#and Edward gets to go apeshit as a treat

[highabovethecloudssomewhere]

(Xerxies Wing AU)

I got an ask a while back about Hohenheim’s wings and whether or not Father would have a pair, as an imitation, as well as Edward’s left wing being returned to him after Alphonse’s sacrifice but tumblr mcfrickn ate the ask and for the life of me I Cannot Find It but I have Thoughts

[minty-muse]

Ok I plan on using this in a fic buuut. Headcanon that the reason Clam was angry when he first came to Camp Kidney is because that’s who he was before he met Lazlo and Raj.

He has trouble communicating both in public and at home and speaking in full sentences is very difficult for him. His parents don’t understand him and are neglectful of his needs because they wish he would just talk to them and they get fed up with his one word responses. Rather than try to understand him they’d prefer the school counselors try to “fix” him. He doesn’t have any friends because he willingly pushed everyone away after realizing that most people who want to ‘be friends’ with him think that being the quiet kid means he’s a spineless idiot who can’t stand up for himself. They only ever got close to him so they could take advantage of or bully him when he lets his guard down. After being pushed too far too many times, Clam reaches a breaking point where he’s in defensive mode 24/7, assuming the worst of any and every person who even tries to get close to him.

He hurts others on purpose because if he lets them in he’s certain to regret it sooner or later. And at the same time, he can’t stand seeing others get bullied because he knows what it’s like.

His parents decide to send him to summer camp hoping that forcing him to mingle with more “well-adjusted” kids will make him normal. And it has the exact opposite effect.

Clam hates Raj at first before he even knows anything about him but tbf you’d get pissed too if some random guy told you you had to sit on the top of the bus for no reason But he stands up for him even so when Edward tries to bully him. And Lazlo immediately treats him as a friend and even acknowledges that their group isn’t normal™️ and that’s okay.

Lazlo and Raj are the first two kids to ever love and accept Clam for who he is. And they don’t try to change him to make themselves more comfortable or force him into any boxes. For the first time in his life Clam is happy. He’s allowed to be his full weird eccentric self in jelly cabin and it becomes home to him. And even the other bean scouts don’t treat him any differently. He’s allowed to be whoever he wants. And he wants to be happy and silly. For the first time he’s not afraid to be that. And so he unleashes his full chaotic energy on every person and thing in his vicinity. And it is glorious. Of course he also still gets to go a little apeshit sometimes and it’s always very fun to watch.

[soupbabe]

AHHHH I LOVE UR CHUBBY EDDIE STUFF ITS JUST SO 💕💕💕 I WAS WONDERING IF I COULD REQUEST MORE OF IT, LIKE MAYBE EDDIE FEELING INSECURE AND NOT GOOD ENOUGH FOR READER AND READWE BEING LIKE 😧AND SHOWERS HIM WITJ AFFECTION OR SOME ASSHOLE SAYS SOMETHING BAD ABOUT EDDIE AND THE READEE BEATS YHE SHIT OUT OF THEM 🥰

Temperamental (Chubby! Edward Nashton x Reader)

Reader punches a man and Edward's convinced he found his soulmate.

I think Y/n deserves to go apeshit every once n a while. As a treat.

Warning: Very minor one sentence fatphobia, warning here just in case that makes any readers uncomfortable lol

Ever since you and Edward got together, Edward has tried to be on his best behavior. Always holding off his short temper until you were gone, it was a factor of his personality he couldn't risk for you to see. You meant everything to him and his explosive temper felt like more of a deal breaker than revealing that he was the Riddler.

And while he believes the Lord gives his toughest battles to his strongest soldiers, Edward would've preferred if he didn't start testing him on the date that'd mark an important milestone in his relationship with you: making things official. Mishaps ranging from the waiter getting both of your orders wrong, to rain pouring on what was supposed to be a romantic, after dinner walk made Edward want to scream and rip his hair out.

The only thing preventing Edward from doing so was the person holding his hand as they walked to the park to where they first met. A simple glance at you made it all worth it. You were here with him despite this shit show, it motivated him to keep calm and ask if he could be yours. Just a couple more blocks until he could make the night worth it. Edward dreamily smiled at you as the Gotham lights illuminated your features. He opened his mouth to speak until a man bumped into him, not so quietly muttering a "Move it, fatass" as he walked in front of you two.

