“A near-epic fusion of old and new that happily echoes Friendly Fires, Fenech Soler and Two Door Cinema Club.” So went a recent appraisal of Hot For 2013 newcomers Hawklion in the pages of this very magazine.

“It’s a fair reading,” says singer Alec Hughes. “The reason we stopped doing rock and started the new band was to get that kind of big epic pop sound.”
Their debut Gold & Silver EP found them going on a retro-funk trip, with memorable results.
“We’re really into Foals, and we were listening to loads of Duran Duran and A Flock Of Seagulls. Metronomy was really big for us as well.”
You can often tell what a band sounds like from their name. Not in this case.
“That’s exactly why we called ourselves Hawklion. It’s kind of preposterous. What the fuck should Hawklion sound like? It could be anything. And that gave us the freedom to listen to Duran Duran and be like, ‘Yeah, let’s do something big and beautiful like that.’”
Alec, Graham and Chris formed Hawklion out of the ashes of their previous band The Looks.
“I was finding it very difficult to write songs over heavy guitar,” Alec admits. “We were really guitar-driven. And fast, as in 160bpm. It was almost like gabba music. We were at a dead-end creatively.”
So The Looks were no more, and Hawklion was born.
“It was just a mental idea to cut free from The Looks and see what we came up with after that,” Alec says. “We’re hoping to have another EP out in April. It depends how quickly we can get the pre-production done. We’re starting this week actually. We’ve probably got six or seven songs in the pot. They’re only at the demo stage but are pretty awesome.”
Villagers’ James Byrne laid down the drums on the Gold & Silver EP.
“He was sensational. He just came in and did it straight away. It was humbling. He’s a real pro. It made us realise you have to have a drummer. We’ve got a lad coming in to play live. He’s seriously good. The plan is to do five or six dates around the country, a couple of UK gigs, then hopefully hit the festivals.”