Interview: oreglo
Photograph by Milli Brennan of interview BTS
During Brighten The Corners festival I sat down outside St Stephen’s Church for some much needed fresh air and a pint with Oreglo, who were playing the Church later that evening.
CLICK TO WATCH FULL INTERVIEW
“So for people that don't really know your sound, could you tell us a bit about what you do?”
“Yeah so I play drums, I’m Nicco. This guy Linus (next to Nicco), he plays guitar, and Teigan (on the end), he plays tuba. Our music is kind of like prog rock jazz fusion, it's pretty eclectic to be fair, it's a pretty good vibe, we're all from London and yeah we're playing here today in Ipswich for the first time!”
“I read you guys so you used to be in musical youth groups before you formed a band. How has that impacted your band and how you operate?”
Nicco continued on that “growing up in London in general there's a lot of access to musical youth organisations and stuff, you know Teigan used to be part of this band called Youthsayers, they're really epic you know. That's how I met Teigan. I used to go to this thing called Tomorrow's Warriors as well. So there's a lot of great music in London which is available to young people. I think if you're trying to think more about what was gained from those organisations that we still bring to the band I guess like the sense of working as a team, working as a unit, discipline and just like knowing how to mesh together as more than just one person,”
Teigan explained that for him personally, there are things that he learnt from Tomorrow's Warriors, Youthsayers, and Kinetika Bloco to name a few that he still brings around with him, and have become deeply rooted in the band as well.
Linus, who wasn’t part of these organisations growing up said he definitely still felt the effect of them. “Those things above all for me are like networks and I met so many people through Nicco, through Teigan and that's the best thing. It’s like a vehicle for levelling up as a musician in the London scene and it just gives you access and resources to a lot of things.”
“Who were your musical influences growing up, like who do you listen to when you're younger and do you think that you can see any of that in your musical output now?”
“I mean we all listen to different stuff and it always changes as well like for me like the earliest influences I had in music were like Bowie and The Beatles” Nicco explained. He spoke a bit about current influences too, calling out “Frank Zappa, Led Zeppelin and Phil Collins, which I think can kind of show in some of the new stuff we've been writing actually.”
Linus cleared up that the Oreglo original sound drew influences more from jazz and dub and reggae, and those influences are certainly still there, however they’re moving in a different direction that's more heavy and less bound.
“But yeah, I grew up on The Beatles as well and the Small Faces, a lot of 60s groups. I never like really hardcore got into jazz. I love it but it's not my passion. And like a bit of psych rock like I had a really heavy Kevin Parker Tame Impala phase, I was studying that music. Now I'm kind of on the same wavelength with Zappa, Pat Metheny, Toninho Horta - that's my guy shout out to Toninho Horta.” (Shout out Toninho Horta).
Teigan lastly told me about his musical influences growing up. “I think for me my musical influences are quite all over. I've never really found a certain direction that sticks. So I guess growing up in a Jamaican - Caribbean household, there was a lot of reggae and lovers rock playing Sunday mornings.”
“But yeah now I guess it's a bit all over. A lot of UK jazz like Moses, Theon Cross, but at the same time I do love a lot of heavier stuff. I'm really really into Animals As Leaders right now. I've been on my djent phase like Periphery, rock like Alice In Chains, Pearl Jam, Deftones, everything literally everything, everything that’s heavy and fat and subby and bassy.”
“Obviously you guys have a certain jazz influence to your music. I was gonna ask, I feel like there's been a spike in UK jazz at the moment and obviously it's a very political genre, its history is very political, and I was gonna ask you how do you think this new take on jazz reshapes the identity of jazz for this generation?”
Nicco was well prepared to chat about this rather hefty topic with me. “ I mean to be completely honest I feel like” started Nicco, to which everyone urged “speak your truth.”
“Yeah like the thing is this whole thing of like UK jazz is such like a kind of just like a trend and even like people I know like who are like serious veterans in jazz in the UK… it's kind of like a marketing term that's being used to just sell this music. And also not trying to diss anyone, because I would never claim that the music we make is jazz. There's definitely a jazz influence, but if you listen to our music and then listen to Miles Davis and Art Blakey and Sonny Rollins, it's not the same at all. I feel like we shouldn't be calling music that isn't jazz jazz, because then it's kind of like, you're disrespecting the people who actually devote their whole lives to it.”