Edward paused in his tracks as the words hit. They were simple words, something he's heard his entire life. He knows he should be used to it by now, but with all the small events building up over the night, Edward had it. You glanced over at Edward and saw the glossy sheen over his eyes and looked back at the man. Wordlessly made your way to the stranger, the only warning you gave was a stern "Hey!" before you delivered a firm punch to the center of his face.

Edward stood baffled as he watched the man curse and push you away as he ran off covering his nose. You took a couple more steps in his direction as you yelled at him once more, "Asshole! Don't talk shit if you can't take it!" Your date can only stare at the interaction in surprised awe.

Edward felt special in that moment.

You assaulted a man for him.

And it was so satisfying to watch.

You looked back at your dominant hand in thought as you walked back to Edward. "I'm so sorry for acting out..I have a bad temper and I can't stand people like that guy. Are you okay, Edward?" The man in question looked at you with a blush across his cheeks and a astonished glint in his eyes.

Mindlessly, he only responded with a simple "Be mine."

[forevercloudnine]

new 52 riddlebat ship meme

(@heroes-etc picked me out a lot of questions and we’re still going. This set is from this ship meme.)

1. Who makes the first move and how?

Ostensibly it would be Edward, if putting together a subtext-laden citywide scavenger hunt that threatens the lives of hundreds counts as “making the first move.” But there’s a limit to how much deliberately obfuscating any expression of your feelings can be considered making any move at all. He also doesn’t seem to really know what he wants from Bruce — in “Alone,” he’s quick to say that he designed the puzzles to lead Batman to him on purpose, but doesn’t have an answer when questioned on what he wanted Batman to do other than catch him.

So even though Edward is technically the instigator here, he places the burden of actually doing something entirely on Batman. Which is difficult, because Riddler’s increased brutality in the New 52 makes him like the last possible version of the character Bruce would choose to pursue. BUT Scott Snyder made Batjokes practically text in this continuity, so obviously New 52 Bruce does not have a problem getting overly emotionally involved with supervillains who have unrealistically large body counts. In fact, the brutality may work to Edward’s advantage here; if he caused enough damage, maybe Bruce would kidnap him and keep him in the Batcave the way it was revealed he was keeping the Joker in Dark Days: The Casting #1. 

What could be more romantic than being imprisoned in the batcave? Well, probably a lot of things, really. But in this case, having a lot of quality time together in which Riddler is not actively murdering anyone is probably the only way that these two could work out what they have going on between them. 

Edward could also earn his way down there by figuring out Batman’s identity, which he’s clearly pretty close to in Batman Annual #4. There’s only so much mental distance between “Bruce Wayne is obsessed with the death of his parents and his drive for justice and revenge has led him to bring Batman into existence, making him responsible for everything Batman has ever done” and “Bruce Wayne IS Batman,” especially when Bruce Wayne does things like climb museum exhibits to leave through the skylight or pull off a trickshot that ruins Riddler’s whole evil plan directly in front of Edward’s face.

And if he DID figure it out, New 52 Riddler would probably be less courteous about its secrecy than Joker is. (Not that Joker is THAT polite about it, given that he keeps trying to use the information to either kill Bruce’s whole family, or... I don’t know... whatever he did with Wayne Enterprises in Joker War. Wait, is THAT why Bruce was keeping Joker in the Batcave in Rebirth?) 

So just to review, I am *checks notes* arguing that Bruce would instigate a romantic relationship by kidnapping Edward and imprisoning him against his will. Yes, that sounds about right for DC’s current continuity.

6. Who would they ask if they ever had a threesome?

If Riddler DOESN’T know Batman’s secret identity, then he would want to have a threesome with Bruce Wayne. Batman Annual #4 suggests that he might have already been a bit obsessed with Bruce even before suspecting his involvement with Batman, given that he talks about how watching Bruce in the tabloids growing up was everyone’s “favorite tv show” and reminisces about learning a lot of information about Bruce’s life that way, including stuff that wouldn’t have made it to the news, like Bruce anonymously setting his teacher’s yard on fire as a teenager.

