Interview - Alex Moore, The Lathums
Hyperbole is a huge part of the music business; how many times have music fans been promised a ‘band that will change your life’ or that said band are ‘the best since the Beatles/Bowie/Smiths/Oasis’ etc?
Overblown praise and expectation is such a part of the process that a healthy immunity and scepticism has been built up because of it. Yet every now and again, a band delivers.
For fans of British indie, the examples are increasingly few and far between, the phenomenal rise of the Arctic Monkeys being the most recent example of a band who delivered on their potential and word-of-mouth hype.
Finally, a decade-and-a-half on, we have a truly worthy new act upon which hopes can be pinned. The expectation around The Lathums, heroes of Wigan, is nearly fit to burst as they ready the release of their debut album How Beautiful Life Can Be in a few short weeks, to be followed by an extensive and nearly-sold-out autumn/winter UK tour.
Not that Alex Moore, singer and lead songwriter, is letting any pressure get to him: “I’m a bit of a hermit in some ways. I try and keep my head down and focus on what I need to do. The odd things I do see, people are always praising us and being really supportive, so that always makes me smile.”