Photo Credit: Thomas Edwards
Words: Izzy Hayden

Hailing from Wigan, Stanleys have been taking the Indie scene by storm. From slots at major festivals including Glastonbury to support slots on tour with Richard Ashcroft, The Libertines and The Royston Club, the group have been building an extensive portfolio of live shows. 

Recently returning from a hiatus, they have already released an exciting new single ‘Pass The Time’ and are teasing there’s more to come. We talked to frontman Tom Concannon to get an insider on their hiatus and first gig back as well as, upcoming music and tour plans.

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What lead to the decision as a band to take a hiatus for a while? 

Tom: It was more just life getting in the way, getting a bit older and putting a few things in place in terms of careers and jobs for money. One of the main reasons was I was training as a firefighter and it was quite an intense course for 18 weeks but then there’s also other bits and bobs that I needed to do and same with the other lads. We took it as a time to focus on ourselves but also just to get a fresh idea on what we wanted for our music and I think it really helped with the writing process because sometimes you can be bashing your head against a wall and then if you take five minutes out of the room you can fix the problem.

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Since taking a break, the first single you released was ‘Pass The Time’, can you tell us about that one?

Tom: It’s weird with songs, each one we write has its own story. They’re all so different in the way we write but that one was really organic and it came together really quickly. Me and Harry (Bass) got together in the practice room a couple of hours before the other lads to have a little nosey at a bass line that he’d written, he showed it me and I was like, that’s it, that’s a song. It was such a strong bass line that we just built onto it. Some of the other songs we wrote have taken months and so many different changes and reshaping but this one was really refreshing, we were all on the same page. 

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On May 15th you’ve got ‘Never Like You’ coming out. Are you excited for it’s release? 

Tom: Definitely. I think it’s more our traditional sound and it feels like from the lengthy time that we’ve been a band it’s an amalgamation of what we’ve always wanted to sound like. It’s upbeat and happy and got energy to it. 

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What was it like filming the music video for ‘Pass The Time?’ 

Tom: That was great, We work with a fella called Chris and he’s fab. We’ve done stuff with him before and you just know you’re going to get a really good product out of him. We kind of had some vague ideas. I mean, we’re really rubbish. We asked can you do something with pendulum swinging? to a videographer. It’s like, what the hell do you mean? But he did it and he brought it all together. 

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So, is there going to be another music video coming soon? 

Tom: Yeah, we’ve been filming more. There’s a fella called Sam who has been an absolute hero and let us borrow his 1960s camper van that used to be a Swiss post van in the 60s and we’ve been using that for filming. He’s got an Instagram called @Suzanne_The_Swiss_Post_ Van that I wanna shout out because it’s so cool. 

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How did it feel to get back on stage in April at Manchester’s Night And Day Café?

Tom: Manchester’s always been a second home for us and we’ve always found so much love in the area for our music. Especially after such a long time out you kind of forget that people like your music and there’s support there and there’s a real lovely fan base. We all sat afterwards and said that was unbelievable, the amount of people singing our songs back to us, it was special. 

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Are you working on more music at the moment?  

Tom: we’re working on an album! We have some more songs recorded and ready to go and we’re just kind of building up the bank and then going to hopefully announce it towards the end of the year. We’ve always wanted an album out, it kind of puts a stamp on the efforts that we’ve made over the last six, seven years. We love the sound that we’re writing at the minute, it’s been really fun to write these songs and they’re getting us really excited. 

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Have you got any gig and tour plans for the rest of the year? 

Tom: We’ve got plans in the making at the minute. I think we’re in a lovely position where we’ve done some really big gigs in Manchester and in Wigan, our hometown, and those are always amazing but I think the main thing for me this year is just to go and play for as many people as we can all over the country. We want to play the little gigs and the places that you wouldn’t think about straight off the bat. The smaller grassroots venues are great, they’re everything that any band needs for that step between playing a pub and then going on tour and being able to put on your own shows at academies. Plus, they’re also cool as hell and it’s those venues that allow bands to make the small amount of money they need to keep going. I can’t say much because they’ve not been announced yet but we also have a lot of festivals in the bank so keep an eye out for that!