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Artist Interviews
Q&A: Paper Aeroplanes
By CMU Editorial | Published on Thursday 7 April 2011
Hailing from westernmost Wales, boy-girl folk duo Richard Llewellyn and Sarah Howells began playing together as acoustic pop pairing Halflight in 2003, rechristening themselves as Paper Aeroplanes for the release of last year’s debut LP ‘The Day We Ran Into The Sea’.
Despite garnering quietly significant acclaim in the album’s wake, the band soon grew tired of being courted by major labels, taking a stolidly independent approach instead for their latest release ‘We Are Ghosts’. Recorded entirely in Richard’s flat, the seven-track collection of wounded folk gems emerged earlier this week. Not content with sticking it to “the man” with their indie release, the band have also teamed up with various independent cafés nationwide, and are giving away a limited batch of four-track EPs to café clientele.
In eager anticipation of a show tomorrow evening at Cardiff’s Clwb Ifor Bach, the duo obliged us with some thoughts on our Same Six Questions.
Q1 How did you start out making music?
Sarah: I started making music and writing songs at twelve when I realised I was too old to play with dolls and that the meticulously managed ‘orphanage’ I’d set up with my best friend in the spare bedroom had to be shut down. The local newspaper we tried to start seemed a bit unrealistic, so we decided that trying to be Pop Stars seemed a more obtainable goal.
Rich: My fondest memory of childhood is hearing my mother playing piano in the front room. I had lessons from the age of eight but wasn’t very committed. Then I found a battered acoustic guitar in the attic at the age of fourteen and I haven’t put it down since.
Q2 What inspired your latest album?
Sarah: The latest album for me was inspired by an elaborate crush and over analysing the inner workings of my brain. Musically by the desire to make it all ourselves without having to rely on anyone else.
Rich: We’d allowed a lot of different people to weigh in with advice and musical input when we were putting together our debut album, which kinda diluted the feeling of achievement and satisfaction. This time it was all created in my (tiny) spare room by just the two of us.
Q3 What process do you go through in creating a track?
Generally we start with some chords or a guitar pattern, and a melody then grows out of that. We always play each other our ideas and pull them around a bit if we feel we can improve on what we have. Sarah writes most of the lyrics but not all of them. ‘Safe Hands’ started with a title and a few lines that Rich came up with, and then turned it into something that meant something to Sarah at the time. On this mini album, the recordings were built up around our slightly shonky acoustic guitar playing, so hopefully you can still hear the essence of the songs as we wrote them.
Q4 Which artists influence your work?
I suppose a lot of people influence us without us really noticing. We both listen to a lot of Gillian Welch, Laura Veirs, The National, Feist, Fleetwood Mac, Maria Taylor…
Q5 What would you say to someone experiencing your music for the first time?
I wouldn’t say much. The music is all you need to make your mind up. I’d possibly want them to know that we write honest songs from real experiences. And that we’re not afraid of a good tune.
Q6 What are your ambitions for your latest album, and for the future?
We just want to reach as many like-minded people as possible and continue to grow and tour and write songs.
MORE>> www.paperaeroplanesmusic.com
