To receive Bear Bites Horse Session by Thee Alcoholics now, become a Quietus Sound + Vision subscriber. The album receives a vinyl release via Rocket Recordings on 1 November, which can be pre-ordered here.
“No, not at all!” laughs Thee Alcoholics’ guitarist, vocalist and founder member Rhys Llewellyn at the suggestion that Forest Hill, the neighbourhood of his residence in south east London, might be every bit as horrible as it sounds on ‘SE23’, which is named after his postcode and is the penultimate track on the band’s February album, Feedback.
“It’s pretty shitty, but not too bad,” he continues. “This is definitely one of the nicer parts of it; at least there’s a bit of green outside.”
It’s an easy assumption to make, especially when you consider just how on-the-nose that album title is. For a certain type of rock fan that revels in the volume pushing mayhem of bands such as Gnod, Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs and Hey Colossus, and the lineage that goes back to sonic terrorists The Jesus And Mary Chain and Red Lorry Yellow Lorry, Thee Alcoholics are exactly what they’ve been waiting for. Here, faders are pushed so far into the red that they turn purple as every instrument slugs it out with the other in an aural punch up to the death. Guitars sound like buzz saws slicing their way through solid blocks of oak while the drums recall a relentless pummeling with only the vocals settling somewhere deep within the maelstrom. Yep, it’s that good.
Now, exclusively for tQ subscribers, ahead of a physical release on Rocket Recordings in November, the band offer up Bear Bites Horse Session, an eviscerating live-in-the-studio performance recorded by Wayne Adams in his titular east London studio, which somehow raises the intensity of the songs first documented on Feedback even further, which join a smattering of other tracks.
Given Llewellyn’s position as Hey Colossus’ drummer for almost 20 years, none of the band’s sonics should come as too much of a surprise. But whereas his alma mater were scattered around the country, which made for any number of logistical headaches in terms of travelling to and from long and intensive rehearsals, Thee Alcoholics are more of a local affair. “I felt it was time for me to depart from Hey Colossus,” he says. “I wanted to do something that was a bit more raucous.”
Taking some drum recordings made between sessions with Hey Colossus, Llewellyn started the first material for what would become Thee Alcoholics in his kitchen during the first lockdown.
“I just wanted to do something that was fun,” Llewelyn continues. “I put a bunch of songs together and sent them to Hey Colossus’ Joe Thompson who runs Wrong Speed Records and he was like, ‘I love it; let’s do a short run of tapes.’ Then we got offered a gig, so I fancied putting a band together and that was it really.”
Following a number of personnel changes, Thee Alcoholics have settled on the line-up of Llewellyn (guitar/vocals), bassist Jess Beechey, guitarists Paul Tucker and Tony Mountford (who, along with Beechey, also adds synths), and drummer Jason Jaworski, which means that the band can get together far more regularly.
“Most of us are from around Forest Hill, Sydenham and Deptford and we’ve got a shared studio space in Peckham. Half of the fun at the moment is that we can rehearse once a week to blow off the cobwebs and keep it fun.”
Moreover, it’s their gelling in a live setting that partly led to the creation of Feedback, and that gives Bear Bites Horse Sessions that razor-sharp edge.
“Songs like ‘It’s So Easy’ and ‘Baby I’m Your Man’ are really good, fun songs to play live,” explains Llewellyn, whose band have cherry-picked such tracks for the subscribers’ release “There other songs, like ‘What’s The Crack (What’s The Story)’ and ‘Dumb & Happy’ [which open and close Feedback but do not appear here] which are not so much live tunes; they’re a bit more murky and a bit more industrial.”
Speaking of murk, the vocals are noticeably buried in the mix. Why so?
“Well, with this record, we’ve actually pushed the vocals higher before,” counters Llewellyn. “With the first couple of releases, the lyrics were barely audible at all. They were more of an additional noise instrument than any sort of cohesive lyrics. With the first record [2020’s self-titled tape], there are quite a few tunes that don’t actually have any lyrics; there’s just a voice making lots of sounds. It’s also a confidence thing that we’ve now lifted them slightly more in the mix, but from an aesthetic angle, they need to sit in the mix rather than in front of it.”
By their own admission, the extreme volume used by Thee Alcoholics is both a tool that bolsters their filthy, grinding brand of rock as well for more practical reasons. “We need to be able to feel it,” says Llewellyn. “It’s super loud because you’re always going to be competing with the drummer who has to hit his drums pretty hard for this kind of music. And with three guitars and a very heavy bass synth, everything needs to sit up.”
So are they the scourge of sound engineers who ask them to turn things down and let the PA handle it?
“We’ve learned to put a disclaimer on the bookings that says that we play loud and if there’s an issue with that, then don’t book us,” chuckles Llewellyn. “We’ve had some run-ins with a few sound guys, but generally we end up kissing and making up. So long as we’re comfortable on stage with how it feels, then the sound engineer can do what they want.
“For me, personally, what excites me in music – whether it’s rock music or whether it’s different genres – if it’s got a bit of grit and a bit of grime to it, then it gets the juices going a bit, you know?”
Llewellyn also praises Rocket Recordings who signed the band and released Feedback. “We’re constantly fighting to keep the band active,” says Llewellyn. “We haven’t got an agent, we haven’t got a booker and we haven’t got a manager or anything like that. But Rocket are great in the fact that they like the music, they like the band and they want to put the record out. We can’t really ask for more than that but they’ve also helped with promotion and getting the name out and they gave us some merch to sell so that we could actually make a bit of money at gigs. We were super chuffed with that.”
And it looks as if that fight will continue just that little bit longer, albeit more as a random punch up than a strategically thought out battle. “We’re working on a new record at the moment,” says Llewellyn. “But there’s no great master plan. Basically, it’s just a fairly organic project.”
Maybe he’s being disingenuous, or simply modest, but the prospect of more from Thee Alcoholics is something to look forward to. Here’s hoping…
Thee Alcoholics’ Bear Bites Horse Session receives a vinyl release via Rocket Recordings on 1 November and can be pre-ordered here. To hear the album in full today, become a Quietus Sound + Vision subscriber.
Thee Alcoholics perform live at Cardiff’s Tiny Rebel on 8 November, and at Esquires in Bedford on 9 November.
