Smallpools

Hi guys! To those who might not have had the pleasure of hearing your music so far, how would you describe your style to them? Hello! This is probably the hardest question as an artist to answer, since the whole creation process makes us all a bit delusional to the finished product. We all play instruments and cater the arrangement of those instruments to the melodies and chord structures of each song, which will sometimes create some form of care-free, alternative, pop-adelic, indie-fueled rock..?

What’s the story behind how you all met? Sean & I met back in 2007 in Austin, TX during a music conference called SXSW. We were both playing in other groups at the time, but we became friends and stayed in touch. When things began to feel stale with our current endeavors we started writing music together on the East Coast. We were in desperate need of change, so we packed our things and drove across the country to Los Angeles. After about a year of struggling to pay rent and working dead-end jobs, we luckily met Joe, our bassist. He had just moved to town from Portland and had mutual friends within our small circle. He then introduced us to our drummer, Beau, who had also moved to LA for work. We got in a room together and began creating.

You’ve already received a lot of love for the first couple of singles you have released from debut EP, Have a Great Summer. Your track Dreaming made it onto the soundtrack of Fifa 14 and Over & Over was featured on a promotional video for popular phone app, Snapchat. How exciting is it when people are responding so positively to your music? It’s very exciting, of course. We spent so much time locking ourselves in various rehearsal rooms trying to get everything to a point where we felt proud enough to even just show our friends. We didn’t really expect the songs to travel much further than that.

You have been compared by many to Foster The People. Do you feel this a fair comparison? Sure, we’ve heard it all. Everyone feels the urge to compare new artists to pre-existing ones and I like Foster The People so I’ll take that as a compliment. In reality, we only have four songs out right now, which I think are all very different and live in their own worlds. I think those who have listened to our EP can hear that, and once our full-length release drops I hope everyone else will just hear Smallpools.

With your latest single, Mason Jar, soon to be released in the UK, how long do we have to wait until there will be a Smallpools album in the stores? We’re hoping to drop the full-length album in the UK the same week as the US. We’re looking forward to a Spring release date.

You’re currently in the middle of a thrilling US tour. Is this the first time you have done something like this, and are you enjoying the lifestyle of a touring band? We all grew up playing music with friends and in various bands, but nothing to the extent of anything like this. We’re very lucky to be able to tour with all of these great bands so early on and could not be enjoying this experience any more. Most importantly, we’re learning a lot during this process. We’re very anxious in getting back to the studio as a more seasoned band, finishing the album, and being able to tour with a more extensive catalogue.

Finally, we are huge fans of your work and put on our own events here in Exeter. Can we expect to see Smallpools touring the UK soon, and if so perhaps playing at a Pearshaped event? Thanks! We actually just made our first trip to the UK a couple of weeks ago and played a couple of gigs in London. We had an amazing time and are looking to do a proper UK run leading up to the album release next spring. We’ll definitely look to add a Pearshaped event to our itinerary!