It’s actually almost a Batman Forever vibe, or it would be if New 52 Edward wasn’t so much less endearing. Is his childhood fascination with Bruce part of why he got a job working for Bruce’s uncle at Wayne Enterprises as an adult, or was that just a happy accident in his preparations for Zero Year? Either way, he’s clearly obsessed with Bruce now, and he’s definitely under the impression that Batman knows him well. So as long as he didn’t know they were the same person, he would probably try to arrange a ménage à trois (wouldn’t that be awkward).

If he DID know they were the same person, then unfortunately Edward would definitely try and instigate a threesome with Joker. I’m not saying it would work, I’m just saying that all of the War of Jokes and Riddles reads like Edward trying to insert himself in the middle of Batjokes and getting rejected by both of them repeatedly.

Joker wasn’t interested the first time Riddler came on to him (or the second time, literally in the same office, Edward please learn how to read a room), so he probably wouldn’t go for it if Edward tried again. But if The War and Jokes and Riddles demonstrated anything, it’s that Edward doesn’t know how to take a hint, so he’d probably try again regardless. And then blame Bruce when it doesn’t work, probably. I always thought it was dumb when Riddler hyped up the oh-so-horrible thing that Batman did to him in the War of Jokes and Riddles in Batman #19, only for it to turn out that Bruce just, like... almost stabbed him.... but didn’t. After Riddler had ALREADY betrayed him.

But it makes more sense that Edward is being such a dramatic bitch if you’re instead interpreting “I still remember what he did” as just a summary of the conga line of rejection that Riddler received over the course of that arc from both sides of Batjokes.

(TWOJAR as helpfully summarized by @heroes-etc​)

11. What do they hide from one another?

I don’t think they can really hide anything from each other, actually. I mean there’s the obvious “Batman is hiding his secret identity” and “Riddler is hiding evil scheme of the week #39.” But Bruce is the “World’s Greatest Detective” as per usual, and Edward is actually not that far behind him in this continuity (even if his delusions can cause him to project and misinterpret his findings, i.e. assuming that Bruce purposefully went bankrupt so that Riddler and the other Arkhamites would have to live in Wayne Manor and be reminded of him every second of every day). Batman Annual #4 has a great example of this where Edward reveals that he knows about how Bruce tried to treat his paranoid vigilante compulsions with shock therapy when he was a teenager. No one but Alfred and the doctors know about that — and I’m just assuming that Alfred knew, it’s not something that was stated in Zero Year.

Bruce obviously solves pretty much every riddle that Edward puts in front of him, but he picks up on the stuff that Riddler is purposefully trying to obscure too. Whether he was researching Edward ahead of time (likely) or just so good at snap psychoanalysis he should have a job at Arkham (possible, Zero Year was written by Scott Snyder), his summary of Edward’s life during their first interaction as Batman and Riddler in Batman #31 is clearly too accurate for Edward’s comfort, as it ruins what had previously been excitement on Riddler’s part that Batman was still alive. 

So good luck to both of them at hiding absolutely anything from each other. The best they can hope for is if WHEN the other person finds what they’ve been hiding, they misinterpret either the information or the reason why it was hidden from them in the first place. Both of them are always willing to jump to the worst case scenario (which, given who they’re dealing with, fair enough), so I’m sure the resulting miscommunication would be both extremely entertaining and highly likely to lead to city-wide destruction.

27. Why do their friends get annoyed with them?

Does New 52 Riddler even have friends? He and Scarecrow claim to have respect for each other in Detective Comics ft. Scarecrow #23.3, but it’s in the context of Scarecrow lying and manipulating all the rogues in the lead up to Forever Evil, and it comes about three panels after Riddler passive aggressively mocks Jonathan’s childhood trauma at the hands of his “daddy.” (Rude, Edward. Rude and gross.)

