This Dawdle Coil

You’re probably wondering and the answer is ‘no’. Rebecca Taylor and Charles Watson, the moochy songwriting partnership behind Slow Club, are a strictly platonic affair. They are not a couple – never have been, never will be.

“We’re really good friends but, when not in the studio or on tour, we don’t see that much of one another,” says Taylor, her flinty Yorkshire accent a surprise if you know her only from her soaring singing voice. “We’re fairly private people - we don’t hang out.”
As it happens Taylor is single right now. The Sheffield native went through a nasty break-up shortly before Slow Club recorded their new album, Complete Surrender. She didn’t want to address the split in her music: in fact, it was the very last thing she intended. But it happened anyway.
“It’s funny – a horrible break up can make for very good songs. It was not something I was in any way interested in singing about. Pretty quickly I realised it was ALL I had to sing about.”
She has been taken aback at how deep a connection the album has struck with people going through emotional trauma of their own.
“It seems a lot of people are getting great comfort from the record,” she say. “That’s what I like about music: you listen to a song and you feel you’re taking the same journey as the person singing. People are responding in a big way. Our fan base is very loyal.”
Complete Surrender looks set to be Slow Club’s biggest hit, the LP that raises the duo to a new threshold of popularity. From a period of angst and soul-searching has come the biggest triumph of Taylor’s career. The irony is not lost on Taylor.
“It was something that was ruining my life: now it’s making my life brilliant,” she says. “It’s weird. This record is getting us more press coverage than we’ve ever got before, people have really bought into it. It feels like the beginning for us in many ways.”
That may have something to do with the group’s newly expansive sound. Where previous records were unabashedly in the folk milieu, on the new LP Taylor and Watson open themselves to wider influences: soul, r’n b, old-school torch songs. One cheeky reviewer even suggested they were ‘trying to do an Amy Winehouse’, whatever that means.
“I can’t think of a band out there that doesn’t want to appeal to more people,” says Taylor. “It was never a calculated thing for us. We didn’t want to ‘go pop’ or anything. We toured our last album an awful lot. We knew the same would be happening with this one, that we would be playing the new songs a lot. So they had to be interesting to us. I also wanted to make something that was truly beautiful. It wasn’t calculated.”
Slow Club may be relatively obscure (for the moment at least). However they have at least one super-famous fan, Harry Potter star Daniel Radcliffe. The former bespectacled wizard isn’t just a causal admirer either - he’s a hardcore devotee. So much so that when a UK magazine offered the opportunity to interview whoever he wanted, Taylor and Watson were top of his list.
“We’re always asked about it – always” laughs Watson. “Has it helped us? I’m not sure. Maybe it made some people aware of us. I don’t think there was a big difference afterwards in terms of interest. But he really likes the band. That’s why he got in contact. We became friends out of that.”

Complete Surrender is out now.