Durham’s music scene is on the rise, with many talented music groups being born at its university campus. One of those groups is indie outfit ivies, who are gearing up for the release of their debut EP which is out in a few day’s time!
I spoke to rhythm guitarist, vocalist and songwriter Cole who’s got a massive collection of baseball hats, and bass player Kiko who, besides being in the band, also works in a cat café. The two told me about what they’ve achieved so far, the Durham music scene, and their big plans for the future.
Hi! It’s nice to meet you both, aside from being in a band, do you work or are you still in uni?
Kiko: Most of the band is still in uni, Cole is about to finish, pretty soon.
Cole: Yeah, Alice and I have our big dissertations due on Thursday, I just handed mine in this morning, although it still hasn’t really settled in. Some of the other band members still have another year to go.
Do you all study the same subject or are you on different courses?
Cole: No, we all study different subjects actually. I study history, our singer Alice studies geography, and our drummer Ed studies physics.
Kiko: I studied music, I graduated in January.
Cole: Our other guitarist Alfie studies biology.
What’s the plan after having graduated?
Kiko: I really enjoy playing with the band, which we started just over a year ago, so I stuck around in Durham. Bit of work, a bit of band stuff, see where things go.
What are the plans for the band?
Cole: It’s been way better then we could’ve expected. We started out just playing any gigs that we could get, we played a lot of charity and university events. We then played a Battle of the Band in February 2023 and won that, we got some studio time and recorded our first song. We ended up spending the summer working on and mixing that. We released the song which ended up doing really well, played some gigs around the north east, we released a second single and on Friday we are releasing our EP.
What do you hope the EP will achieve?
Kiko: More of what we’ve had so far, we got played on BBC Introducing and that got us on BBC Radio 1, same for our second single, so if that could happen again that would be great. And of course reaching more people that actually like our music.
Most of the band members are actually from the south, and Cole is all the way from Canada. How did you decide on the north east and how have you found it?
Kiko: Durham Uni was one of the top unis for music, and I very much like the size of Durham as I’m from a small town, so I didn’t want to go to a big city. I was lucky that the music scene is quite dense in Durham.
Cole: I kind of applied to some UK schools on a whim, didn’t think I’d get in, a lot of them ended up in the north. I did think there would be quite a bit of similarities between the north and Canada. I loved it when I came here, it’s a very welcome area and everyone is so supportive of each other. I’m hoping to stay in the UK, I’m currently applying for jobs here.
Where would you go in Durham for music or events?
Cole: We’re playing on Thursday at a bar called The Angel which often has live music, it’s a cool rock venue. The whole city of Durham isn’t that big.
Kiko: There’s not many proper music venues but there’s a lot of pubs such as The Angel and The Holy Grail that host music nights.
Cole: There’s a club that frequently hosts live music on a Saturday.
Kiko: There’s a lot more university bands that play more original stuff and release music.
Cole: The university gives bands a lot of opportunity to perform and grow as a band.
In what capacity do you work with Canary Records and how did you get in contact with them?
Kiko: They approached us from the Battle of the Bands. They offered help, we gradually started getting more support from them, worked with them on a few gigs, and now we work quite closely with them on our releases and promoting them. They’re really nice guys and good for advice, they’ve got more knowledge about the music scene and general music industry stuff.
Where would ivies have played or be confirmed to play within the next two years?
Kiko: We always joke about maybe next year we could play the Superbowl. We would love to do our own tour.
Cole: I’d love to have a following in different cities, people that want to come out and see us play.
Kiko: Big festivals would be very cool to play, like Glastonbury.
Cole: I want to do a Tiny Desk Session.
Kiko: Sofar Sounds would be cool too! Alice was saying it’d be cool to do a hometown tour, do a show in the places we’re all from.
So I guess we’ll see ivies at the Emerging Stage of Glastonbury next year?! Until then, you can catch them online and live at the dates below!
25-04 The Angel, Durham
26-04 EP-release, online
08-05 Claypath Deli, Durham
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