Tugboat Captain BiographyAs David Byrne famously said, “home, that’s where I want to be”, and this is a sentiment that’s shared by London-based purveyors of Baroque indie-pop, Tugboat Captain. Their new album, ‘Dog Tale’ is a record built around the multidimensional idea of home. On the one hand it finds chief lyricist, Sox, musing on the ephemeral nature of living in London in your mid-late twenties, and on the other it’s an album that was written and recorded in the band’s spiritual home and recording studio, Ctrl P ,which Sox and bassist Joshua Cobb run together.
Over the last few years Tugboat Captain have become one of the most unique propositions in London’s music scene, having built themselves up from humble beginnings back in 2017. “It started as a solo project” Sox explains. “Josh and I had played in bands together, and we were living together at the time, so I recruited him, my sister and some of my friends to play on this very lo-fi record I made, simply called ‘The Tugboat Captain’. After that we decided to put together some shows, and that's when it started to form as a proper band. The only remaining members from that period of time are me and Josh, right from that very first run of shows.”
In those early days the band’s influences were guitar driven and necessarily lo-fi. “Guided by Voices are big for me” Sox elaborates. “It's those big, powerful pop hooks, made with a “who gives a fuck” attitude. That definitely informed the first couple of records, and then I started listening to The Beatles, and now I like Barry Manilow. I just love great pop hooks and melodies.”
“The Divine Comedy is a big story song influence I think, and something we've always enjoyed a lot” Josh adds. “We've all been digging Big Thief, more in terms of their philosophy of capturing their live spirit on record than their specific sound.”
Over the years of playing and performing together the band’s sound has evolved, with those early, scratchy guitar records giving way to something more polyphonic and obtuse, melding varied instrumentation with tales of the band’s everyday life. At some point the phrase “baroque pop” was used, and it seems to have stuck.
“We were making these super homemade records, but because of having this big family feel of all these people we knew stopping by and adding new parts, we used to end up having this kind of ragtag orchestra” Josh adds. “And as our skills increased as musicians, suddenly we're exploring a bit more of a varied sound.”
This expansion of the band’s instrumental skills has come hand-in-hand with Sox and Josh’s skills as producers/engineers, culminating in the pair opening Ctrl P, the south London studio that helped birth the band’s latest album, ‘Dog Tale’.
While there were a couple of ideas already floating around, ‘Dog Tale’ really came together in the studio, with the band giving themselves a week to write and record the whole thing. As potentially impossible as this might sound, it’s actually a perfect example of the band’s, and by extension the studio’s ethos of creating music in an atmosphere of spontaneity and creativity.
“The fact that we can honestly say to people that we wrote and recorded an album in a week is really helpful for us as producers to be like, that's how we want to work on music. I don't want to work on something until I've gone insane from listening to it too many times. To us, novelty and excitement and freshness are very important.” Josh explains.
“With the studio we have a very organic ethos, and that's been such a huge part of making this record. It’s just working fast, making real music, not stressing about the little technical mistakes you may be making. The mistake is probably good!” adds Sox.
Beyond the recording process, the album also has its genesis in Sox trying to find some stability living in a city where things can be notoriously unstable, particularly as a creative.
“I feel like lyrically, I've been honing in on this domestic story for a long time” he says. “I made a solo record last year which very much had the same sort of vibe. I've been trying to focus on this feeling of what it’s like to be me. What does the idea of home mean to me and everyone else in this sort of quite ephemeral way that we live in London where we're constantly moving house. Nothing is very physical or stable anymore, but I do have my little basement flat and I have Rufus, and that makes sense.”
Rufus, in case you were wondering, is Sox’s beloved pet dog who has his own song on the record (though not as a performer sadly), and this is one of the many allusions to animals you will find on the album. There is also ‘Rats In the Basement’, sadly very literal, and ‘Pest Control’, which is slightly more metaphorical, dealing with the inequality of life in 21st century Britain.
The title track draws its name from the canine-themed cocktails on sale at London’s Cavendish Arms, with the song functioning as an ode to the venue where Sox previously worked, and which has been a huge influence on the band’s development.
With a new album complete, the road beckons. Touring and playing live has been vitally important to the group since Sox and Josh first pulled together a line up for those debut shows, and the current line-up, consisting of Sox (vocals, guitar), Josh (bass, trombone) Buddy Caderni (Keys & Bassoon), Georgia Mancey (Drums & Percussion), Sophia Bartlett (Violin & Keys) and Dougal James (Keys & Bass), has such instrumental versatility as to make the live shows something truly special.
“I think the live experience for us is just about getting a really good show. we are lucky enough to get to tour in Europe, and that is just a hoot” Sox enthuses. “I'm excited to see how this music translates into other environments, especially because it's so wordy. I'm very intrigued by taking this somewhere else. I'm also just excited to go on a three-week tour of small Italian towns with these guys who are my best friends in the world”
From their formation, Tugboat Captain are a band that have consistently morphed and grown. From those scrappy bedroom recordings, to the multi-instrumental performers they are today, they have remained true to their initial desire to simply make the music they want to make, outside of the world of passing fads and AI generated playlists. With ‘Dog Tale’ they have taken yet another great leap forward, and whatever comes next is bound to be just as impressive.
Press:
"A bombastic exploration of what it means to find your place in this world" - Secret Meeting
"Kitchen sink manoeuvres on the Starship Enterprise" - So Young
"the band's gentle ennui seems perfect" - CLASH
"They have transcended to a realm of indie-pop where they make their own rules." - RIOT Mag
"a re-imagination of modern DIY-pop as something gloriously hi-fi" - For The Rabbits
“Each characteristic beautifully thought-out and rich with feeling” - GoldFlakePaint
“Curiously Wonderful” – God Is In The TV
“The DIY pop group have been making waves recently and long may it continue” – Yack Magazine
“Grin-inducing DIY Pop. Having amassed quite an impressive following in the DIY community and yonder, it’s not hard to see that Tugboat Captain are doing something very engaging” – Fresh On The Net
“There aren’t many acts that can capture the equal sense of hopefulness and melancholy that embodies the desire for modern day romance quite like Tugboat Captain” – Wax Music
“An unstoppable imaginative force of indie music created on its own terms” – Bitter Sweet Symphonies
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Little Buildings, Little Buildings, Newcastle Upon Tyne, EN, United Kingdom
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