Name: Crawlers
Members: Holly Minto (vocals, trumpet), Amy Woodall (lead guitar), Liv Kettle (bass guitar), Harry Breen (drums)
Interviewee: Holly Minto

Nationality: British
Current release: The new Crawlers mixtape Loud Without Noise is out now.

If you enjoyed this interview with Crawlers and would like to stay up to date with the band, visit their official website. They're also on Instagram, Facebook, and twitter.



Where does the impulse to create something come from for you? What role do often-quoted sources of inspiration like dreams, other forms of art, personal relationships, politics etc play?

It comes from everywhere, often in times of severe emotion I guess.

I think one thing I notice about inspiration is it can either be passive or active, like a combination of me as a watcher and me being involved. I often get inspired by TV shows, the news, and sometimes even reddit posts - whatever makes my mind ask questions.

For you to get started, do there need to be concrete ideas – or what some have called a 'visualisation' of the finished work? What does the balance between planning and chance look like for you?

Sometimes I’ll write a story or an overarching idea in my notes and go with it. Other times I follow myself on a journey with a melody that is catching me.

Is there a preparation phase for your process? Do you require your tools to be laid out in a particular way, for example, do you need to do 'research' or create 'early versions'?

Not really, I normally start with a piano, or a guitar and some chords and play around with it until I believe there’s some leverage.

I’ll then often send it to Amy or the rest of the band and work on altering it around before working on arrangement.

Do you have certain rituals to get you into the right mindset for creating? What role do certain foods or stimulants like coffee, lighting, scents, exercise or reading poetry play?

A big bottle of water, a silly coffee, and a scented candle and incense. The trio works wonders. Can’t beat the stuff.

What do you start with? How difficult is that first line of text, the first note?

I often walk around, and when anything captures inspiration, whether it is something somebody says, an emotion I feel or even something I just need to get down, I get it down. If anything revolves around this in an overarching story, I'll continue to add to it.

Then I sit down to write and begin to story tell with these first instances as a prompt. If that makes sense!

What makes lyrics good in your opinion? What are your own ambitions and challenges in this regard?

The perfect combination of personal expression and ambiguity. Something that you feel with you heart but without subtext could be thought of in alternative ways to a listener.

I never like being too on the nose either.
 
Often, while writing, new ideas and alternative roads will open themselves up, pulling and pushing the creator in a different direction. Does this happen to you, too, and how do you deal with it? What do you do with these ideas?

Always, I think especially as we are quite a genre bending band and all of us individually definitely sit in different genres that we favour more than others.

So often, a skeleton of a song I bring to the band may get pulled in a complete new direction. “Fuck Me” was originally a ballad and Amy opted for this grunge angry edge and we ran with it.

There are many descriptions of the creative state. How would you describe it for you personally? Is there an element of spirituality to what you do?

Yes, I need to be able to just feel on a page. It's why I'm often uncomfortable writing lyrics in a room with others because I just want to word vomit in a way …

Especially in the digital age, the writing and production process tends towards the infinite. What marks the end of the process? How do you finish a work?

I think a song is never fully written until after you press send on the mix to the mix engineer.

I fully believe arrangement and sound can shift a song into a new light.

Once a piece is finished, how important is it for you to let it lie and evaluate it later on? How much improvement and refinement do you personally allow until you're satisfied with a piece? What does this process look like in practise?

I walk around I sit and listen to my voice notes of songs I’ve written by myself and analyse them, see if there is anything that sticks out and needs refining or if there’s a possible new direction. I will even do it with every mix.

I think I’ve listened to all our songs at least 100 times until they come out lol.

What's your take on the role and importance of production, including mixing and mastering for you personally? How involved do you get in this?

I love sitting on a producers' shoulder and would love to get into production … I think discovering the role of a producer and the creativity they bring is so much fun, I think it's very underplayed.

Having a dynamic where it is a continuous creative conversation makes a studio session more interesting and a song better.

After finishing a piece or album and releasing something into the world, there can be a sense of emptiness. Can you relate to this – and how do you return to the state of creativity after experiencing it?

Listening to alternative artists who are very dissimilar to what I usually write helps. I’ve been listening to a lot of hip hop and hyper pop at the moment and loving it.

I think going to other side of timbre helps elevate your creativity for sure.