Interview with Angela Muir
Can you tell us about the formation of The Echo and The Always? Four out of five of us used to be in Sleepy Panda Club, which is a band that had run its course over a year ago. John and I met in uni, when Panda was first forming, and then we met Laura when we saw her perform with Shadow Theory and convinced her to front the band. Earlier this year Dean – the other half of Shadow Theory came on board as the bassist. In June the original Panda drummer left to pursue other things, and that’s when Matt joined us. He was working on a solo project remixing Jingle Cats in his parent’s garage, but we convinced him to take a bit of a break and join the band. That’s the point when it felt right to change the name from Sleepy Panda Club. I am the only original member left from that band, and for a long time now it hasn’t felt right wearing that name – that name was chosen by someone else, and represents a sound and an identity that didn’t really resonate with any of us. Once we settled into this line up, and recorded these most recent tracks we sat down together and came up with a name that we were all happy with.
How did you get to the band name The Echo and The Always and what does this name mean to you? It took us several months of discussion before we settled on the name. We considered hundreds of different names, and we were usually faced with a situation where one or two people would absolutely love a name, and someone else really wasn’t keen. We chose the name the day we finished recording ‘For the Ground’. We locked ourselves away in a pub on a sunny Sunday afternoon, refusing to re-emerge until we had a new name. We’re very democratic people, so it was a very civilized and logical process. The name captures an idea that when you create a sound and put it out there it lives on forever, and not just in a fluffy metaphysic way, but quite literally. You put a song online and it can spread all over the place finding new life in loads of different ways. Plus, the name has a fancy ring to it.