Music: The Champs

Hailing from the Isle Of Wight, the brothers talk albums, geography and creative direction with Jeff Hemmings …

The brothers Michael and David Champion hail from the Isle of Wight, born and raised (and still living) in the tiny village of Ventnor. “It definitely is a bit behind the times,” says younger brother David. “If you look at some of the seaside places like Shanklin or Sandown they look the same as they did 50 years ago when they were in their heyday, maybe in need of a lick of paint. But it’s quite charming in a way, it’s quite evocative. It’s a different pace to life, people are a bit out of it to be honest, cruising around not knowing what’s really going on…”

Last February the brothers released their debut album, Down Like Gold, an album that marked them out as something special, their hymnal voices fused to a folk-pop backdrop, bait like where Fleet Foxes meets Bombay Bicycle Club.
Last month, and just 364 days after their debut they have released the follow up, Vamala, which develops the template a little further, mixing up stripped back acoustic rootsy folk with some bigger production numbers, more poppy in feel. “We figured that these days people have such short attention spans, if you leave it too long, however good the last album was, people forget! We had the songs, so we thought there’s not much point waiting, or resting on our laurels.” And the name Vamala? “It’s a word that came to Mike. He thought it was a Croatian girls name, but found out it wasn’t, so he’s not really sure where it came from. It doesn’t seem to exist as a word!”

How did the brothers get it together, so to speak? “We have always grown up listening to music together. We were quite late taking up guitar, about 16 / 17, and then we were both in separate bands and we got to an age where we thought this is a bit stupid really, let’s do something together. Just makes sense. We grew up influenced by the same things and have the same tastes, so I think we were pulling in the same direction, creatively. We still listen to the same things…”
Living on the relatively isolated Isle of Wight, although somewhat isolated, does have the benefit of being the location where Bestival, the hugely popular festival, takes place – it certainly helped them realise that yes, they could make a go of it. “I think, sub-consciously, it’s been quite a big influence on us. It showed us an alternative, that you could do music as a job. Bands would come here and we’d say ‘that looks fun, let’s do that’! Otherwise it may never have occurred to us.”
Komedia, Sun 15 March, 8pm, £7