With only one track released to date, The Lounge Society are still shrouded in mystery.
The quartet hail from Hebden Bridge in West Yorkshire – the same town that has produced The Orielles and WH Lung in recent years – and bunked off of their music exams to record debut single ‘Generation Game’ with Speedy Wunderground in South London earlier this year. The teenage outfit return to the area in Autumn to headline a show at Brixton’s Windmill, so what better time is there to become acquainted with the guys?
As first singles go, ‘Generation Game’ is quite a statement; how does it compare to other tracks in your set list?
We wanted to release Generation Game first not just because of the meaning behind it but also because of it’s raw energy – something which is pretty reflective of us as a band. Generation Game has been one of our heavy hitters for a while, but it’s fair to say it has competition from some of our other tracks. Our set is pretty varied, ranging from dark, funk punk to some all out, driving, krautrock influenced rhythms. We love it when we see a band live and there sound changes every song, so we definitely try and do the same thing with our set.
Your sound touches on a plethora of New Wave, Post-Punk and Twentieth Century Indie, but do you take influence from any sources that would surprise us?
Generation Game is probably one of our most ‘post-punky’ tracks. A lot of our songs are more ‘dancy’, very much influenced by disco and funk. We have a mutual love for a lot of late 70s/early 80s funk-punk bands/artists like Liquid Liquid and Lizzy Mercier Descloux. But it’s fair to say all of our tracks have a hint of post-punk in there somewhere.
You’re (hopefully) playing The Windmill in September – a spiritual home for Speedy Wunderground artists – which other UK venues feature on your bucket list?
The Windmill is a great venue, we’re really looking forward to playing there, whenever the gig is!
Local venues will always mean a lot to us because they gave us our first gigs. There are loads of venues that we’d like to play at some point but to be honest for us it’s just about being able to play as much as we can.
You had to get permission to skip your exams in order to record with Speedy Wunderground.. Did you ever take them and do you care about the grade??
Yeah, we took them a bit later which was a shock to the system. For us music has always come first so if we’re being honest it’s nye impossible to give one about exams and such. It’s not right that young people always get treated like exam fodder, so to have a real alternative was fucking liberating.
When can we hear more music?
We’ll have a new single out later on this year – hopefully October/November, dependent of COVID-19. But we’re really looking forward to releasing new music and putting out something a little bit different to what people might be expecting. We have no intention of releasing Generation Game part 2.
featured image credit: Piran Aston
