Getting to Know… The Yalla Yallas | Interview 🎤

For our 189^th interview on The Musical Hype, singer Rob Galloway provides background and insight regarding his band, The Yalla Yallas.  

“We can’t be arsed with kissing arse, and I think our audience really respect that.” Just in case you need additional context regarding what 🎙 Rob Galloway, the lead singer of 🎙 The Yalla Yallas said, basically, him and his band do whatever they want to.  As the kids say these days, they don’t give a f-.  On our 189^th interview on The Musical Hype (onward to 200), Galloway provides us with background on the band, as well as insight into their craft and what they are currently working on and promoting.  Rather than spoil things with another ‘profane’ quote from the Q&A, why not simply check out 🎤 Getting to Know… The Yalla Yallas: Interview No. 189 for yourself?

Starting things off, for those who may not be familiar with The Yalla Yallas, what would you say makes your band distinct or unique? How do you rock the audience’s socks off?

🎤 Hi, nice to speak with you, I’m 🎙 Rob Galloway lead singer with The Yalla Yallas. I think we’re unique in the fact that we do what we want. We’re not interested in a record label or climbing up the ladder. We can’t be arsed with kissing arse, and I think our audience really respect that. We’ve never been part of a scene; some people have tried to claim us over the years they probably regret that now. The punks don’t think we’re punk enough, rock doesn’t think we rock enough, indie fans think we’re too punk. We’re just a band that exists in our own realm. I love that. That we can just float around making music and being a fucking brilliant live band and we just seem to transcend all expectations.

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

🎤 The band formed as my first real relationship was breaking down nearly fifteen years ago. I needed somewhere to get out my rage. People think the first album, 💿 Act of Defiance, is a political album, when in truth it’s a heartbreak album disguised as a political album. I’d put an advert out for a guitarist and 🎙 Will Grinder got in touch. I initially turned Will down because I really didn’t like his previous band. Luckily, Will persisted and convinced me to have a jam with us and that he had a van which would be useful for a band. Will then sold the van before the first rehearsal, but he was the perfect guitarist. We’ve had a wonderful musical relationship ever since. We’ve had two bass players 🎙 Matthew Dempsey who quit the band after our third album ‘Medusa’ to concentrate on being a lubed-up body builder, muscle man, or something, he helped our current bass player 🎙 Vince join the band and even rotated gigs while everyone made up their mind about that they wanted to do. 🎙 Grant Henderson is our current drummer and he follows a long line of wonderful drummers, we’ve always had good drummers, but we seem to have a different drummer for every album. Grant has been around the band from pretty much day one and has produced all our albums.

Our goal is always the next album and the gigs in between. Just keep making music. Everything else is a bonus. We’ve seen plenty of ambitious bands who want to make it big but a lot of them don’t even get to their debut album. We’re about to release our fifth album and we’re pretty pleased with ourselves right now.

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?

🎤 Naturally, your perspectives change as you get older. I love looking at our back catalogue and with each album we managed to capture where I was at the time. I can see what was going on in my life, what kind of music I was being influenced by, and this new album is a continuation of that. We’ve always tried to progress or move our sound in some way with each album. Try and make music that we shouldn’t be allowed to make if you started out as a four-piece punk band from Leeds, UK. Previously we’ve touched on gospel, Spanish blues, country, folk, and for our upcoming record we’re bringing in ambient elements, psychedelic Pop, stoner rock and krautrock and yet it somehow still sounds like us.

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

🎤 My biggest influences have to be Joe Strummer, Guns n Roses, and U2. Joe Strummer taught me that you can start out as a punk band, but you can make whatever kind of music you like but underneath it all you can still be a punk. Guns n Roses brought me the danger of Rock n Roll, to be able to stand up for yourself. Especially Axl, I don’t think he can ever be accused of selling out. He’ll fight until the death and at all costs if he believes he is right. I truly respect that.

U2 always seem to get a lot of stick, people say they liked them before they went political. They’ve been political since 1983. They were just so subtle in their songwriting. The Joshua Tree album might sound like a pop album, but it’s loaded with politics. U2 are the band that taught me about Martin Luther King, Victor Jara, Nelson Mandela, El Salvador, Sarajevo, Burma, and that’s before you get onto Africa and the AIDS crisis. People don’t seem to like Bono’s activism but who out there is doing what he’s doing. I’m not saying he’s right about everything, what human is? But at least he’s trying to do something.

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.

🎤 On tour we’ve slept in some crazy places, we once spent the night in a bank vault, and I’m not sure if it was a Yallas gig or not but Me and Dave (Our rebel poet) also once slept in a mortuary. As for wacky things that happen in our performances. We don’t do wacky. We’re a no-nonsense high-energy Rock n Roll band. We don’t fuck about.

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?

🎤 This changes with every interview. Today I’m really in love with a song I wrote called 🎵 “Problems”. I wrote it on World Suicide Prevention Day. It took me about five minutes to write. I woke up and saw the suicide awareness posts and I thought about the things that bother me. I think the advertising industry has a lot to answer for, how they hypnotise everyone everywhere, constantly telling us that we’re no good or that we don’t have enough. “Problems” is a joyful, empowering ‘fuck you’ to anyone who’s ever told you that you’re not good enough.

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

🎤 TRUE FACT: I was once invited to Kylie Minogue’s Birthday party in Las Vegas. Unfortunately, I had to stand her up. Sorry Kylie … another time maybe?

Closing things out, what is The Yalla Yallas 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 a song called 🎵 “Morning Sun” which is actually going to the real moon on a real space rocket. It will be going on one of the Astrobotic space missions. It’s from our new album, 💿 What it Means to be Human, which is out on the summer solstice 21st June.

Thank you so much for sharing taking the time to answer these questions, and best of luck moving forward.  

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Getting to Know… The Yalla Yallas: Interview No. 189 🎤 [📷: Brent Faulkner, The Musical Hype, The Yalla Yallas]