Q+A with White Flowers
White Flowers talk about the ‘energy of tragic euphoria’ in their latest single “Tear” and reflect on their creative process in this blank mood Q+A.
You’ve explained that “Tear” channels the ‘energy of tragic euphoria’. Other artists that I’ve talked to for blank mood have also mentioned creating music that reflects the experience of feeling and processing opposing or conflicting emotions, each with their own technique to convey that in a song or across an album. How do you approach this creatively? Do you have any sort of process or result that is characteristic of the White Flowers sound and style?
For us, making music is a constant process. We treat recording like diary entries, putting ideas down constantly and letting them evolve organically. Some ideas we record and then forget about for years before coming back to them. “Tear” was one of those ideas that we’ve revisited many times over the last few years. As we change and our circumstances change, every time we come back to an idea we’re altering it from a completely different perspective, so the concept of conflicting emotions and moods is pretty much inevitable in all our songs. The struggle is trying to get the balance right and shaping the conflict into something coherent.
Oh… and is it ‘tear’ as in drop or ‘tear’ as in torn?
We say it as Tear as in teardrop - but we like the way it can be read both ways.
Not that ‘tragic euphoria” or conflicting emotions or memories are new, but do you feel there is anything about current culture and social life that influences this?
Yeah those concepts are innately human and have always been around but they just take on new forms and manifest themselves in new ways. Being connected to so much through technology the idea of conflicting emotions seems to be heightened, and weird emotional juxtapositions become normal because they’re so prevalent. I think our increased reliance on technology affects the way we remember things. It’s like our devices have become an extension of our physical memory.
You’ve described the White Flowers sound and style being influenced by your surrounds in the north of England. Are there artists you listen to for their ability to convey the mood of their given environment?
Obvious examples for us include bands like Joy Division who manage to make a unique industrial bleakness sound beautiful. We lived in South London for a few years and there’s a lot of artists from there who really capture that environment through their music.
What sort of changes have there been in your songwriting or creative process since your first album? Are there achievements you’re particularly happy with? Any productive failures?
We feel like we’ve actually come full circle creatively since the first album. We started out making music as a two-piece, recording at home in this really insular, limited way. We’ve experimented with different ways of writing, performing, recording over the last few years but it’s ultimately come back around to this core thing we started with. But this happened in a really natural way that hasn’t been forced in any way, it just took time. It’s really exciting to re-discover something creative that’s always been there but we lost sight of.
I saw your live shows in 2021 at Wide Awake Festival and St Pancras Old Church, both of which you played with a drummer. I’ve also read that you started with a drummer machine - and presumably remain using one if “Tear” is any indication. How is it to play your songs live compared to crafting them otherwise without a live audience?
We really have to think about the live performance and do a lot of rearranging to make it work. Our recordings are very dense and layered, so there’s always a lot of tweaks to be made to try and make the live show sound ‘big’ without being too much. We’ve learned that less is definitely more when it comes to playing live, so we try to strip everything back and focus on getting the sound of each instrument right. As we use a drum machine, this makes performing quite intense as there’s no room for error - though it’s something that over time we’ve managed to find some freedom within.
How do you feel about playing abroad in Paris, Amsterdam and Germany this year? Are your fans abroad special or different from those in the UK in any way?
Every time we’ve played in Europe we always feel really welcome and the vibe is definitely different from the UK, we generally feel more connected to the crowds abroad. There seems to be more of an intensity at the shows (in a good way!). Also the food we get at EU shows is usually amazing.
You’ve done a couple of cover songs as b sides : “‘Til I Die” and “Katy Song” … would love to know why you picked these tunes?
We like to cover songs that don’t really have much resemblance to our sound and style, and see if we can interpret it through our own filter. The main thing that attracted us to those songs were the weird chord changes and a certain feeling they gave us which we felt we could reimagine in our own way. They’re also all songs that we haven’t listened to that much, as we wouldn’t want to be too familiar with the original.
The Peel Dream Magazine remix of “Help Me Help Myself” … how did you come to collaborate with Joe on that?
We were introduced to Joe through Tough Love as they were on the roster the same time as us. We’re big fans of Peel Dream and thought it would be cool to see how Joe would interpret the track as it’s sonically quite different from their stuff. We love the remix : )
What are the White Flowers plans for 2026? More shows? More drum beats? New singles or an album?
Details on this to come in the new year!