Thumpers' Break-Out Track Was Only Meant For Their Friends

"It was totally intended to just go to our friends,” Marcus Pepperell confesses regarding Sound Of Screams, the track that inadvertently launched the duo's career when it went online in 2012, “and we were pretty unprepared for how quickly it spread. That was definitely a boost to the idea of being in a band and knowing there's an audience for [us].”

Pepperell and the other half of Thumpers, multi-instrumentalist John Hamson Jr, have known each other since they were 11-year-olds and played in self-confessed terrible bands throughout their teens, graduating to a combo named Pull Tiger Tail in 2006. On their break-up three years later, Hamson joined Friendly Fires for that band's 2011 world tour. At the end of that Pepperell and Hamson regrouped.

"We were pretty unprepared for how quickly it spread."

“There was a long period where we didn't know what we wanted to do,” Pepperell admits, “because we didn't want to be reactionary to [what] we'd done before. We had to find an organic, exciting sound for ourselves, but that said, one thing I did know from previous projects is I wanted to be more focused on rhythm; I was pretty bored with straight indie rhythms. It's a major focus in Thumpers.”

Pepperell's obvious love of words provided the other side of the band's percussive approach to melody, his lyrics tumbling over themselves in their delivery.

“I hadn't thought about the consequences of having so many lyrics,” Pepperell chuckles. “And especially since the lyrics we write have been quite dense – there's a lot packed into them – so it was definitely a new challenge. I think there's more opportunity when there are more lyrics to be more immersive and make more of a world. There were no preconceptions but maybe that's why we sort of chose this theme of childhood, and all our childhood experiences making us who we are now, which is quite a big theme. If we'd had fewer lyrics on the album it would have been harder to get any sense of that across.”

Their debut, Galore, was released in the US in February by Sub Pop, who snapped up the band after Thumpers released two limited-run independent EPs last year.

“When Sub Pop got in touch with us it was a real shock, and again, to rub in how quickly things can spread, Sub Pop were testament to that. How that came about was very organic – they were in touch with us before a lot of other people were through hearing two songs we'd put up online. They immediately wrote to us and we didn't contain our excitement. There was no kind of aloofness! It was the easiest decision to go with Sub Pop; as a label, they're the label we grew up knowing what a label was – their logo was on the albums we loved and we were massively excited to be part of that.”