INTERVIEW: Earth Farm

In 2022 Earth Farm released their debut EP – Even Cicadas Get The Blues. It was an anxious and bustling release that showed eager songwriting and dynamic indie rock potential from the Newcastle alt. rockers.

Striking while the iron was hot, the group rushed to the studio to follow up the project with another release, and this month we will finally see the results. With band members leaving, falling out of love with songs and tenaciously trying to find the perfect sound, songwriter Harry and his band of long-term friends have been meticulously preparing and reworking the tracks until they are sharpened, chiselled and primed for release.

With Blank Studios’ John Martindale at the helm of the record’s production, there is a vibrancy to each track that shoots out from beginning to end, overflowing with colour and emotion. “Many of these songs have sat with us for years, many share the skeletons of other tracks we had written and fallen out with; it’s been a lot of restless editing and finding the right mix for it all,” confesses Earth Farm’s frontman.

The album contains waves of anxiety, with personal favourite (In Heaven) When You’re Dead frantically dealing with issues of mortality and life. “In Heaven… was one of the earliest songs we had written, it’s seen a few iterations. I’m really proud of it, but I was always nervously changing the tempo, adding a moment here or taking away a moment there.” This tenacious fiddling seems true to form across the album as Harry divulges that he has a tendency to scrutinise every momentof the songwriting process. “There is always the juncture where I hone into a detail, frantically re-listening and editing. That’s usually when the band go for lunch or get the phones out, as I’ll be drilling in fanatically.”

You can hear the effort, heartache and excitement pumped into each track; there’s a striving force pushing the tracks forward and a lust for life deep within the panic and existentialism of the lyrics. “Iused to want to be clever or quirky with every line, and when I listen to the writers I love, sometimes just a little moment of real life is so much more important.”

Harking back to the 90s, Harry sights the alternative movement as a key influence. Having played bass for years and DJ’d locally, it wasn’t until lockdown that he picked up a six-string guitar and forced an education into himself. As his record collection expanded to include Pavement, Pixies and Modest Mouse, those influences invariably bled into what was to become Earth Farm.While Shields County Fair may lean towards the pop-punk genre in its more euphoric moments, the roots of that 90s cynicism and guitar heavy angst is ever present. “If I were to write the album now, I don’t know which songs would make the cut, as they’re not indicative of me now. It was a darker place, but the final song on the album is the only song written after I met my partner. The tenderness in the songwriting started there, right on the tail end – so who knows what direction we take things in next.”

The song in question is Some Sort Of Blue, which beautifully serves as a tonic to the nervous, highstakes emotions of the previous tracks, but also as a teaser of what the future may hold for Earth Farm. Rounding out the album at a euphoric crescendo is a glistening piano passage which cuts through the mix, its presence is brief but necessary. It nods towards hopeful tomorrows, new sunrises and reasons, despite it all, to keep pushing forward.

Earth Farm release Shields County Fair on 22nd August.