A Quick Q&A With The Cool Greenhouse

Nov 25

Nov 25 A Quick Q&A With The Cool Greenhouse

When Tom Greenhouse found himself between musical projects a few years ago, he set about releasing a solo EP. That particular plan transformed into the 'Crap Cardboard Pet EP', a spikey release made up of glitchy drum-beats, angular guitar riffs, and deadpan delivery that kicked the Londoner into gear. Now, with a full band in toe, an acclaimed eponymous full-length, and a band name paying homage to its founder, The Cool Greenhouse are on an acute rise to stardom; something that frontman Tom doesn't mind at all. We caught up with him to find out his plans for world domination...

Hey Tom… How did The Cool Greenhouse come about? I read that you previously released EPs as a solo artist and then moved to a full band for the LP – what set about this change over the course of the last three years?

I always envisaged this project as a band, but I guess I didn’t think anyone would want to do it with me! But then we got offered this gig to support The Stroppies, which was quite cool. I don’t think the people knew it was a solo thing, I had to keep that a secret. By that point, people were saying they liked it and a few of my friends wanted to do it so we got together for that show. And yeah, we were meant to carry on, but it’s kind of been put on pause now! But it was always meant to be a band, and I always wanted it like that, and eventually, I got it together I guess.

Could you tell our readers something that they wouldn’t know about The Cool Greenhouse?

I’ve been researching a book about UFOs. That’s my secondary passion! Also, we recorded ‘The Sticks’ really late at night, and you know there’s some backward vocal at the end of it – that originally said ‘hail Satan’. Just as a joke. I’d gotten up at five in the morning – we’d been recording really late and everyone was still asleep, but I couldn’t sleep. Phil came in and we were like, ‘let’s just do the backwards backing vocals.’ We were just pissing about, I was saying ‘hail Satan’ like they used to do on metal records. And it disappeared! Everything’s backed up in all these weird ways that Phil has so that nothing gets lost, and we did a check at the end so we knew where everything was. And the only thing that was missing was this satanic incantation! I did it again but I said something else

You’ve likened your consistent comparison to The Fall as being ‘like comparing any rap record to Grandmaster Flash.’ How does being compared to other bands feel for you?

I don’t mind it, but I think sometimes it’s a bit lazy. Especially nowadays with lots of new post-punk bands, they get compared to The Fall, and I think it can be boring. I don’t think it’s very enlightening, because I think there’s a lot of nuances that is missed if you just go, ‘oh, they’re like the Fall’. But I don’t mind being compared to other bands that I like – and I do like The Fall, so! As long as it’s done in a way that means something, that’s interesting, then it’s fine, but I think it can be too much, you know?

Am I right in saying you guys are based in London at the moment?

We’re a bit all over the place! So I live just outside Norwich but I’m moving back to London soon. When I started it it was in London, so our first single was about living in London, and it being expensive and ridiculous, and then I did move back because it’s cheaper where I am now. But I might move back and do one of those guardianship things or something, or look after an old lady, so you can live there for cheap! But yeah most of the band are in London, our practice room is in Hackney – and then our bassist lives in Bristol.

Quite creative places then! How does that influence you as artists and musicians?

I do tend to write situationally about stuff that’s going on around me, so ‘The Sticks’ was about moving to the sticks, and we’ve got a long song about London, and being in London. So yeah, it definitely influences things quite directly! And I like our songs to be kind of of-the-moment, and I’m always just looking around the space that I’m in to try and work out things that people might latch onto. So place is important. And then I’ve gotta move place, I can’t write another song about living in the sticks, so I’ll write another song about wherever I end up.

Do you think that the pandemic has affected that for you, being able to write and release things at the moment?

It’s given me some space to write new things, but because you’re not getting the same degree of information or new things happening to you, it becomes harder. So I’ve had more time, but the writing has also slowed down because less stuff is happening. But we are releasing something, so we’ve managed to get something together, and we’ve been working on the new album. But, it’s been a bit of a pain for us to be honest because we were just on the upward slope, and feeling jubilant and going to do all these shows – I’ve only played like, five shows, and we were gonna play loads more and we haven’t been able to. But you know, it will happen. It’s the same for everyone. But yeah, it’s been annoying.

You recorded the album at JT Soar in Nottingham; how was the recording process, and what is your creative process?

Because I had a lot of songs backed up, I brought a lot of songs in for the band, but then they definitely helped me shape them. And especially in the studio – we were adding stuff on the day and experimenting and that. Making them better. There are some good musicians that we’ve got, Merlin our keyboardist is really special, she does her own stuff as well. Everyone was chucking ideas in and made it way better, I was really happy with it. The process was nicely shambolic, JT Soar is great. Well… it’s being renovated. So it might change into something soulless. But when we went the roof was leaking and we were all in sleeping bags in the studio, and it was all very intimate and intense, and that was great for what we were doing. I think I would have been a bit intimidated to do it in a really clean space. But we just worked constantly, and it all came together. I think we had ten days booked, and the label was kind of taking a gamble on us, but it worked amazingly. We all came together and it worked – thank God!

Lyrically, the record is a combination of witty observations and personal anecdotes. What inspires you to write this way?

I don’t like to suggest things in general, but rather the effects of things on day to day things. And it might be me, or there might be someone else in there, or might be something I’ve observed, but I find it much more striking if you’re left to do a bit of thinking. So if a song is about rent being too expensive, I won’t write a general line about that, but it will be more about personal detail. It makes it more relatable, and hopefully can make it funny as well, which I think is better than doing it in a very on the nose, generalised fashion. But yeah, I’m just constantly on the lookout really – I’ve got loads of little notebooks, and I’ll be reading the tabloids, trying to feed the pond or whatever.

What are your plans post-pandemic?

Taking over the world. That’s the main plan. Hopefully, play the festivals we were meant to – we were meant to play The Great Escape, which would have been great. I’ve never personally been! So that would have been fun. I’m hoping the things we had lined up will carry on, and then there’ll be some more as well. We’re doing a Europe tour in April, we’re all hoping that that’s going to be fine, that’s booked. And that will be most of the countries in Europe which will be great. I just can’t wait to get out and do it properly, because it feels that it hasn’t lived yet in the way that it should. We’re celebrating the record release in December at Shacklewell Arms in London. And yeah, we’re writing and making stuff. It’s funny because there’ll probably be a new thing by the time we’re able to properly celebrate the first record. We don’t want to lose the momentum – I’m not interested in waiting around for years before you do an album, I think we’ve got enough exciting ideas to just keep putting new things out. So there should be a new album next year – I would hope so! Lots of tours, as soon as we can! I’ll quit my job!