would you guys like to have achieved?
Conn: An EP!
Sam: Money coming out of our sleeves. Wait, how many gigs do we want to hit?
Clemente: We’re on 57, I think. I think we can hit 100 in a year. We should try to, at least.
Gabe: I wanna play Manchester at least one more time. We’ve gotta go touring. I think we just need to sort of lock in, you know? We’re all becoming London locals this year, and I think that we can just get together a lot more often.
Conn: Because I’m an Essex boy.
Sam: And that’s definitely… not hurt us, but it’s limited us in what we can do together as a band. I think that now we can get together, see each other, both in and outside of musical contexts, we should be able to grow further,we can write more songs, we can play more shows.
Words: Donovan Livesey