A gentle stop

“I walked into a room,” remembers Olly Knights slowly, squinting at his best mate. “There was a room full of young girls and boys staring at me, and I got introduced ’cos I was the new boy in the class. And I saw Gale nestled between a bunch of girls,” he sniggers, “…and eh… I decided that might be a good place to sit.”

Gale Paridjanian – the best mate, the other, quieter half of Turin Brakes, and, apparently, an ex-high-babies Lothario – sniggers too.

Ever since this first and glamourous meeting at the age of nine, Olly Knights and Gale Paridjanian have been writing music: folky, humble and wander-lusty, with Olly’s high, sighing, seething vibrato tugging insistently, yearningly ahead like an escaped balloon, Gale’s steadying guitar and country-blues Paris, Texas slide providing ballast beneath. After finally starting to play live about a year ago to rave reviews (“God, we were shitting ourselves,” cringes Gale), they’re now on ridiculously credible label Source.

Much has been made of the pair’s long acquaintance – to their great despair. Enquiries about their working relationship are met with dripping, livid, viscous sarcasm.

“We’re loving,”’ supplies Gale nearly inaudibly – but loudly enough for us to hear the irony.

“Very, very loving,” says Olly, poker-faced, “intensely loving. Lots of kind of... flea-finding, and stuff that monkeys do. We shout and scream,” he says thickly, “and hug and kiss.” Then, simmering down, he says: “‘It’s hard. Being friends and doing this is not easy. It’s hard.”

If you haven’t heard them yet, or read the reams of positive press, you may know them anyway: they were the quiet ones in the Olympia, just before Stereophonics. What has touring Europe with the intrepid-browed Welsh rock demigods been like?

“Really, really good,” Olly enthuses. “At first, some of us were a little bit cynical about the whole thing...”

Gale stifles a guffaw.

“…A ‘rock’n’roll band’, you know?” Olly carries on. “It was all a bit like... (makes horrified what-are-we-getting-ourselves-into face). But the shows have been absolutely amazing,”’ Olly says, genuinely. “We love the Stereophonics now!” Yikes, steady on there...

Is there a lot of pressure that comes with being so highly rated, so quickly?

“Not really,” says Ollie. “‘I mean, I’ve always felt pressure, from the very beginning. But I haven’t felt more because we’ve had some good reviews. It helps to get good reviews. I don’t care if that’s a silly thing to say, it does.”

Gale, when Olly said he’s always felt pressure, from the very start, you nodded?

“Oh, I was just laughing,” says Gale. “I thought that Olly meant from the day he was born.”

Olly bursts out laughing. Then he says: “I kind of did mean that.”

Gale nods his head. “That’s what I thought.”

The Optimist LP is out now on Source