Much-tipped Manchester quartet Westside Cowboy are making a name with heart-first songs that already feel built to last. Continuing the city’s long tradition of breaking the mould, the four-piece – Reuben Haycocks, Paddy Murphy, Aoife Anson O’Connell and James Bradbury – fold together country, skiffle, folk and alt-rock with a ramshackle, youthful charm. Coupled with industry whispers of the next big thing, it feels as though they’re only moments from crashing into the indie mainstream. We caught up with them to talk everything from 6 Music dads to the fleeting nature of hype and the bongo solo on their next EP.
Westside Cowboy’s rise has been swift. In just two years, the four friends have gone from jamming together at university to winning Glastonbury’s Emerging Talent competition and selling out their own headline tours. Have they had time to process it yet? James looks like he’s not sure where to start. “We’ve spent a lot of time in the van, so we’ve had a chance to think about it all. But I wouldn’t necessarily say we’ve processed it yet… I don’t really understand anymore what that would mean to be honest. We just turn up and we go and do the things that we’re told to do.”
Reuben also seems to still be catching up with it all. “We’re just really trying to have a good time and really appreciating that everybody has been nice to us. I think I’ll only be able to truly understand it after it’s all burnt down – when we’ve stopped, when we’re all burnt out and broke and everything. Not saying that we’re not broke. When we’re all burnt out, we’ll be able to get a grip with it, I think.”
Aoife adds: “We’re just not people that really go out or do any crazy things. I think it’s finding the lifestyle that suits us, because it’s so strange. I think we’re still trying to find our own little path amongst all the craziness.”
If they’re aware of the buzz around them, drummer Paddy certainly isn’t buying into it. “I do just think next year there’ll be a different band and everyone will be saying it’s kind of cool and no one will give a fuck about us. Especially the UK music press – it’s like, oh, this is cool, this is new, we haven’t heard this before. I think if you get caught up in all of that, you’re sort of doomed. It doesn’t bother us massively because it’s just like, well, we’re just going to keep making the music. That’s not going to change anything.”
Their new EP ‘Don’t Throw Rocks’, made with in-demand producer Loren Humphrey (Cameron Winter’s ‘Heavy Metal’), was announced a couple of weeks ago – only two months after the release of their debut. Looking back on that first record, Reuben says it captured exactly what it needed to. “I think people got from it what we wanted people to get from it, which is nice. I’ve read in a couple of places that it sounds like a band figuring themselves out and I agree with that – that’s what it should be. It’s an honest first EP. No one was expecting anything world-changing, and we can definitely do a lot better. But it did what we set out for it to do.”
Moments of connection seem to stick with Westside Cowboy more than numbers or industry hype. Paddy recalls one from a merch table. “One girl came up to the stand and said she’d started learning guitar because of it, which I think is all we’ve wanted to hear. We’ve had a couple of really awesome moments like that.”
The collaboration with Humphrey on the new EP came together faster than anyone expected, and Paddy tells it like it’s still a bit surreal: “It’s kind of crazy how it happened, because Loren produced ‘Heavy Metal’, which is our favourite album in recent memory. He found out about us through the grapevine or whatever, and we had a call and got on really well.”
Once in the studio, Humphrey’s big, slightly mad American attitude rubbed off. “He’s just this crazy American and nothing is really off the table for him,” Paddy says. “Because he’s not from our world, he would suggest things that we’d at first have been like, no, we can’t do that. But he didn’t really care about any of that. He was pushy, but in a really positive, hands-on way.”
Comparing Humphrey to the producer of their debut – the Mercury Prize-winning Lewis Whiting of English Teacher – Aoife paints a picture of two different studios: one full of first-time nerves and mutual discovery, the other driven by instinct and authority. “Lewis really understood us and we had a lot of the same music taste, but it was our first thing ever recording, and his first time producing. So it was really different going to someone with a bit more confidence to just be like, ‘no guys, that sounds terrible’. Loren would stop us mid-take and go, ‘nah, don’t do that,’ and that was helpful.”
