The Spitfires’ Billy Sullivan on the band’s profession

Louder Than Conflict’s Jon Garland catches up with Billy Sullivan, driving pressure behind The Spitfires, to mirror on the band’s profession on the time of the discharge of the posthumous Dwell At The Electrical Ballroom album from their farewell present earlier this 12 months

With a last flourish of suggestions The Spitfires departed the stage on the Camden Electrical Ballroom one Saturday final February, splitting up as they did so. From that second on, the band have been no extra, having given every part over a decade however lastly operating out of highway. To mark the discharge of the blistering stay album from that gig, Dwell At The Electrical Ballroom (Catch 22 Information), it appears becoming to look again on the band’s profession. With that goal in thoughts, I caught up with Spitfires’ important man Billy Sullivan, now embarking on a solo profession, discovering him in reflective however upbeat temper.

Louder Than Conflict: so what did Billy make of the ultimate present?

Billy Sullivan: “I initially didn’t wish to do it”, he confesses. “I had actually combined emotions about it: the very fact we’d promote quite a lot of tickets and it might be some large occasion appeared a bit low-cost to me at first. The Spitfires by no means did something we didn’t wish to, no matter cash or sentiment. On the time I additionally thought there was nothing to rejoice, what was finished was finished. I didn’t want or need the pat on the again. Nevertheless, I used to be satisfied in any other case and it was good to play a gig in a big-size venue to folks from everywhere in the nation and even overseas. And to see that the band actually meant one thing to folks”.

Sullivan’s choice to do the gig proved proper. From the opener Disciples onwards, Dwell at The Electrical Ballroom vividly captures not simply that night time however what The Spitfires have been all about as a stay act. Soulful, tight, typically light-hearted but additionally a bit tough across the edges, the Spitfires may generate sufficient electrical energy to resolve any vitality disaster. What strikes me about Dwell At The Electrical Ballroom, although, is the varied vary of musical types that made up the career-spanning set which spotlight Sullivan’s improvement as a songwriter. As a memento to the band’s last present it serves its function very effectively, however as a stay album in itself it’s excellent.

Was Billy himself happy with the stay document that got here from it?

“We have been all pleasantly shocked I believe. We didn’t plan to document it for any purpose apart from private documentation. It’s straight via the desk, the combo that was finished on the night time with no overdubs in anyway. Nevertheless it simply sounded nice and we thought it deserved to be heard, precisely because it occurred and sounded to be within the room that night time”.

Over the course of their profession the band achieved quite a bit, growing a sizeable fanbase throughout the UK and past. Their 2015 debut album, Response, was an edgy and gritty affair, a hybrid of punk, ska and mod that created a singular sound that the band developed and expanded on as they grew. It garnered them an viewers that supported them vociferously, attracted by the band’s political stance, tunes, incendiary gigs and mod/skin-influenced fashion.

This, in some methods although, proved to be each a energy and a weak point for The Spitfires. The viewers they attracted was a loyal one however primarily an older one, drawn by apparent parallels between the band and that mighty behemoth The Jam, out of whose shadow the band struggled to flee early of their profession. Comparisons between the 2 have been apparent, nevertheless it was at all times unfair to counsel The Spitfires have been merely in thrall to The Jam: there was a lot extra to them than that.

Frustrations continued when their second album, 2016’s A Thousand Occasions didn’t pitch them ahead in the way in which they have been hoping, regardless of it signalling appreciable improvement for Sullivan as a songwriter. Whereas sure sections of the music press have been very sympathetic to what the band have been attempting to realize, radio help proved onerous to garner, and the band started to enter a type of limbo existence – cherished by their followers, rated by some critics, however by no means flavour of the month for radio stations similar to 6Music. They didn’t appear to fairly slot in, their ‘old style’ values of ardour, onerous graft and musicianship seemingly out of step with an trade extra occupied with guitar bands with excessive social media profiles and a sort of mental, arch center class ‘cleverness’.

As Sullivan displays: “The music trade is unnecessary to me in anyway. And it sucks all of the enjoyable and pleasure out of what you do as an artist. Every thing’s so calculated and what you produce as an artist is backside of the record. Nobody really cares in regards to the music or the album, it’s getting the best plugger or PR or ensuring your social media is alive always and content material creating. Going to the best occasions, being pals with the best folks. Projecting some false persona to make you appear attention-grabbing and relatable, when it’s all simply bollocks. I’m a songwriter and I need my songs to be heard by as many individuals as doable – do I wish to be seen as cool and quirky and a few type of large persona? No I do fucking not. However there’s no room to push towards that, it’s conform or hand over”.