If they are friends, then the reasons why Riddler dating Scarecrow’s arch nemesis would annoy Jonathan are pretty self-explanatory. Also Edward is clearly the kind of person who would taunt the rest of the Arkhamites with any privileges earned/information gleaned from getting closer to the Bat. When I was younger my mother would always warn me not to waste emotional energy on girls who ditch their friends to prioritize their relationship as soon as they get a new boyfriend. Well, Riddler is that girl.

Bruce’s friends and family obviously also have nearly infinite reasons to be annoyed with Bruce for dating a supervillain (shoutout to Duke Thomas, who was unfortunate enough to have Riddler’s Zero Year during the most formative time of his childhood), but Barbara Gordon would doubtlessly be more pissed than most. Riddler deciding that he’s in love with Batgirl out of the blue (despite them never having met before?) when he finds out that Batman’s marrying Catwoman was already irritating, but I can only imagine how much MORE annoying it would be in the context of Riddler later hooking up with Batman.

If Barbara ever found out about them hooking up, she would immediately have war flashbacks to Batman: Prelude to the Wedding pt. 3. She has a great memory so unfortunately she probably has perfect recall of having to spend an entire evening listening to a pre-recorded monologue of Riddler philosophizing about why he’s not bitter that Batman and Catwoman are getting married and how he’s still straight even though he’s never felt lasting attraction to a woman. And then she would rightfully go apeshit.

29. Why do they fall a little bit more in love?

Thinking of how this question could possibly be answered from Bruce’s perspective made me laugh out loud, which is probably not a good sign given that I’m 4/5 of the way through writing a ship meme for him and Edward. But Riddler is just. So much in the New 52. Okay, I’m taking it seriously now. WHY DOES HE FALL MORE IN LOVE. Well, the fastest way to Bruce’s heart (other than being an attractive woman with dark hair, green eyes, and ambiguous morals) is to assist him in his crusade against crime. While that doesn’t initially seem like something Edward would do (as we see in Batgirl vs. Riddler, he seems to think the key to romance is “mixtapes”), he does go out of his way to give Bruce information about a Gotham-wide criminal conspiracy in Batman Eternal #39. He doesn’t appreciate that Batman’s current opponent is actively trying to wear him down — he wants to fight the Bat at his best, when he can think clearly. So he gives Bruce information he needs to solve the mystery.

Edward seems to also be under the impression that this would endear him to Batman, because he gives Batman a series of riddles that lead Bruce right to him so that they can talk in person. And then gets very surprised when Bruce subsequently arrests him. You’re still a criminal, Edward. This is like the first favor you’ve ever done him. Do it a dozen more times and then MAYBE you’ll start getting the free passes he’s been handing out to Harley and Ivy. But Bruce DOES save him from an avalanche after this, even though in the past Bruce has left him to die out of apathy (The War of Jokes and Riddles) or actively tried to kill him (also The War of Jokes and Riddles). So Edward IS winning him over, just very, very slowly.

Riddler pretty obviously just enjoys having someone to talk to that he feels is “on his level.” Even though he’s already arranged for Bruce Wayne’s assassination by the first time they meet in Batman #39, he obviously enjoys conversing with someone who can and will unravel his riddles and double meanings, to the point that afterwards he musingly wishes that they’d have an opportunity to talk again. Obviously they do, but it’s no thanks to Riddler. You can just NOT assassinate someone if you think they’re hot, Edward.

It’s what seemingly endears him to Batman too (at least, until Bruce ruins the mood by calling him an attention whore in front of all of Gotham). Though it’s basically always bad news for him, Edward clearly enjoys any time that Bruce or Batman exhibits his intelligence. 

[redsoapbox]

IN CONVERSATION WITH SANDRA’S WEDDING

Jonny, Joe, Luke and Tom

At the beginning of February, I embarked on an ambitious new music guide for this blog entitled 28 Bands in 28 Days. The idea was to scour the world (well, as best as you can from the couch potato position!) for new and exciting music. With two days of the project to run, all was going well - I had reviewed and recommended bands / singers from Canada, America, France, Sweden as well as the U.K. Having set aside the last two days of the month for New Zealand’s Marlon Williams and Finland’s Those Forgotten Tapes, I was feeling quite pleased with myself when my best laid plans were thrown into turmoil - I had chanced upon the stellar music of Sandra’s Wedding! I knew had to include them in the project, yet I wasn’t prepared to elbow out Marlon or TFT at the last minute. The solution that I came up with was simply to pretend that 2018 was a leap year (believe me, I’ve kidded myself about a lot worse that that down the years) and that there was, therefore, a 29th day and a 29th band. Sandra’s Wedding were in!

