We Have Band

WE HAVE BAND


Some of the best ideas start life as little more than an idealised supposition. So it is with We Have Band, the hotly tipped post-punk funk newcomers who started making music to fit the superlative name they conjured up one day.
Married couple Thomas and Dede Wegg-Prosser wanted a creative venture they could work on together, and thus was born We Have Band. Without any music having been thought up, they told friend Darren Bancroft of the band name, who immediately demanded entry into the group.

It wasn’t long before they were concocting infectious disco tinged rock suffused with the spirit of New York’s post-punkers ESG and Liquid Liquid. It’s a sound that has garnered a lot of attention for the band in a very short space of time. With their first live gigs happening as recently as the end of April this year, they have quickly endeared themselves to public and promoters alike. They have been playing some enviable gigs of late and now find themselves in the enviable position of having two tracks signed to hotter-than-molten-lava compilations (the forthcoming Kitsune Maison 6 and Pure Groove sampler) and their own 7” coming out on new label 50 Bones. With the three members of WHB assembled in a small Soho café, we talk about resisting the lures of big label money, band democracy and African elephants.
Thomas is telling me about their coloured 7” vinyl release soon to come out on 50 Bones Records. Well, he’s trying to, but has to stop and tell Dede and Darren off for talking amongst themselves. He admonishes them like a father would his children for being noisy in a restaurant, then admits he does play dad in the group. The children in question inform me though that the band works by everybody being able to say exactly what they want.
“We’ve got a rule”, states Dede in a thick Mancunian accent, “that anyone can say anything or suggest anything.”
“Yeah if we don’t like something it goes immediately,” interjects Darren.
“It’s like the UN, there can be a veto as well,” rounds off Thomas. “What we’ve found is that because we get on so well it makes it so much easier to make decisions and talk honestly about stuff and not have any big differences.“
Darren explains the process thusly: “we were joking, saying that if we were doing something and someone says ‘we have to have the sound of an African elephant walking over some grapes’, if someone’s really intent on that, then we’ll try it. We don’t want to be a band that says no to things. If someone suggests it we’ll try it and if it’s crap we get rid of it.”
The three then talk about not wanting to be a “four blokes in a room band” with no-one able to make any decisions or being too stubborn to compromise on anything. Their words tumble over each other one minute, then they’re helping each other finish their sentences the next. Such is the ease with which the three interact it’s no big surprise that they’ve achieved what they have so rapidly. Though with all three having worked at EMI they obviously have a good idea of how to handle themselves as a new band.
“It is a good base,” admits Thomas, “but marriage is as well and friendship’s good. I’ve been in bands where you audition people and it’s fine but it’s not great. But this is a brilliant three way thing.”
Perhaps the biggest obstacle for the trio to overcome was the fact that Dede had never been in a band before, let alone performed on stage. She admits it is still occasionally terrifying but that the bigger crowds they find themselves now playing to help with her nerves. But then the band was never something that was meant to be too much hard work for the friends, which is perhaps why success is finding them so easily.
“I know a lot of people say it but really we never ever took it seriously,” offers Darren. “A lot of kids have bands and have a big plan but we never even thought about playing live or anything. Everyone we’ve dealt with so far, from our manager to the live agent we’ve just hooked up and lawyers to labels, everyone’s just grabbed it and that’s where it really works. No one’s questioned us or is wanting to draw comparisons or try to fit us in anywhere. It’s all been quite easy going in that sense.”