interview: Noah and the Whale

Noah and the Whale are the most quirky band we've heard in a long time, but what are they like up-close and personal?

Noah and the Whale consists of 21 year-old Charlie Fink, who started writing songs at an early age and enlisted the musical talents of his pals Tom, Urby and brother Doug.

While making demos and playing gigs around London, they met songstress Laura Marling, who gave them a helping hand and appears in many of their videos.

We think Charlie is pretty cute, but he is so modest and shy around girls, bless 'im. Keep reading to find out more about our new favourite band...

You’ve been signed up to play loads of festivals this year, what’s been your most memorable one so far?
We did Glasto this year and we were playing at the same time as Leonard Cohen and The Zutons and I just thought ‘who is going to see us?!’, but there was a huge crowd! When you see that, you feel like all your hard work has paid off…we’ve played about 200 gigs as a band!

Did you schmooze with the other celebs?
No! Sadly no schmoozing as we were only there 3 hours. We were touring with The Zutons before that but had no time.

Do you know lots of other bands?
Laura Marling is obviously one of our closest allies. She was pretty established when we started to work with her – we met as I was her support but I wasn’t taking it very seriously at all. I didn’t even have a guitar, just a ukulele! It was one of the best decisions of my life to work with her though. I always loved song-writing but it was such an absurd idea that my songs would ever mean anything to anyone else, but then I went on this tour with Laura and she was the first person who really believed in what I was doing and asked me to produce her first EP and album. Now here we are.

So what is the meaning behind 5 Years?
It’s a love song – or maybe a love song that never happened. Songs are sometimes based on real thoughts that never actually happen I guess.

Would you say that you are eccentrics?
Yup we are all a little weird! But to be honest I would hate for our videos to be seen as ‘wacky’. I think they are quirky, I like that word better!