Creeper are a young British band who are doing it like no other. They have created their own brand of rock music that combines the theatrics of your wildest pop-punk dreams contrasting with the ability to drag you back down to earth with genuine moments of truth that wake you up. After further enhancing their status as one of Britain’s best upcoming bands with their recently released EP – the enchanting American Noir, we caught up with lead singer Will Gould at Slam Dunk festival about all things Creeper.
First and foremost, how was your Slam Dunk set?
Great man, yeah, it’s so bizarre to be back doing this again after so much time. The crowd kind of carried it through us, we’re a bit out of practice in some ways, like the crowd was absolutely amazing. Some of the moments today were really spectacular I thought.
Yeah, I was going to say it really felt like the majority of people there were already huge fans of you guys, and half the time you didn’t even need to sing!
Yeah, I mean it does help as well aha, we did these warmup shows, like record store shows that we booked like a year ago, and they were absolutely crazy. We started doing this thing where everyone would play songs, they shout at us. So we ended up playing for about an hour and 45 minutes in The Joiners in Southampton the other day because people kept shouting more stuff at us, and because they sing so much, it really helps my voice out so much!
Completely agree, that’s one of my favourite parts about a Creeper gig, I got pretty drunk at Download and ended up losing my voice to you guys at Download Pilot aha
Aha thank you man! Yeah, that was so much fun, that was such a special moment as well.
Honestly that was one of my favourite gigs of the summer.
Thank you so much man, it felt like a real watershed moment in our career as well.
Yeah, you ended up getting a huge crowd, didn’t you?
Yeah, like we’ve always wanted to headline festivals, and I feel like Creeper has the capacity to do it in our own way with our stupid theatrics and the shit that we do. We know it’s a joke with the entire audience and everyone’s in on it you know, and if we’re given the opportunity to do it, we’re going to try our very fucking best to do it, but the crowd really wanted it as well which really really helps us. They’ve definitely been there with us through everything – all the weird changes, and everything going on – it was pretty special that day.
Yeah it was a really special day – so you guys have recently released an EP called American Noir, how do you feel the reception to that has been?
It’s been incredible, honestly like it was something that was supposed to transition us back into the world of touring again I suppose because the last record came out a year before which put us in a position where the songs, we’re playing are old even though we haven’t even started playing them live yet. It managed to chart and get to number 13 which is absolutely mad for an EP – like it wasn’t supposed to do that! Everyone was really really shocked like we didn’t expect that at all, the feverish excitement that the audience has around the band is what makes those moments possible and people really embraced it and really got it. I think with Creeper, sometimes you have to allow it to be silly, allow it to be over the top, allow it to be overdramatic, it’s a bit like watching professional wrestling, and if you can do that, you can really get something from it. I’m amazed over and over again how many people are willing to follow us down the rabbit hole and let things get silly!
So, what was the thinking behind wanting to release an EP this year rather than following up the most recent record with a full-on album?
Well, we had a load of surplus songs that we’re left over from when we were doing Sex, Death and the Infinite Void, we had written like 70 songs from that record, and we were trying to work out how to sound change from Eternity, In Your Arms to Sex, Death and the Infinite Void. There was only so many we could put on an album, we had this big surplus of material and my girlfriend kept saying you’ve still not even released some of your best songs, this is silly. We also had a line-up change with Jake who you might know from Casey, Crooks and from a lot of hardcore bands, and he’s recently joined, and we thought it would be a good time to put out some music and let everyone know that the band is becoming something else again, rather than make a full album which takes an infinite amount of time to make. We had all this material already made and ready to go.
I’m going to put you on the spot a little bit here, but do you have a favourite lyric from the EP that comes to mind?
I’m really proud of a lot of the songs I wrote including Damned and Doomed which I wrote for Hannah on piano which I’d been writing for a long time. I think some of the lyrics on that are really romantic, I think “can we dance on the edge of forever, can we dance like stars on the night” just like impossibly romantic stuff I really like, and for me that’s the stuff that’s really really over the top. This grand and doomed romance are themes I really enjoy writing about, it’s been peoples wedding songs already which is so cool.
