By Jacqueline Grima

Photography by Rudi Wilson

Humanity Hallows recently caught up with Manchester-based band, Tindrumm, to ask them a few questions about their sound, their plans for the future and, of course, their unusual name! Here’s what band member Ryan Lee had to say:

Tell us a bit more about the band. Who are you and what do you all do when you are not playing together?

The band has four members which are myself (Ryan) and Pete, Jamie and Mat. We met at university where we all study music. Me and Pete started writing together in early 2015 and then, by the time the summer had come around, we had a full band together and had some shows booked. We all spend an awful lot of time together and most of our individual free time is spent doing something creative.

Where does the name come from?

The band is named after a book by Gunter Grass called The Tin Drum.

You describe your sound as ‘art rock’. Can you tell us a bit more about what that means?

I’d say it’s more along the lines of Art/Progressive rock, rock being the incredible broad thing it is. It’s more to do with the injection of art into what it is we do, with the performances and how we conceptualise the pieces we create, our image and/or overall ‘presentation’ is just looked at more from an artistic point of view rather than just creating a song or a variety of songs, for, well, the sake of it.

Your sound is quite experimental and sometimes resonant of the 80s electronic era. Who are your musical influences?

An interesting comparison, of which we have had plenty. We are all influenced by different things musically and artistically as we all grew up in different circumstances. One thing I will say is that, collectively, it’s our mutual interest in and our efforts in capturing an emotion between the four of us that can bleed onto other people, that binds us together.

Your single ‘Out of Tune’ comes in at over 8 minutes long. How has that been received?

So far it has had an incredible response, people have said some really beautiful things. I think we knew that the length of the piece was bound to cause some sort of negative reaction, which is fine. Somebody told me that it was illegal for song to be over three and a half minutes which I found quite funny, but then, on the other hand, somebody also said this to me, “You wouldn’t tell an artist that his canvas can only be A3 size so why would a piece of music ever have a set length,” which I thought was the perfect sentiment for everything we do.

Tell us about your involvement with Trinitus: Future Sounds and the gig you recently played at the Sacred Trinity Church in Salford. How did it go?

The Trinitus: Future Sounds is actually something that we at Tindrumm have started in order to give the musicians and the artists in Manchester that we love a unique setting to showcase their wonderful creations. On the night that we put on last week, it was ourselves and we had Runah and Bethlehem Casuals perform who are both filled with beautiful humans and make incredible music. It was a really special night. It’s a really important thing that people like ourselves and artists and groups like Runah and Bethlehem Casuals stick together. A sense of community is important in art and music, that’s what we hope to create with Trinitus : Future Sounds.

You have even brewed your own beer! How did that come about?

It was all about our own individual involvement with the Trinitus show. We wanted to offer something unique that felt personal from us. We all like a drink, and, well, more importantly, everyone likes a free drink.

Any plans for the festival season?

Our general plans for the summer are to continue to write. We’ll be playing a few live performances but not as many as most, I suspect. That’s more of a personal choice though. With what we are doing currently, we know it’s not really suited to the ‘Festival Scene’.

Where do you see Tindrumm in five years?

We’ll still be doing what it is we are doing now, hopefully on a larger scale but, who knows? We try to play most things by ear and it’s worked out well for us over the last 12 months. There is an end goal, as such, but that’d be giving the game away too soon…

Tindrumm’s new single ‘Sold My Skin’ is available on Friday 29th April. For more information, see the band’s Facebook page.

To listen to Tindrumm’s unique 8 minute track ‘Out of Tune’, visit Soundcloud.

To find out more about the Trinitus: Future Sounds project, visit the Trinitus Facebook page