Harpenden People: The Lowlamps

This week, meet The Low Lamps, a Harpenden-based blues band, who tell us about their music and give us their take on Harpenden-life.

DB: Please introduce The Low Lamps.

TLL: We are 4 local lads (well mostly dads!) – Jon (drums) Tom (Bass, vocals) Ryan, (lead vocals, guitar) Martyn (guitar, vocals), hailing from the Southdown area of Harpenden.

DB: Tell us a bit about yourselves and your backgrounds:

TLL: Pretty diverse:  our professions range from media, film, advertising, building and music composition/production.  We are close friends now and its one of those bands where the chemistry is absolutely fizzing.  Often in bands it just doesn’t quite fit and those bands don’t last long!

DB: How was the band formed?

TLL: By accident really – Ryan and Martyn played together 20 years ago in a heavy metal band in the Harpenden Area.  As you do, we eventually parted ways (the leather trousers were just getting too tight!) and then bumped into each other a few years ago in Harpenden having both moved back to town from various adventures.

We had a jam one afternoon then accidently booked a gig when we were bragging in a local pub! Then we had to quickly find a drummer and bass player – Tom and Jon were already well known to us both being musical legends in their own right. So with the promise of fame and riches, the Lamps were formed.

DB: Which artists or music are you most influenced by?

TLL: Well, we’ve all been in loads of different bands so I think we are largely influenced by ourselves...Only joking, I think it’s slightly different for all of us but it ranges through pretty much all music genres you could think of (possibly except Gregorian Chant).  What holds this band together is definitely a big blues influence but also a dedication to driving a really infectious blues groove – for example Martyn always claims to have been initially inspired years ago by the incredible rhythms that John Lee Hooker created just with a guitar and snakeskin boot in the Blues Brothers film.  We play a lot of songs by the well known Mississippi blues men like John Lee Hooker, Muddy Waters and so on, and their magic, rhythmic formula definitely informs the stuff we write ourselves.

DB: Where you do you play?

TLL: Mainly local pubs around Harpenden, but the odd further away gig or wedding - we are pretty lazy really and have a pseudo environmental policy of “if we can’t walk to it, we aint playin’ it”.  This may cause problems as our careers progress but we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it!

DB: What’s your relationship with Harpenden?

TLL: Three of us are long term locals and one moved here when the kids came along.  We’ve all been all over the place at various points living in London, Canada, Austria and also playing in those countries.

DB: What do you like about the town?

TLL: Its size, friendliness, stuff going on and lack of certain chain shops found in other nearby towns.

DB: Harpenden is a great place to bring up the kids and has the advantage of being near London and so on.  We are pretty familiar in certain pubs where there is a fantastic local scene. Also for most of us who grew up here and returned back it feels like home, and I suspect for the band member not originally from here, it’s a similar feeling.

DB: Are there any dislikes or frustrations about Harpenden you’d like to share?

TLL: I’d say for the one band member, who is single, Harpenden isn’t a great hunting ground being very much a family town.  Additionally the countryside is nice and green but lacks a major natural feature like a mountain or massive lake – perhaps we could organise the good burghers to put up a huge wooden mountain in one of the fields nearby...that’d make us happy!

DB: Give us one top tip in Harpenden?

TLL: The Carpenters Arms pub in Southdown – but don’t all come at once – we like it peaceful.

DB: Outside of The Low Lamps, what do you do?

TLL: Dream about musical success and secretly watch the X Factor. Really its work, bringing up kids and the like.

DB: What does the future hold for the band?

TLL: Probably depends on how many people will read this!!

We have a target for this year of getting on Jools Holland’s show as performers, so let’s see what happens with the music we are writing ourselves.

The Low Lamps play at The Old **** Inn in Harpenden's High Street tomorrow night, Saturday 27th February. And you can also see them at the Harpenden Rocks event at The British Legion, Leyton Road on Saturday 13th March. See here for more details.

In the audience? Review The Low Lamps here on harpendenpeople.