If you still haven’t heard the band’s remarkable debut album Northern Powerhouse and the brand new E.P. Good Morning, Bad Blood, then you’re in for one hell of a treat. Described, accurately, as a meeting of The Smiths and The Beautiful South (I know, I know, it can’t possibly be true, but it is, folks, it is!) and here is the evidence -

“Death by Hanging” - Sandra’s Wedding

It was a tremendous thrill, then, to interview the band. My thanks for their cooperation.

Northern Powerhouse, your stand-out debut album, arrived like a bolt out of the blue in February of 2017. How long, though, has the band been together?

Luke: Since sometime in the early months of 2016. Joe and myself had done a couple of little gigs together previously, as had he and Jonny, but the band became official around then. 

Joe: I’d stopped playing guitar for a while before then whilst I was living in Leeds. I’d gotten really into poetry and wanted to be the next Simon Armitage or Thom Gunn for a while. I wrote a lot and posted little bits and pieces online but was always frustrated with how ‘slow’ the poetry process is in the sense that you’d get people saying, “I enjoyed your poem” but you hadn’t been able to see their reaction as they read it, or you felt like they could just be fobbing you off a bit. That period was good because I really got into crafting lyrics and working on atmosphere through language – more so than if I’d just been writing songs as a whole. I did stand-up as well and went to Edinburgh Fringe… I had enough and left early, decided music was what I was probably best at and bought a new acoustic. That’s when I started putting the songs that would become the album together. I started writing like crazy and felt like a light had been switched on after having spent so long in a different headspace. If I weren’t shit at poetry or stand-up there wouldn’t be a band is the crux of this answer. 

There is a real sense of time and place running through each of the songs that make up Northern Powerhouse. Where did you all grow up and which local musicians would you count amongst your earliest and most important influences?

Luke: We all grew up within a thirty-mile radius of each other in and around Goole, except Jonny who is from Castleford.

Joe: A lot of people have influenced me, but not necessarily ‘music’ people. I’m not someone who idolises artists, I feel like it’s more a grudging respect in a way. I listen to albums, songs, certain lyrics and get a bit mad wishing I’d written that. That’s not to say I don’t find inspiration from others, I do just like anyone else. Growing up, my parents always had Magic-FM or Neil Diamond cassettes on in the car so I suppose I was exposed to a lot of easy listening. I wish I had a cool answer; that my parents were into 20s Jazz records and Finnish folk music but my mum loves Elvis and my dad doesn’t own a single CD.  

I once asked Peter Hook what he thought his music would have sounded like if he'd grown up in Skegness or Shrewsbury, rather than Salford, to which he succinctly replied 'shit'! Are northern bands any different to southern bands?

Luke: Of course, but only in the same way that American bands are different from German bands for example. You can’t help but be shaped by your upbringings, and that comes out in the music that we (as in northerners) make. 

Joe: I’m always wary of tribalism. I don’t ever want to swing my dick around and make out I’m better than someone else just because they were born in a different postcode. It’s going to colour your outlook and how you express yourself, obviously, but that’s just human nature. I’m proud of being from a small place hardly anyone has heard of, I sometimes look at it as being a non-league club trying to gain a few promotions and have a taste of some success; a good cup run. 

Northern Powerhouse is a snapshot of life in post-Brexit Britain. To what extent, if any, does the social commentary, expressed through songs such as "Death by Hanging" and "The Spark", reflect your own views, or is the record a character study of the great British public?  

