A Hazy Afternoon With The Indica Gallery

Sometimes in our ever expanding search for new music, in an age where it seems difficult for truly unique bands to break the mould, a beacon of hope shines through and our prayers are answered. The Indica Gallery, a five-piece band from Liverpool, fusing the poetic lyricism of a young Dylan, with 50s doo-wop harmonies and modern psychedelia, they are quickly attaining a reputation amongst a sea of talent in the Liverpool music scene.

We spent a hazy Sunday afternoon catching up with the band, talking about their new single, and fantasising over going for a pint with John Lennon. Tom Bibby sat down with frontman, Joe Mansergh, for Yuck! Magazine Volume One…

In your own words, what is ’The Indica Gallery’?

The name was first coined by a counterculture art gallery in the basement of the Indica Bookshop. It was run by a bloke called John Dunbar in the 60’s, so we’ve read. We took the name after watching a George Harrison documentary on Netflix, hopefully we won’t get sued!

What’s the story behind the band’s formation?

Me (Joe) and Michael were living in Manchester together and wanted to start a band doing some original songs. I knew Zack from a previous band I was in and Ryan came from my local area too. Finlay was living with Zack at the time we started looking for band members and we were looking for a bassist. After Fin joined we eventually all moved to Liverpool to pursue the band fully.

Who/what are your influences?

We love all styles and studies of music, poetry, literature, philosophy and science. Pretty much anything or anyone that we can draw inspiration from. We’re an extremely eclectic and open band in terms of what influence us and we believe that comes across in our live set. A lot of people will tell you that you need to reign certain influences in and have ‘a sound’ to appeal to a particular niche or group of people but we’re quite happy to be a band that focuses on making good singles and keeping it authentic to ourselves, if people aren’t into that then that’s fine, if they are then that’s also fine. What’s good is that through starting this band we’ve met a lot of people who share that ethos!

Your two singles are titled ‘Forever Loving You’ and ‘Wait For Your Love’, is there a personal inspiration behind them, or are they an ode to all the hopeless romantics out there?

Both the former and latter, the lyrics come from a place you can never quite remember being in. It’s like the right hemisphere of your brain spilling out ideas to create an off kilter semi-fictionalised reality, documenting different elements of being human.

You’ve also just filmed a music video to for the latter track, how did that go? What’s the story behind it?

The concept started initially with the idea of trying to create a video that questioned the effects that the misuse of technology has on wonderment. There’s a point in every person’s life where the simplest of things are fascinating and you’re more open to experimentation, basically like being a born scientist. People can sometimes get caught up so much in the social media bubble that they can become dulled down and distant from the real world. It’s just an observation of ourselves and the things we see in day-to-day life.