Plaza

Name, where are you from?
Gee up, we’re PLAZA from Hartlepool in the North East of England.

Describe your style in three words?
Lovely, spooky, power.

What’s the best gig you’ve ever been to?
We all went to see DJ Shadow in Manchester a couple of years back. That man and those samples blew us into a different dimension. I came out looking like Shrek.

If you could be on the line up with any two bands in history?
James Brown and Outkast - because they’re both proper mint and I reckon we could outdo Jimmy B on the session.

Which Subcultures have influenced you?
Growing up in Hartlepool (not sure if this is the same everywhere else) but if you didn’t have a full trackie on you were automatically a goth. My mam once bought me a pair of purple doc martens from this trendy shop in Durham to wear as school shoes, so 8-year-old me struts into school with me bobby dazzlers on and within 10 minutes some chav in the year above shouted: “ere crusty the clown just rang, he wants his shoes back”. Tears were cried that day. So I guess you could say that side of subculture influenced me somewhat.

If you could spend an hour with anyone from history?
Luciano Pavarotti. Get on some of his interviews, probably the greatest Tenor to have ever lived and he was funny as fook. Me, Pavarotti and a case of Moretti. Inject that directly into my bloodstream for an hour.

Of all the venues you’ve been to, which is your favourite?
Castle and Falcon in Birmingham is an absolute belter. On tour with The Night Cafe last year we’d got to the venue and hadn’t booked anywhere to kip after the show, we were struggling to find somewhere last minute that didn’t cost an arm and a leg or looked like it would swallow one of us in the middle of the night. One of the fellas that worked there let us kip in the green room and ended up getting mortal with us all night. They even had an XBOX with Skate 3. Good times.

Your greatest unsung hero or heroine in music?
Jeff Buckley is criminally unsung in my opinion. He was one of the greatest to ever do it, it frightens me what he could’ve done if he was around a little longer. One of the finest voices to grace our world.

Plaza have built up a cult live following across the UK, also drawing attention from Huw Stephens and Phil Taggart at BBC Radio 1, alongside John Kennedy at Radio X – with the likes of DIY, DORK, The Line of Best Fit, Clash and Wonderland singing their praises too.

'SEE', the new single from PLAZA is out now via Clue Records, taken from the new EP ‘Wernotplaza II’ (listen below).