Joe: Everyone’s terrified. People are terrified of change, people are terrified of everything staying the same. I think most of the fuel for the songs comes from how everything gets served up to us. The press in this country are honestly pathetic. Not in a Trumpian “Fake-News” sense, but in a “Let’s tap into people’s anxiety about this topic” sense. The whole Brexit Referendum debate was embarrassing. Grown adults standing on national television arguing about the colour of passports and what Winston Churchill would say if he were still around. Remember when the Panama Papers came out and everyone just did an Alan Partridge shrug and carried on arguing about how we can dig our own vegetables after Brexit? You couldn’t make it up. Billions of pounds being withheld from public services and we’re all arguing about the most inane stuff. The songs are vignettes where all these feelings are present, I can understand why people feel the way they do for the most part. I suppose when I look back on that album I’ll remember that year where everyone went fucking apeshit.

Even though you're tackling some heavy themes on the album, from unemployment to spousal abuse to capital punishment, there is a humorous touch in evidence right throughout the record. You're following in the footsteps of Ray Davies, Chris Difford, Paul Heaton and just about every other leading British songwriter in that respect. What is it that makes you all take such a tragicomic approach to your craft?

Luke: If you didn’t laugh you’d cry! I think there’s a long tradition of finding humour in tragedy in this country, and it brings us all together in trying times. Jonny: Absolutely. I think finding beauty in the dark moments of life is a real art form - I like to think of Joe’s lyrics being in the same vein as Edward Hopper’s paintings – just capturing those little moments of sadness in life and creating a little vignette around it. Imagine the painting Nighthawks but set in a Working Men’s Club in a small mining town and you’re on the right lines. 

Joe: Nobody cares about happiness. Imagine having a happy friend. Hell. 

How do you approach the discipline of lyric writing? Do you spend a  lot of time in cafes and pubs observing people, notebook at the ready?  

Joe: I have done that in the past. I like to remember little scenes and turns of phrase. I think Alan Bennett is a bit of an influence in that respect. Bennett can take the most mundane exchange and turn it into something beautiful. I take a lot of artistic license, create little worlds and characters. The Day Before You Came by Abba is a song I think about a lot – it’s so dull it’s genius. 

There's a definite air of nostalgia that hangs over the album, with Old Spice aftershave, The Yorkshire Ripper, Bernard Manning, Northern Soul and the Chelsea v Leeds 70's football rivalry all namechecked. It permeates the new EP, too, with "Saturday Night Television" guaranteed to remind us of a bygone era. Lou Reed said that "I don't like nostalgia, unless it's mine", but I get the sense that you're more interested in a form of communal nostalgia? Luke: I think the fact that we’re all just about the same age means we find it remarkably easy to fire off each other’s nostalgia glands. One mention of a shiny Charizard or finding a Tazo in your crisps sends all of us into a nice, warm, fuzzy place, and the fact that a lot of our fans and listeners are in the same sort of age bracket means that they all wear the same rose tinted, 90s flavoured goggles. I think Joe writes from an age older than his years though from time-to-time, and has a natural ability to relate to people of just about any generation.  

Joe: That comes from being taken to the pub a lot as a kid. My dad played pub football and the pub was where people held events so pub-coke was something I spent a lot of time nursing. I often wonder about what pubs will look like in 20/30 years  - young people don’t seem to go out anymore. I digress slightly but read “Church Going” by Philip Larkin and imagine it being about pubs instead. Depressing. 

Which songwriters have had the biggest impact on your own work?

Joe: As I said earlier, I don’t have any HUGE idols. But in terms of wishing I could have produced anything as good as they have; Adam & The Ants, Beautiful South, Chumbawamba, Deacon Blue, Eels, Five, Gerry & The Pacemakers, Housemartins, Iris Dement, John Prine, Kool & The Gang, Lisa Stansfield, Mike & The Mechanics, Nick Lowe, Orbison (Roy), Paul Young, Queen, Richard Hawley, Super Furry Animals, Talking Heads, Uzbekistan National Choir, Val Doonican, Wham, X?, Yann Tiersen, Zombies. 

Joe's lyrics rightly attract a lot of attention - they'd be on the National curriculum if it was up to me - but your tunes are incredibly infectious too. Do you all have a hand in writing the music?

Luke: It’s a very communal process.

