‘Bouncy Lively Bangers’ The White Lakes frontman Matt Ellacott talk to Moosik Music

Indie Rock band The White Lakes had a chat with Moosik ahead of new single, ‘Summer (she won’t wait)’ released today, and talk about the new single, their future releases, their origins as a band and mental health in today’s society.

How did the White lakes form?

Me and Kyle (drums) met at music college in Oxford, then after college, we went to the same uni in Guildford, and met Fin (guitar) and Logan (bass).

Talk us through the writing process of Summer (she won’t wait).

This one was a little different to most of them, and was written a while back, two years ago when the band had a break. I wrote the song on my laptop, about reminiscing of going out with your mates to a field, when you had nothing to worry about, and life was perfect. This was less of a collaborative project and more of a solo thing.

Craziest stories from tour?

We had a really sad and terrible thing happened at a show, when we played the main stage at Witney festival, and as we finished, someone in the crowd had a heart attack. This was the strangest feeling after being so pumped, full of endorphins finishing the set to see this happen.

At Wychwood Festival, on the main stage, we hired a van to get to Lancaster to play a show, and after finishing interviews, we had to make a 4 hour trip in 3 and a half hours, and made it with one minute to spare, walking straight on stage.

You were asked to support Razorlight on their recent tour, sounding similar to them, who else would you compare yourselves to?

Summer is the last song of the indie music we’ve been doing, with Cigarette and All Night, and now are going into a more mature sound. Our new members and lockdown has helped us develop a new sound. Sort of like, U2, Catfish and the Bottlemen and The Amazons had a baby and… we’re… that… baby, I guess? It’s an atmospheric, bouncy fusion. I would compare all the older songs to a mix of Circa Waves and Viola Beach, although more like U2, amazons and catfish now.

Would you cite U2, Catfish and the Amazons as your influences?

To speak for myself, I can’t speak for the other boys, but those were the bands I listened to when we started out. I’ve only gotten into U2 recently, but we all listen to different music. Kyle listens to sadboy rap, I listen to those bands along with a lot of dance music, Logan listens to pop and indie, and Fin listens to prog and indie. We all have so many influences we all bring something different to the table in the studio.

Where did the name The White Lakes, come from?

The name came from when Me and Fin were having a few too many beers, and scrolled through YouTube for some weird stories, and we found one about Russian nuclear testing in this lake, they did it so much and it became super radioactive and killed off everything in the lake, and called it the ‘White Lake’ and we thought that’s pretty cool, lets add an ‘s’ onto the end, that’s the band name, simple.

What is your earliest memory of music?

When I was about 3 or 4, playing football in the front garden with my Dad and him playing, Queen or Eagle-Eye Cherry out of the window, and it was great, I loved it.

Speaking of Queen, if there was a biopic film like Bohemian Rhapsody about the White Lakes, who would play Matt Ellacott?

That’s such a good question! I think I’m gonna have to ask Fin for some help, …

(Fin from the background) ‘Peter Dinklage’

No, seriously, I don’t want to be a dwarf! I’m going to have to go with Leonardo Dicaprio, has to be, with the sort of shenanigans we get up to, has to be someone like him.

Where do you see yourselves in 5 years’ time?

Because of everything that’s going on, we’ve lost momentum, that’s why we’re releasing a song, to keep our fans engaged and not forget about us, after going on our first UK tour, everything was going really well, and in 2020 we signed our first management deal, but in 5 years’ time, I’d like to have released an album by then and to have finished the cycle, taken it on tour and be in the studio recording the next one. I don’t ever like saying what shows we’ll be playing, I don’t like to tempt fate.

Describe your music in 3 words.

Bouncy, lively bangers.

What is there to expect from future releases.

A more mature sound, we’d like to think that we’ve found our sound now, we’ve been working so hard this lockdown, writing and writing and writing, to the point where we have an album’s worth of music, that we could, if we got signed tomorrow, we could jump in the studio and be ready to go.

So, a more mature sound, with deeper meaning in a few of the songs, delving deeper into my head space into what I think the world is at the moment covering topics like mental health. Delving into more sensitive subjects that people don’t want to talk about, I personally feel that everyone in their life will suffer a little bit from some issue. I know some people are unable to go out and talk, to someone and hopefully through music, whether it’s mine or someone else’s, they can think ‘I’m not alone’ He might feel the same way, and hopefully we can unite people as a fan base, and as more and more people turn up to the shows, it will become a family more than anything else.

The White Lakes new single, ‘Summer (she won’t wait)’ is out now to stream across streaming platforms.

https://open.spotify.com/track/6f0IjVgqNDWzq34BKmDca2?si=jtGhDRRuT-2HMuo5K4q2QQ