Interview: The Most Ugly Child

Nottingham Americana act The Most Ugly Child are launching their brand new EP this weekend and are doing so with a great looking launch night at Vintage Warehouse. NottinghamLIVE spoke to the band ahead of the big launch.

Hi guys, how are things?

Great thanks! Pretty busy with one thing and another but the wheels haven’t fallen off yet so we’re still rolling.

This Friday sees the launch of your new EP, you guys must be feeling really excited?

We’re excited, nervous, relieved and overwhelmed. It feels like it’s been such a long time since we started the whole thing that we just can’t wait to get to the point that signifies the end of it. We’re just about peeking over the top now and ready for the call to jump over! We can’t wait for people to hear it and for a party with all our nearest and dearest, friends new and old.

Can you tell us a bit about the gig and what you have lined up?

In terms of bands we wanted people on that we really love, a lot of launch nights look pretty random, as if the headline act has had no input in it whatsoever. For us, it’s the one night we get to do what we want, so naturally, the first choice was our good buddy Ryan Thomas. Matt and Max occasionally play with him, Dan produced and recorded his EP and we’ve all been huge fans since we first heard him. He’s one of the best in Nottingham and nothing about what he does is fake. We came across a duo a while back by the name of The Hog-Renderers, A lovely lady called Karen and a familiar face on the ‘authentic underground’ Nottingham music scene, Gordon (also in Wholesome Fish). They play only for them, for nobody else, to escape their daily grind. That’s what we do.Then we’ve got a fine trio of unbelievable musicianship. Our Nicky, who plays with us too, on fiddle, Russ on guitar and vocals and Lucy on double bass. They roll up, plug-in and knock you clean through the wall behind you. If you look hard enough, the music we play is everywhere, it’s not in huge venues or in hipster Nottingham bars, it’s in proper pubs and round the dinner table. Everything else is secondary really, we want a night where people come and listen to us musicians doing the thing we know well.

With this Friday being American Independence Day we guess you’re going all out to present a US style party?

For sure. I wouldn’t say we love America but we certainly love the American people, the culture and of course, the music they developed.

The Vintage Warehouse is starting to establish itself as a unique and exciting venue for events, it must exciting to be playing somewhere a bit different to the usual pub style venues?

Definitely. I think we wanted to make the whole thing feel like a special night. Something that will only happen once, in a place where we might not ever play again. We wanted it to be people that came specifically for this, not just punters wandering in off the streets. The fact that we pretty much have a blank canvas to mess about with is also a bonus. The guys at Vintage Warehouse have been nothing but helpful and accommodating to us.

The new EP is officially released next Monday, can you tell us a bit about what we can expect from this new release?

Plenty of sad songs! Lots of instruments. A slightly bigger sound than we have previously had live, although now we have the addition of Jim Widdop on dobro and pedal steel guitar so it’s getting a little closer. I like the fact that we can add things to songs on recordings to enhance them. There is a point where it becomes too much, which, hopefully is not the case on this. But for the most part a recording is something that should be enjoyed over and over again and in order for this to work it needs to be interesting. I love recordings of a man and a guitar and they can make you shiver with the beauty of them. But that’s not us and for now this is.

How long did the whole EP take to put together?

The recording and mixing of it took about 3 months I think. It was tough because we were doing everything in a slightly disjointed way, all between loads of gigging last year, job commitments and other recording work I was doing with various different people. We worked on the songs a lot, did the drums and bass together and then layered everything else on top of that. It never felt like a chore or that we were in any kind of rush. We made it when we wanted and how we wanted and we’re pretty proud of it.

This is your first release since signing with Nottingham label Wire & Wool, what difference has having their support behind you made to the whole process?

It’s hard to tell really! The sad fact is that it’s tough getting recognised in the music industry and just because you’re with a label doesn’t mean people are going to read your emails or listen to your music. The guys at wire and wool are great and we’ve known them since we started. They’ve taught us a lot of things about how this all works. We started this thing on our own and from the outset, to do it properly, it seemed a massive undertaking. They took a weight off our shoulders and freed us up to do the things we were better at.

Obviously all focus is on Friday night and performing a great gig but beyond that what are the plans for the band?

Working up to the album next! Got to do a lot more writing and a lot more gigging before then. We’re planning on going a bit farther afield, unfortunately, playing a bit less in Nottingham.

When you’re not up on stage how do you like to relax and spend your time?

None of it is very rock and roll really. I can give you a few buzz words. WW2 stuff, leather craft, violin making, sleep. That pretty much sums it up. We don’t get a lot of spare time and generally when we do it’s really nice to just do nothing. I’ll leave it up to you to guess who does what!

The Nottingham music scene is really buzzing at the moment, how does it feel to be a part of such a vibrant scene?

It’s a really cool scene and it feels like a lot of things are happening for different people. I do though feel that we aren’t really a huge part of it! We’re more on the fringes! It comes with the territory of being in a band like ours. We do have a really lovely set of fans and there are a huge amount of people in the Nottingham scene that we really admire.

In Nottingham it feels like the music scene is a real community affair with everyone, from bands to promoters to media, working together to help each other, how important do you think that has been to the uplift in the local scene?

It’s the only thing that keeps it all going really. It’d be pretty sad to be in a scene without people showing up to each others gigs and doing favours for each other.

Who are your favourite other Nottingham acts out there at the moment and are there any hidden gems we should be keeping an eye out for?

Obviously Ryan Thomas, Gallery 47 and Georgie Rose should already have their names in lights! We do like hidden gems to be honest. Check out The Old Nick Trading Company, The Last Pedestrians and Luke Whittemore.

Finally anything else you’d like to say to the NottinghamLIVE readers? 

Thanks for the support over the last couple of years, for listening, coming to gigs and waiting patiently for the EP to come out! Hope you enjoy it. Cheers

Interview by Darren Patterson

The Most Ugly Child ‘A Wicked Wind Blows’ EP Launch at Vintage Warehouse this Friday, 4 July, for more information click here