Jonny: Yeah, Joe generally brings the song in as a chord structure and we work on and around it. I’m a strong believer in the idea that the song is all that matters, so if it needs a wall of guitars layering up to make it work then so be it, but I’m equally as happy playing something sparse or even nothing at all if the song needs space to breathe. We’re not averse to picking up other instruments like a mandolin or a keyboard if it fits the feel of what we’re looking for. Who inspired you to take up your particular instruments? Was it another musician, a parent, or a teacher, for instance?   Luke: My dad plays drums, and so they’ve just been a part of my life since birth. I’ll never forget playing my first ‘1-2-3-4’ in a back room in the now sadly closed Electro Music in Doncaster, getting the bug and never turning back. 

Jonny: I initially found it hard to connect to the guitar – or at least what I thought the guitar was - because I thought it had to be shredding and metal which was what everyone I knew was into playing – and that’s fine, but just not my cup of tea. For me to discover the playing of Johnny Marr, Peter Buck, Tom Verlaine, John Frusciante and Roger McGuinn was a game changer because suddenly I found people using a vocabulary on the instrument that I’d never heard before – a little like hearing French for the first time if you’d grown up only thinking the entire world spoke English I guess! 

Tom: When I was fifteen all my friends where picking up an instrument and forming bands and naturally I wanted to be part of that. My parents bought me my own bass and after spending a somewhat wasted year at Goole Sixth form in which I mostly skipped lessons to jam in my parents garage, but I eventually started studying music at a college in Hull.

Who is Sandra? Does she exist, or is she a composite character? 

Luke: Sandra is a wife, a mother, a daughter, a lover, a timid wallflower, a destroyer of worlds, a maneater, a vegan, a shoulder to cry on, a dinnerlady, a career-woman, a homemaker, a manager, a band-leader, a figurehead, a feather, a sledgehammer, a Friday night out, a Saturday night in, she’s whatever you want her to be, and she’s the best at it. 

Joe: She gets on my wick.

It was Jericho Keys, of BBC Introducing North Yorks, who first piqued my interest in the band with his tantalising description of the group as 'a cross between The Smiths and The Beautiful South'. However, I've subsequently seen that quote amended to The Coral and The Housemartins. Which is the correct quote and which bands would you happily compare yourselves to? 

Jonny: I think The Coral comparison was one he said when he played our first single, and then the other comparison was after we subsequently did a BBC Introducing session on his show. He’s a great guy and we’ve had fun on the show when we did a session with him. Luke: The Smiths and The Housemartins are the two that we tend to hear most often. Comparisons to The Housemartins aren’t too much of a surprise, being from the same (sort of) area their influence is bound to rub off, and I think it’s clear the influence Paul Heaton has had on Joe in particular. The Smiths isn’t a bad shout either, our Jonny is influenced in a big way by their Johnny and his mesmerising arpeggiated playing. 

I have to put my cards on the table and say that Northern Powerhouse is one of the best debut albums of the past decade. As you look back on the studio experience, are there things that you would have done differently, other songs that you might have included for example? Tom:  It was an unusual experience when it came to recording as at that time the four of us had never been in the same room before and had only ever rehearsed as a three piece band with Jonny writing the lead guitar parts to homemade demos and then dubbing them over in the studio. I don’t think any of us are really happy with the overall sound of Powerhouse but I think that’s because we’re by far our own worst critics. The positive response it has had since though has been beyond our expectations and helped us to be less self critical of it. Luke: I guess the first album is always a learning curve, so it’s hard to say if there’s anything we’d have done differently. I think the track list is solid, and although there are demos of other songs kicking around from the time I think the strongest ended up on there. 

It's an album choc full of brilliant pop songs, but the bittersweet ballad "Hollywood" has taken on the form of an all-time classic.  Do you know straight away when a song sounds like the real deal? 

Luke: Personally, no. I can’t speak for the others but, although I always enjoy it when a song comes together, there’s no way of knowing if it’s going to be ‘the real deal’ without putting it out there and seeing what other people think of it. Hollywood is a case in point. We all, obviously, love the song as any parent loves their own child, but the reaction it got since we released it has been phenomenal and has surprised all of us. You know you’ve done something right when strangers stop you in town to tell you they ‘love that one about Goole!’ 

