White Flowers: Preston To London And Back
Image: Hannah Cobb
White Flowers, the musical project of long-time friends and musical collaborators Katie Drew and Joey Cobb, is a multi-faceted enterprise. As former art students, the duo have created an array of startling visuals to accompany the dark, dewy sound of their music. We are invited into their world over a dim, faltering video call.
Things really got started as a band when they moved to London to study art. “We really liked London! But we couldn’t afford to live there,” Katie laughs. “That was basically why we came back. You need a certain amount of time to do music – we have day jobs, but we would have had to have worked all the time in London. And probably still not been able to afford it at the end of it all!”
There’s a lot of pressure on young creatives to make a move to their nearest big city, or to lavish a load of cash on a move to the capital, but the two of them seem happy in their native Preston. “One of the reasons why we chose to go to London in the first place is because of that pressure, I think,” Joey suggests. “It’s like if you’re not in London, nothing will ever happen.”
“But we quite like not being part of a music scene,” Katie shrugs. “We’re kind of just on our own. We like to just get on with it, we’re not really bothered. We like going to gigs, and we have friends in bands, but… Preston’s a really weird place, because you can get to Manchester so easily, and you can get to London really easily as well, but then you come back to Preston where nothing happens. It’s quite good in a way.”
Certainly the return home seems only to have accelerated the band’s creative outpouring, as the two of them have been using the recent lockdowns as a chance to really knuckle down with their song writing. Katie smiles. “The first few lockdowns we found it very hard to be creative, but we’re kind of back into it now.”
Image: Hannah Cobb
“I think we’ve just settled into a nice space now, where we make things pretty much all the time,” Joey adds. “It’s nice to be doing something with no clear end goal in sight. You are just making things for yourself.”
Live shows might seem like a world away, but they’re an important dimension to White Flower’s world. In their fledgling years as a band, whilst they were studying, they didn’t try and record anything at all. “We didn’t want to rush it,” Katie explains. “We just played gigs, and we met different people. And that was cool, but we didn’t want to release any music, because we were waiting for it to be ready. We never felt like we had to do everything all at once, we weren’t really bothered about that, so we’d just wait until we feel like it was ready.”
By focusing all their efforts on their live performances, the shows soon took on a life of their own; part gig, part art exhibit. “When we play live we try and really think about it – not just get up and play the gig, we try and think about visuals, and have it really dark. Obviously we’re quite a small band, so we can’t do too much, but we do try and think about it all.”
The visual aspect of the project is on equal footing with the musical side of it. “It’s something that we’ve always wanted to do as well,” Joey clarifies. “As well as making music we wanted to make visuals to go with it, and artwork that fits in.” The result is a very rounded, cohesive artistic space.
Image: Hannah Cobb
In taking their time, working diligently on every facet of White Flowers, it has taken two years to pull their debut album, ‘Day By Day’, together. Produced by Doves’ Jez Williams, a longstanding favourite of the two of theirs, it proved a true labour of love. “All the songs we recorded in a series of different bedrooms, between starting in London, and finishing in Preston,” Joey grins. “We got the songs as finished as we could do ourselves, and then took them into Jez. Jez kind of built on top of what we’d already done.”
The resulting album is a free-floating, Prussian blue feast for the senses. “Hopefully [the album will provide] a feeling of reassurance. I think the music that I get the most out of, is bands and artists who you listen to, and it’s almost like you can sense that they’re going through something that’s similar to you,” Joey professes. “There’s just a comfort in that.”
“It’s like you’re not alone,” Katie continues. “I think our music is quite dark and weird – because that’s what it’s like to be alive.”
This seems to summarise everything that White Flowers are; this strange, breathing entity that is rooted in the aspirations and humanity of Katie and Joey themselves. In the last few years, they have managed to achieve a lot, even under the shadow of national and regional lockdowns, and it’s definitely safe to bet on their future.