Nicco continued, saying “I don't know, music is such a broad thing. And so many people just pinhole something into one thing because it's slightly related to another thing”
Linus then noted about Ezra Collective, another UK band who have been very much solely placed into the genre of UK Jazz. “Because even Ezra Collective, I think they're great. We've seen them live a few times. They're amazing live. But I would class them more as Afrobeat. There's obviously a jazz influence, but that's their category in a lot of people's eyes. It's kind of a weak label…there's way more subtleties to it.”
We talked more about jazz as a label and how quickly people label things as jazz just because there’s a saxophone present, before I asked an easier question.
Photograph by Steven Spicer of Oreglo
“If you were stuck on a desert island, and you could only pick one album, one book, and then one luxury item open to interpretation of choice, what would you pick?”
Nicco answered first, “Probably like a really, really long album. Like, what's the longest album you know? Like the White Album, by The Beatles, that's like 2 hours long or something. Or like that Zappa album I've been listening to recently. That's really, that's long. Yeah, you want some nice variation though. I don't know!”
“The book would be like The Godfather. That's my favorite book. Luxury item? Don't know, like a massage chair or something.”
We laughed at Nicco, and Linus explained that Nicco notoriously loves a massage chair. Every airport or ferry or station Nicco gets a massage chair.
Teigan went next because Linus needed more time, and said “probably, in the mindset that I'm in now with the music I listen to, I’d probably take Parrhesia by Animals as Leaders, which is their heavier album.”
“Luxury item, urrrm…” Linus chimed in with “some massive vape, like some like endless vape” to which I added “that’s impossible, vapes are banned now.” And we agreed that the island is a pro vape zone.
Teigan decided finally on an E Mountain bike, to which Linus said that was dumb because the island is tiny.
“No, bro. It could be a big island! The size of the island was never specified.” Linus explained in his mind the island was the size of the ones from SpongeBob, like a heap of sand and one tree.
Teigan interrupted Linus and said that book wise, “I think just for nostalgia when I was a kid, every single book in the series of the Skulduggery Pleasant books. I'll take that, every single volume that you got.”
Linus finally was able to give an answer after a lot of thought. “My album is easy. It's Terra dos Pássaros, which is Land of the Birds by Toninho Horta. I could have seen him live with Nicco. But he took a girl instead.”
Nicco, for obvious reasons, interrupted “OK, cut that, cut that, cut that, cut that. We didn't even know who this guy was. We went to this gig, we went to this gig on a whim!”
“Now I've baited him out. OK, so yeah, so this album, Terra dos Pássaros, we’d both take it to the island. Book, I was going to say The Outsiders because that was like my favorite book I've ever read but maybe like some like cheat one where you've got like a collection so you just have loads you know when you get in big box. My luxury item, maybe like, yeah I was gonna say like some sick guitar with like some massive amp and because I'm by myself I can just play as loud as I want to.”
Nicco laughed saying “You'll play loud enough that you'll signal a boat.”
“Yeah I'll play, I'll say help on the guitar. Yeah because it’s Morse code or something. I don't know anyway that's my stupid answer there we go.”
“Last question. What’s your favourite song to play live?”
“We got a song called The Whirr which is really cool. That's fun to play live,” said Nicco. “That’s gonna come out soon you know. Hey check it out when it comes out. Stay tuned for our second EP yeah.”
Linus said “ like playing new stuff to be fair. Just just any new stuff like we wrote a new song yesterday or something we're gonna play it today. I'm looking forward to playing that tonight. You guys have to be there!”
Image courtesy of The Line of Best Fit
Thanks to the Oreglo boys for a lovely, and incredibly silly, chat! And big love to Tom Larsen-Wright and Alice Wilcox for helping with filming / photography.
Written and edited by Faith Hussain
Cover image courtesy of Spotify