Warming to his theme, Billy, with an admirable diploma of truthfully, states: “I don’t assume we ever did [fit into the music biz]. The band advanced quite a bit from album to album so musically I don’t assume anybody may pin us down. And in the event that they did attempt to, it was at all times flawed. We at all times felt like uninvited friends at a celebration. Once we’d do festivals, I believe different bands and promoters and so on didn’t know what to make of us. We have been such a detailed unit too, we by no means let anybody in”.

Undaunted by their standing as outsiders, The Spitfires continued to tour ceaselessly and Sullivan produced a few of his best materials for 2018’s 12 months Zero, a leap forwards for the band by way of musical ambition, however failing to draw the broader consideration it deserved. By the point of 2020’s good Life Value Dwelling – maybe the band’s musical highpoint – Covid had intervened, placing an finish to gigging, the band’s main supply of earnings, and pulling the rug from beneath the document’s ft, a lot to Sullivan’s frustration: “I believe it’s such an important album and I believed the paintings was nice and every part simply got here collectively. It was my first time working with Simon Dine and he simply took components of the band’s sound and pushed it to the following degree. Sadly we then had a worldwide pandemic however what are you able to do?!”

Round this time the band have been having different points, too, inflicting Billy a level of disillusionment: “I believe I’d simply had sufficient actually. I’d spent an terrible very long time making the final Spitfires document Play For Right now, which I used to be decided can be our masterpiece. The document was meant to be the place the band advanced, musically and lyrically. It was meant to crush all earlier conceptions and get us taken significantly. Nevertheless it appeared to baffle our document label, who I assume immediately regretted signing us for it. So the method was slowed down immensely, with all momentum and pleasure taken out, principally to convey the band to breaking level”.

“Perhaps I used to be being too intelligent for my very own good and nobody was getting the references or humour”, Sullivan suggests, “or equally it might be all the way down to slim mindedness. I nonetheless fully stand by the album and assume it’s our strongest and most different piece of labor. Matt [drummer Matt Johnson, in the band from the start] left the summer season of 2021 and afterwards I struggled to recapture the chemistry between the band as a stay unit. After a few gigs up north on the finish of 2021, I’d had sufficient”.

So it was no shock when Sullivan pulled the plug on the band in December 2021 – there was no possible way ahead. Within the face of music trade indifference, document label politics and inner band points, The Spitfires had merely run out of steam.

Reflecting on the band’s profession, Sullivan says he has few regrets, except for the occasional album observe, video and outfit alternative. For him the band was all-consuming: “I lived and breathed each phrase, the angle, the politics. I used to be the identical down the pub as I used to be on stage. It dictated each side of my life and moulded me as I grew from a teen to an grownup”.

Since splitting The Spitfires Sullivan has since set out on a solo profession that’s already seen some notable highlights, together with the singles I Will Observe and Working Out of Time. His debut album Paper Goals is scheduled for launch on tenth March 2023 with a UK tour the identical month. “Musically”, Billy says of his album, it’s “a bit extra what I’m into – it has a 60s storage edge to a few of it – and lyrically it’s a bit extra private than what I’ve finished earlier than. I used to be capable of open up lyrically and write in a means I’d at all times struggled with. Have to be an age factor!”

It may possibly’t, although, have been a simple choice to knock The Spitfires on the top after all of the blood, sweat and tears that have been invested into the band over time. There was sweat and certainly just a few tears the night time of that farewell gig on the Electrical Ballroom final February, too. Because the band left the stage I couldn’t assist however really feel that whereas they hadn’t obtained the music biz breaks they deserved, they’d nonetheless left an entire host of nice tunes and recollections. Their legacy features a litany of gigs whose hearth and depth are captured so effectively by Dwell At The Electrical Ballroom, in addition to a quintet of high quality studio albums, and a canon of songs – try the extraordinary 4am and Return To Me for tasters – which are testomony to Sullivan’s real songwriting skills. However someway this wasn’t sufficient for a band out of sync with modern music biz tastes and, ultimately, out of highway too.

Purchase Dwell At The Electrical Ballroom: Stream right here

Pre-order Paper Goals by Billy Sullivan

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Phrases by Jon Garland, you will discover his writer’s archive right here

Pictures 1 & 3 by Tony Briggs:  2 by Simon Tang