Oh, wow really, that must be so surreal.
Yea man, its amazing, it’s all you can really hope for when you’re writing a song like that. For me there’s some of my favourite lyrics in that song, so to see people are responding to it so much so that when they are having their first dance, they are putting that on is just amazing.
It really is, you guys touched on the fact you’re a bit theatrical and a bit over the top, so if you didn’t have any budget limits and could go into any creative mediums, what would they be and why?
Well originally I wanted to make a movie, I ended up falling into all this, because I was a film student that fell into DIY punk shows. I used to be a promoter before I went into events, I used to put on gigs at a venue called Working Man’s Club in Southampton. We had loads of crazy bands, we had this band called Second Combat, a really cool straight edge Malaysian band, and loads of other crazy bands that would come over and stay at my house and do shows. I was studying film at the time so I always considered I’d go and make movies at the time so in response to your question. I’d probably go and make a film, because that’s what I wanted to do originally but then my band stuff seemed to take off more than my film stuff was!
Ahaha, I think a Creeper theatre production would be so cool, because when I was writing a review for American Noir I couldn’t help but feel like this would be perfect for a musical, or for a film soundtrack.
Oh I’d love to, I’m a massive fan of that stuff, but the problem with that is I’m just not very well-versed in how to put on that sort of stuff on stage. I’d need people around me who could help me put it on, with films I have my bearings on it a bit more. But I would love to, but fucking musical theatre is one of my favourite things and the funny thing about me and Hannah is that Hannah was a classically trained musical theatre kid who wanted to be in a pop-punk band, and I was a punk singer who wanted to be in a musical theatre project so we’ve had to swap roles.
So, what do the next 12 months look like for Creeper?
Oh busy busy busy, we’re going on tour with Holding Absence and Wargasm who are both here today, who I saw at Download Pilot, and yeah, I saw their Heavy Music Awards thing which was absolutely incredible, absolutely love those guys.
Yea aha you gotta love Milkie.
Yeah completely, Milkie has got to be the biggest rockstar I know probably.
We did an interview with them last weekend and they are really lovely people too.
Oh man, they’re the greatest those two. I have such a lot of respect for what they do and how they treat their craft, I think they’re really important. Static Dress are on it too as well, all those bands are here today and since that tour was announced. All those bands have gotten so big, so we have this ridiculous line-up where everything has sold out apart from Leeds, which I think has got like 50 tickets left, and I think is a big room for our band. But a big part of that is how those bands have gotten so big in the year that’s passed that you’re not going to come and see a show like this again, it’s not very likely. Like Wargasm are going to be doing these sorts of rooms without us soon, Holding Absence are growing at a rapid rate, and what an insane band they are, and Static Dress are one of the most exciting bands here, Ollie Appleyard is like one of my really good friends and someone I respect massively in regards to his output in film and music. He’s a little wizz-kid and is going to be an absolutely spectacular performer so yeah that’s coming this December, like when are you going to see that tour again? You’re not! Unless you go to a festival or something, so yeah, we’re doing that. We’re doing a lot next year, but I don’t know if its announced yet, it’s annoying and I bet you hear that a lot. It’s just because we’ve got stuff abroad and we’re not sure if we can announce it yet cus of covid and stuff and things changing.
Interview By: Joe Loughran
Creeper are heading out on a UK tour later this year with Holding Absence and Wargasm, see them at the following dates:
December 2021
Wed 15th – LONDON – O2 Forum Kentish Town
Thu 16th – BRIGHTON – Concorde 2
Fri 17th – BIRMINGHAM – O2 Institute
Sun 19th – GLASGOW – Garage
Mon 20th – MANCHESTER – O2 Ritz
Tue 21st – LEEDS – Beckett University Students Union
Head to Creeper‘s website HERE for ticket information.
