Avenue 68 - On Our Radar Q&A: "There’s so much chemistry – and we all leave space for each other to try things"

How did Avenue 68 first come together?

Lauren: We all met while studying in BIMM, except for our keys players Kilian, who joined later. The three of us were playing together for first-year assessments, really, and then Dev joined in second year. At first it was just us playing my songs, but after a while, we realised we have good chemistry and maybe we should be a band. About a year ago, we decided to make it official.

You recently released ‘Saffron’ and you have another single ‘Not That Kinda Girl’ coming out. Can you talk about your songwriting process?

Lauren: At first, when I sort of forced the others to play with me, I’d write a song and they’d make it sound 10 times better. But over time, it became more natural – we’d just jam and things would come out of that. That’s actually my favourite way to write now, because there’s so much chemistry and we all leave space for each other to try things. Everyone has little moments where they do something cool and we all pick up on it.

Cal: Yeah, ‘Not That Kind of Girl’ came out of a jam session, and ‘Saffron’ too, though that one actually started from Lauren reading it off a restaurant menu! We were messing around in the green room at our first gig, singing ‘Saffron’ over and over and adding lines until it became a song.

Your sound feels really fresh and different – how did you land on it?

Lauren: It kind of came from one rehearsal where we put everything down and said: what do we all really love? And we all said D’Angelo. So we tried writing something in that vein and it was this euphoric experience. We floated for about an hour playing three chords. It really set the tone for what we wanted to do as a band.

You recently played the Whelan’s main stage. How was that?

Lauren: It was great fun! It was our first time playing the main stage and it was such a great opportunity. I forgot my melodica though, so mid-set I sent someone to look for it – but it never showed up! The moment that really hit for me though was Forbidden Fruit, playing our first festival. Even though it wasn’t a huge crowd, it felt like, ‘Oh wow, people are actually here for us.’ Even Dev, who is the cynic in the group, was impressed after that one!

‘Not That Kinda Girl’ is out now.