Surfacing as a ‘must watch’ on indie music radar in late last year with the release of their debut album, British four piece Superfood first knocked sonic boots in the depths of a sweaty house club called Face back around 2010.

In dingy Digbeth warehouse space The Rainbow, the four members lost every weekend that 2010 had to offer, partying amongst mates who were on the verge of rebuilding their city’s band scene. “You’d sleep throughout the whole week and repeat again on Saturday. Every week,” remembers frontman Dom. “It was like that for a year and then everyone made their bands.” Unlike other bands, Superfood did not come together during that year of debauchery, with Dom (guitar), Ryan Malcom (vocals/ guitar), and drummer Carl Griffin all dabbling in other musical projects, while bass player Emily Baker was trying not to lose her mind at a soul-destroying retail job.

Born from a post-party seven hour jam session, between the band’s guitarist Ryan and Dom, the band soon enlisted the expertise of bass player Emily and Carl joined a few months later after a rigorous casting process. Superfood’s first official practice was in October 2012.

From there successes grew and grew, at the start of summer 2013 they took on Brighton’s The Great Escape and became one of the festival’s most talked about bands, next up was a support slot with Fun. in Paris on Emily’s 21st birthday. Not long after, the Birmingham group released their eponymous LP via Infectious Music (Liberator in Australia). To celebrate its release vocalist/guitarist, Dom Ganderton gave us a track by track run down on this exciting debut.

Lily For Your Pad To Rest On

“When my sister went to school they were allowed to have lessons outside and wear there own clothes, something I’ve always been really jealous about. In one of there ‘classes’ they were assigned to make an functional musical instrument. My sister chose to make an eight string harp like creation. It had been sitting under the spare bed for years until one day me and Ryan decided we were going to take every instrument we had to a writing session. I turned up with the harp, Ryan a melodica and so the track was born. We laid everything over a beat I had made many moons ago.”

You Can Believe

“There’s a feeling you get when you start a band, you can see the other side, you can see yourself finally going on to better things and getting out of the shit hole towns you grew up in. The demo track was recorded and written on my girlfriend’s laptop. She was sat there on the bed whilst I did the vocals probably thinking I was a massive spanner. It carries on the breaks and looped drums vibe from the previous track and has a big energy to really getting things flowing on the record.”

Superfood

“One can of tuna with a huge disgusting dollop of mayonnaise is what set this track up. Me and Ryan had toyed with the idea with getting together forever and when we finally did we opened up this crap drum loop pack I had, stuck it in loop and started jamming. We finally came out with a simple riff on which to write a song. The lyrics meant absolutely nothing when we recorded the demo but as we’ve played it over and over it’s kind of developed this thing that talks about people around you getting what they want while your sat in your pants eating Chinese takeaway.”

TV

“This song is an ode to one of my dearest and most compassionate friends tinnitus. I have no one to blame but myself for absolutely twatting my ears since the age of 11 . As a result of this condition I find it hard to sleep. Wear ear plugs mates.”

Pallasades

“This song started off as a really weird acoustic track that I did in logic before me and Ryan got together. It was originally all played on my housemates shitty Spanish guitar that was covered in stickers. It is the only song on the album that really talks about anything to do with relationships and love. It talks about being in love when your fed up and how hard it is show someone you really care.”

Moodbomb

“‘Moodbomb’ is a song that we wrote along with a batch of tunes over a week period. It was the funniest week ever. Me and Ryan would turn up to the studio about midday with bread and rum and get absolutely trashed and wig out for a while. Carl would get a call about 2am from one of us saying : ‘mATe can U come ova the studio right now and puT some tubs on this tune. We got sombreros!!’. Poor Carl. This song was influenced by some of the psych stuff we were listening to at the time I feel like you can kind of hear the Krautrock influence in the verses with the rigid rhythm.”

It’s Good To See You In The Morning

“Feel good. When I moved back to my parents for a bit whilst we were touring they went on holiday for a week almost immediately. My 16 year old self took over and I invited all of the guys over. Ryan got to the train station first and I met him with the line ‘Little lemon why so red?’ We pretty much wrote a story about a lonely lemon and how amazing it would be to go outside with a cup of coffee in the morning and your plants greet you with a smile and a song. Weird looking back on it. Wait. How did it get past everyone? How is it on the album?”

Don’t Say That

“After coming out of the studio we decided we needed to record one more song. We called up our friends in Stourbridge and said we need two days. Ryan was pretty nervous because I kept telling our A&R that we were going to write a ‘big song’. We ended up coming out with two songs; this and Bug the b-side to ‘Right On Satellite’. The song talks about being out of your depth, people who follow crowds and idolise people. I wanted to record something with a slap back delay on the bass and creepy bassline. I’d been listening to Baxter Dury – Happy Soup. My favourite part of the song is when it opens out into this big floaty middle 8. It’s the one time I got to use my 12 string guitar on the whole album.”

Melting

“This song was another written in Ryan’s apartment. It was influenced by the Ram album and Jeffrey Lynne. It’s talks about looking at friends and family who put themselves under to much stress and pressure from work or other aspects of their lives. I love the journey of this song and how delicate it becomes at the end of the middle 8.”

Right On Satellite

“‘Right On Satellite’ paints a picture of a journey to a different space and how you need someone to keep you grounded. We wrote this one at the same time as ‘Mood Bomb’ and I think you can really tell how these songs were written with a real drum kit and full band set up. Using laptops works when it needs to but things can sometimes become too disjointed and things won’t gel together in the way that writing things as unit does. We tracked the chant in the chorus about 50 times and bounced it down, it was a very weird hour sitting there in our lock up with head phones on screaming the same line for an hour.”

Like A Daisy

“‘Like A Daisy’ talks about a close friend of mine that had a few years of doing nothing and dedicating his life to the devils lettuce. I think it goes for anyone who’s been in the comfortable position of waking up everyday and repeating the same process that it can get hard to break the cycle. Get up, put some trousers on and get out the house before every one moves on and your stuck in bed. I think the outro is a really great way to tie up the record and brings things to a steady finish.”

Superfood is out now via Liberator Music 

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