Getting to Know… Esteban | Interview 🎤

Derby alternative, indie pop, ‘desert funk’ collective Esteban serve as the interviewees on the 108^th interview on The Musical Hype.

“As a band, we have never tried to fit in to a particular genre, we coined the term ‘Desert Funk’ to describe our sound and it stuck.” That’s an excerpt from the response Derby, England band Esteban served up when asked about what makes the band distinct.  Pretty captivating response, right? Right! Esteban is comprised of four members: Stephen Wright (vocals), Liam Ryan (guitar), Ricky Houghton (bass), and Samuel Cox (drums).  As always, The Musical Hype is honored to have the collective as interviewees in our Getting to Know… series, which comprises of well over 100 interviews at this point. So, without further delay, let’s jump right into Getting to Know… Esteban: Interview #108.

Let’s get this started off right. For those who may not be familiar with Esteban, what would you say makes your band distinct or unique? How do you rock the audience’s socks off?

As a band, we have never tried to fit in to a particular genre, we coined the term ‘Desert Funk’ to describe our sound and it stuck.  It’s the sound that we have always made when the four of us get into a room funky bass and drums, four-part harmonies with a bit of Latin guitar thrown in.

We love the live thing, it’s our bread and butter and we lived for it back along sometimes playing 5 or 6 gigs a week, year after year totaling 315 gigs to date. We start the party hard, we take it to them, and we end on a high making sure nobody leaves talking about anyone else. It’s a cliché to say that the best shows we ever played were sharing the stage with the likes of Dizzy Rascal, the Zutons and Gomez when actually some of the best shows were intimate, when you can literally feel the heat from the crowd, they’re that close.

Okay, let’s explore some juicy backstories. How did Esteban form and what were some of the goals or the visions, you had as a band early on?

We’ve been knocking around since 2004, but you can trace our lineage back to 1995 in various formations through school and college days, conquering our local scenes.  We got to work early on in 2004, writing our first songs together and self-producing our debut, Still in Time, under the name Onion. Something was ignited back then which, ever since has driven us to continue creating new music. I think when we were kids our only goal was to sign to a label in London, we achieved that. Then we decided we wanted to record albums – we have four now for those in the know. Then we wanted to play on the festival circuit, and we did that to an extent too.

Let’s talk more about goals. Have your goals or your perspectives changed since first starting out? What do your aspirations or goals look like now?

I think as time goes by, the human experience naturally enrichens, and goals become more and more realistic. Not necessarily any less ambitious, just measured. I actually believe our goals in this respect haven’t changed from those set out when we we’re younger. We still want to continue to create and release great music and we still crave the live thing. We’re so lucky to still be together after 25 years. When we we’re younger it was all about the live gigs and putting on great shows, now we transfer those incredible memories and skills into the records, the difference can be heard between our 2011 party album,  Dirty Wrecked, and our brand new, 2020 live/studio album, Jackpot Motel.

Everybody is influenced by somebody else. Who would you consider some of your biggest musical influences and how are they influential?

David Bowie, Stevie Wonder, and Queen let’s just go with these for now otherwise the list will be endless. Bowie was a pioneer of music and fashion, his biggest influence on us was that he always did his own thing, consistently performing at the top, whilst keeping his personal affairs out of the limelight and pushing the boundaries all the way to the very end. Stevie signed to Motown’s Tamla label aged 11 and hit the top aged 13! For any aspiring artist, this is an inspirational beginning but to go on to produce some of the world’s most important electronic, boogie jazz-funk and to be still performing is utterly jaw dropping – a living legend. Queen came along and re-wrote the rule books during the late 70’s and early 80’s. A band that didn’t really fit a genre exactly, but new precisely how to use their individual talents to spur each other on to write perfect stadium anthems time and time again.

Ah, the fun stuff. What’s your craziest tour story or the wackiest thing that’s happened during a performance? Feel free to be creative.

Ha, we don’t really need to be creative here, there we’re so many tour stories but one of the weirdest things was a woman clambering onto the drum kit, craning her neck to kiss Sam mid-song, when suddenly her false teeth fell out!

Wow! Up until this point in your career, what would you describe as your favorite song you’ve recorded or performed live? What makes that song special?

We haven’t managed to play the new album live yet due to the current situation so really, we’ll have to rewind to the days when we we’re performing “Goodbye” from our Dirty Wrecked album. Audience reaction is so important and although all the tracks on that album we’re belters, Goodbye was a standout track in a different way. The  time signature immediately changes the vibe into a singalong, and its raw lyrics seem to hit people straight in the heart leaving everyone with a lump in their throat. It’s just such an emotionally connected song and stripped back too, Steve wrote it years ago and we have kept it pretty much the same ever since, I think that’s the sign if a good song is actually a great song.

Is there anything else awesome, cool, or left of center the world should know about you? Secret talents or surprising tidbits?

Yes, I don’t think those reading this for the first time will realise how much charity work we did in the late 00’s. A few examples, for instance we gave permission to Fairtrade Foundation to use our track “Say It Loud” in various Fairtrade campaigns. We teamed up with Plan UK to sponsor a child and his community in La Paz, Honduras. Single “She’s Just A Girl” was used in a global campaign by our favored NGO Plan UK highlighting the issues faced by girls in the world’s poorest countries because of their lack of access to education and legal rights.

Or that we were packing out theatres aged 16 and 17!

Or that we narrowly avoided death during the 2002 Bali bombings which ultimately set the ball rolling after deciding that life was too short to spend time on anything but music.

Closing things out, what is Esteban currently working on, promoting that you can share with us or want us to know about? We love secrets, but there’s no pressure.

We have just released our second Esteban album Jackpot Motel, a 16-track desert funk odyssey and we’re chomping at the bit to take this new record live! However, like everyone we’ve put the shows on the back burner for now. COVID has though for us, been a really productive period; we’ve doubled down on writing new material so, we’re heading back into the studio this year to record. Word has it that we have just released a remix of our single “Suburban Paradise (The Comfy House Mix)” which is a left-field release for us, we’re really stoked about this, and it’s one of a few tracks set for release this year… you heard it here first!

Photo Credits: Brent Faulkner, Esteban, The Musical Hype