Jonny: When Joe sent me the acoustic demo for that track I was a little blown away by it. I sat with a twelve string guitar trying to encapsulate exactly what the lyrics made me feel, which is why I tried to find some weird chords that are heartbreakingly sad and also weirdly optimistic. It does seem to have connected with people from the area – someone made a fan made video to it with a bunch of nostalgic images of Goole in it, and it ended up with something like 30,000 views in a week on social media which was weird. 

Does it give you pause for thought that even though a song of the stature of "Hollywood" or the album opener "This Heart" can mean an immense amount to a fan of the band, that around 99% of the British population are unlikely to ever hear the song? Is that discouraging for you as artists? 

Luke: Not at all. Like any band, the main reason you do it is for the sheer love of it. I’d rather put out a song that means the world to one person than pump out generic pop that means nothing, but just makes for pleasant background noise in offices, hairdressers and building sites. 

Tom: I’d agree with Luke, especially considering how people listen to and discover music now. There is an almost overwhelming amount of music that would be physically impossible to listen to in a human lifetime. We have a small but ever growing fan base that seem to love what we’re doing and as long as someone still enjoys it, well keep doing it. That said a few more monthly listeners on Spotify wouldn’t go a miss. 

In a different era, punk, post-punk, and Britpop, perhaps, you would have been able to reach a far larger audience. Do you feel like a band out of step with the times? 

Jonny: I don’t think many bands out there sound like us at this moment in time – for better or worse! I love lots of new music and there are great bands doing great things at the moment – but my initial influences were all older bands and I guess I gravitate to playing my instrument a certain way. We’re not trying to create a sound that is fashionable or trendy – you’ve only to look at our band photos to realise we are neither of those things – but we make music that is a genuine reflection of us and what we’re about. We’re fully aware that we’re not reinventing the wheel or coming up with a pioneering new sound, but hopefully people enjoy what we do. Luke: Although the music sometimes feels a bit of a throwback, I don’t think we feel out of step. It’s true that audiences are more disparate now, but that just means that people who seek you out are doing it because they REALLY want to listen to you. In times gone by we may have signed a little deal and got into some shops around the country, but now we’re available on the top of Mt. Everest via a device that everyone carries with them every day. The fact that we can be heard all over the world as a result of uploading some files from my front room is fascinating to me.

You have an excellent new EP, "Good Morning, Bad Blood", out now. There's some interesting additional instrumentation on tracks like "Titanic" and "Run, Rabbit Run", does that signpost something of a new direction for the band?

Luke: We’ve always wanted strings and brass, and if we could’ve afforded it I’m sure they’d have been there on Powerhouse too. It’s just nice to be in a place where we can bring in other excellent musicians to help us flesh out our sound.  

Jonny: Yeah, we’re really lucky to know some talented people – David and Anthony who played are great. Anthony’s CV is amazing, he played for the Pope and on the last Gorillaz album, so it was a thrill that he agreed to play for us. But we’re all big fans of The Beatles and the whole “using the studio as an instrument” thing they did. So that could be a trumpet or cello part, but sometimes it’s just those little subtle additions on records that you really connect with and we try to do that. There is a really small dulcimer part I stuck on ‘Good Morning, Bad Blood’ to add that sort of 90s version of the 60s psychedelia that seemed prevalent back then, and hopefully it just adds something to the track even though we’ll never do it live.  We see the recordings as being a separate entity to gigging.  

What are your plans for the remainder of 2018? Is there any chance of an impromptu gig in my hometown of Pontypridd. After all, Mercury Prize winners Wolf Alice rocked up here for a gig in the local Municipal Hall last year! 

Luke: I’m a quarter Welsh and embarrassingly I’ve never been! We have spoken before about a tour of the nations, four gigs in four days, one in each country. I’d be well up for nipping to Pontypridd if I can convince the rest. 

Following on from the release of the excellent "Spite Christmas" last year, can we expect another tilt at the highly prestigious Christmas No. 1 spot this year?

Luke: Watch this space…

“Hollywood” - simply one of the best pop songs ever written!

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