The band laugh as they remember a clip Humphrey kept showing them in the studio. Paddy recalls: “It’s this Miles Davis interview from the 70s where someone asks a question and Miles just goes, ‘nah, that’s corny’. So one of us would be like, how about this overdub? And Loren would just say, ‘nah, that’s corny.’”
Asked whether the new EP breaks new or experimental sonic grounds, they all break into a grin. “We hired a very exclusive session player to come and play Rhythm King on one of the songs, so we have a Rhythm King drum machine for about four seconds. Oh, and there’s a bongo solo. I can’t believe we’re actually saying that – it sounds like a joke. As you can tell, we had a lot of fun doing this.”
Aoife adds that “there was almost a whip sound in. Loren kept being like, ‘no, guys, but what do you think of it?’ And we’d be like, no. Then he’d say, ‘yeah, I thought that too – but I did another mix and I kept the whip in, we’ll try it again’. Then later, he was like, ‘that whip sample was wrong, but I’ve got a new whip sample. This one’s a bit better. I think it’ll fit more.’ It never fit.”
They’ve said before that they never set out to be a real band, so I ask when that shifted – when Westside Cowboy stopped feeling like a side project and started to feel like something bigger. Paddy doesn’t hesitate: “It was when we played Great Escape. It was such a crazy four days, with a show every day, and when we played in that big tent on the beach, there were a lot of people there to see us. People were tapping us on the shoulder, asking us to meet people and take photos. It just felt very like, oh right, this is a thing now.”
That “thing” has since expanded further – with headline shows in New York and Los Angeles on their upcoming US tour. James still sounds quietly amazed: “In my old band, I’d said to our sound engineer that I wanted to play a gig in America by the time I was 24. I didn’t do it with that band, but I’m doing it a year later. So I almost hit the mark.”
Paddy pauses, a little uncertain about how it’ll all go down. “I don’t know if people will like it. I don’t know what the crowd will be like – will they understand our wit and sarcasm?”. “And our beautiful, sparkling, charismatic personalities,” Aoife adds.
Westside Cowboy are part of No Band is an Island, the Manchester collective binding together a new wave of independent bands. Aoife says that’s “the whole reason we’re part of it”. James nods: “You’re surrounded by all these people who want each other to do really well. It’s really supportive and a really good influence on everyone.”
For Paddy, it’s about more than just the music. “It’s a huge group of young people coming out of Manchester – making wildly different stuff, but with the same intentions. And it’s great to have something more politically minded to tie ourselves to, because being in a band these days, having a political compass and being engaged in that, is more essential than ever.”
Reuben adds a story that sums it up. “There’s not much better than being in the middle of nowhere and seeing someone who’s played No Band Is An Island or is just a friend of ours. Like we did a gig in Belgium – our first ever there – and Getdown Services and The Orchestra (For Now) were just there, both of whom we’d supported early on. It feels fantastic.”
It’s been nearly a year since their debut single I’ve Never Met Anyone I Thought I Could Really Love, Until I Met You was released, a fact that catches the band off guard. After some disbelief, Paddy says: “It’s interesting thinking back to when that single came out. I remember it getting 10,000 streams fairly quickly and we were like, oh man, that’s sick. Then it went quiet around Christmas before we came back in the new year and played a few gigs. We expected people to stop listening, but it just kept on going. Then we played more gigs, and the Glastonbury thing happened, and it just kept on ramping. It’s awesome.”
Reuben laughs. “It’s crazy that people now know the words to that single. It’s a mad thing to hear back at a gig when people are shouting ‘Westside Cowboy’ at us. People have started doing it in non-musical places too – like I walked past a group of proper 40-year-old manly men and they shouted it at me. And it’s like, do I say it back? It’s that 6 Music dad thing – the double thumbs up and smile.”
Words: Donovan Livesey Photo: Charlie Barclay Harris