With a touch of Mark E. Smith eccentricity, Electricity in Our Homes construct a wall of sound like experienced builders lugging brick after brick in the hot sun, bum crack peaking over worn in Levis and sweat seeping down the brow. Their bit of the sonic rough hacks up spiky guitars and throbbing drums whilst their production values gives the whole thing a polished rolling momentum and a dark “edge”. Can their big sound fill a big stage? Paul Linger (drums/vocals): “We get a bit nervous on a big stage like that. We worry about the sound more than anything. Sometimes we’ll just cower at the back next to the drums – it’s better that way. We’re quite a still band”. (No moving? Despite those catchy beats?) “It’s different when your playing. Maybe I’d put the records on at home and have a little boogie? I think we should just play massive rock festivals from now on, I mean we’ve been turning them down for such a long time…”
Though their music sparks 21st-century electricity, their Shareholders EP was made on a limited run of vinyl and tape, both of which quickly vanished. “We found it exciting,” says Paul. “Our whole ambition was to release a record and to have people think about it as a collectable thing. We only made 200. If we’d made 500 we’d probably still have some now. We made this cassette thing right at the start”.
Hieronymus Bosch features heavily within the artwork. “Not sure about his background or anything but I acquired a book of his years ago. We couldn’t decide on one so we have 16 pictures included there.” The dissonance that simmers between the hectic Bosch imagery and the strain of guitar string also clashes against the opulent monochrome of Victorian English Gentleman's Club in their video. (The split-screen emphasising the disharmony).
Electricity in Our Homes are positive people. Paul is positive about gardening. He is positive about eating meats (“I was a vegetarian for fifteen years. I only eat meat now. It’s really healthy; you can always get hold of meat. I’m like a lion.”) He's also proud of his band's work: “Charlie [Boyer (guitar/vocals)] has this little machine which plays things at half time and everything sounds really good!”
Lookout for Electricity in Our Home's debut album in November. “We're still writing; it took us three years to figure out what we wanted to do and now we have what we want the songs are just flowing. Some of the tracks we only play for a few gigs and then they go. We like the change things otherwise it gets boring, doesn’t it!”
