The Maccabees’ Felix White on how Johnny Marr influenced the direction of new music with 86TVs

The Maccabees’ Felix White has spoken about how Johnny Marr helped steer the direction of new music with his comeback band 86TVs.

The group – comprising Felix’s brothers Hugo and Will (the latter formerly of mid-noughties indie band Talk Taxis and his solo project BLANc) and The Noisettes’ drummer Jamie Morrison – recently released their debut single ‘Worn Out Buildings’.

Speaking to NME in a recent interview about writing post-Maccabees and the direction of the new band, Felix explained how The Smiths guitarist and songwriter gave them some important advice for their new material.

The band recalled that for the first year of the project, “it was completely instrumental and we were writing music we thought could be a soundtrack or we’d get someone else to sing on”.

However, eventually they were convinced by Marr to sing on the tracks themselves.

“I think The Maccabees had just split up, but I’d read Johnny Marr’s autobiography, which I loved, and it was a really striking time to read it because a lot of his life has been about reinvention and change,” Felix recalled.

He continued: “So there was a correlation in my head at that particular moment in my life with what Johnny’s book had said. I bumped into him at the NME Awards and said, ‘Can I send you some music? We’ve just been doing some instrumental music and we don’t know if it’s good’. So I sent him all these instrumentals, which was actually quite a brazen thing to do looking back at it.”

Felix also remembered the contents of Marr’s feedback email, which read: “‘I’m on multiple listens, it sounds great. For what it’s worth, I feel like you guys should sing on this music’. But it wasn’t like we got the Bat-call from Johnny Marr and were like ‘OK, our mission is to sing on these songs’ – we didn’t know how that was gonna work.

“It was literally three or four years later we realised if we all sing together, it sounds like lots of voices and one voice at the same time and you have that magical blood harmony.”

Elsewhere in the conversation, Hugo said their album would be out next year, but that they’re “really trying to get as many songs out now. We’re not putting out one song and then disappearing. We’re gonna roll it all out”.

86TVs will be heading out on a UK and European tour later this year. Find the dates below and purchase tickets here.

86TVs’ UK and European 2023 tour dates are:

SEPTEMBER
11 – Brighton, Prince Albert
12 – Hull, Adelphi
13 – Hebden Bridge, The Trades Club
15 – Edinburgh, Mash House
16 – Huddersfield, Northern Quarter
17 – Cambridge, The Six Six
19 – Cologne, MTC
20 – Hamburg, Reeperbahn Festival
22 – London, Moth Club
23 – Sheffield, Float Along Festival

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