In this interview feature, we get to know the most radicalist up and coming stars on the planet.

This time we caught up Liverpool's kaleidoscopic synth-pop trio Stealing Sheep.

Forming back in 2010, Rebecca Hawley (vocals/synths), Emily Lansley (vocals/guitar/bass/keys) and Lucy Mercer (vocals/drums/percussion) have just released their third studio album Big Wows via the ever-reliable Heavenly Recordings. Following the sparkly left-field pop of their criminally underrated 2015 sophomore record Not Real, Big Wows is the trio's boldest offering yet. Delivered with buckets full of good humour, lead track 'Joking Me' is a glittering off-kilter gem, whilst fellow List Pick 'Show Love' had us in the mood for romance. Known also for their colourful aesthetic and active participation progressive creative projects, including their moving 'Suffragette Tribute' last year, we figured it was about time to get to know Stealing Sheep a little better. 

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TMR: It's been roughly 9 years since Stealing Sheep began, but could you tell us a little bit about how you first met and what made you want to start making music together?

Woah... yeah it’s been 9 years!!! Holy moleeee... it feels like we’ve grown a lot together in this time - so thinking back, well... we were all playing music in other bands on the scene and working in cafes and shops on Liverpool’s Lark Lane - we saw each other about a lot and thought a jam could be fun! So we met up and then decided to make a go of it and we never looked back!

TMR: Liverpool's rich musical heritage has made it a destination for tourists from all around the world, but we were wondering if you could tell us more about what's going on in the city's music scene right now?

The Liverpool music scene is a kinda self fulfilling prophecy - it’s known for being creative and therefore becomes it - the myth magnetises creative mindedness to the city! It’s not just music but interesting conceptual art stuff too - ‘the royal standard’ is a big warehouse in the Baltic, filled with multidisciplinary artists - there’s a girl there called Orla Lawn making unusual collaged and textured surfaces, there’s a techno hardware artist called Mt Hall who also does video art projections and at our ‘Invisible Wind Factory’ studio there’s a production company called the Kazimier who do all sorts of interactive light installations and festival performances...band wise... Beija Flo is interesting - a kind a burlesque / theatre art style - oh yeah and there’s a solo writer and actress called Joanne Tremarco who tours a show called ‘women who wank’ dressed as a vagina... it’s basically very open minded, diverse and doesn’t seem very trend or commercially driven - more like a cultivation ground for experimental music and expansive ideas!!!

TMR: We're big fans of Heavenly Recordings here at TMR with newer acts such as audiobooks, CHAI and The Orielles as well as long-term singings like yourselves all winning our affections. What has it been like with the label for the last 7 years?

It’s like being part of a family - we’ve got a strong connection with them in terms of creative vision, honesty, trust and respect - all hail thy celestial Heavenly laddos.



TMR: We were lucky enough to catch your phenomenal 'Suffragette Tribute' at End of the Road Festival last year. Can you tell us how you put that together and do you anticipate working on any other big projects like this in the future?

We love doing art project stuff and workshops in between albums- we loved doing that procession with loads of women and it gives us a lot of fresh lust for music and breaking new ground for performance styles that take us out of the normal band dynamics...we’ve got another project like that coming up called 'Wow Machine' - a mechanical light-up stage with Kraftwerk-style synth music inspired by electronic music Pioneer Delia Derbyshire - expect robotic dance choreography and sparkles!!!

TMR: It's a well-known fact that women are massively under-represented in the music industry, especially on the more 'technical' side of things. With the arrival of 'Show Love' you mentioned that you've consciously chosen to collaborate with lots of women on the new album. Can you tell us more about this experience?

Yeah... this has been one of the best decisions we have ever made - but we don’t really have a gender bias when it comes to making art stuff - one of our favourite collaborators is Male! (That’s you joey ;) BUT!!! It isn’t easy to find women to work with and it was great for us to set this as a goal. you go to London and everyone recommends blokes - “so and so did a great video for” etc... it’s not anyone’s fault it’s just there’s a lot of successful guys out there getting the backing!! So looking for women was a bit harder and the women we really liked were less established in the industry... a bit harder to find - we settled on three Video artists Gyuri Chloe Lee (a Korean surreal stream of consciousness artist), Pastel Castle (a Leeds based pixel animator) and a Glaswegian graduate of the RA called Laura Spark (live motion and animation mix with unique film grading processes) they are all super talented and came up with really original aesthetics that together created this culty fan art / memorabilia theme for the album that perfectly complimented the eclectic sounds we used... It was cool to look beyond the plethora of established video directors - the relationship we’ve had with these women has been really special and their perception of what we’re doing was completely bang on- exactly what we needed and wanted for these tunes.

TMR: You've always been a colourful bunch, from the multi-coloured tights of your Not Real era to the vibrant new videos for 'Joking Me' and 'Show Love'. Do you think it's important to construct a recognisable aesthetic as a band?

Hmmm - yeah we do like the visual stuff - I feel like an aesthetic can aid the music a lot - it can give it context - even in a very subtle way - taking Father John Misty as an example... the irony and preachy satire stuff depicted in the art work for his album totally sets off the record and gives you the right framework to listen to the tunes - in our new stuff the nostalgic pixel pc computer art style is perfect because it draws a lot of moods and memories to it for the listener, the colours are really important to us- we wanted acids and over saturated colours to conjure this ‘culture implosion’ image.  ️



TMR: There's definitely a poppier flavour to your recent singles. Is this a direction you've been wanting to explore for some time?

For this album we melded these sugar crushy Tokyo/Kawaii flavours with dystopic sci-fi electro & dance sounds and I guess that’s because it’s supposed to represent the world around us in a kind of POP melt down  we’re playing with technology and computers- glitchy sounds and buzzing off all That instant gratification an domaine poppin’ iPhone shit - the music is basically channeling all of that an coming out as fizzy cola.

TMR: This question is becoming somewhat of a tradition in our TMR Talk To... features, but it's a fun one. If you could create the perfect environment to listen to Stealing Sheep in what would it be?

In VR dreamland Stealing Sheep’s BIG WOWS would be listened to on neon pink headphones at full blast whilst speeding down rainbow road in Mario kart preparing to effortlessly win the special cup  in a climatic euphoria.

TMR: As a blog specialising in new music, we’d love to know if you’ve seen or heard any exciting acts recently that you’d like to mention?

There’s a cool new band from Leeds called Vide0 featuring the Vide0 gurl that makes our pixel animations, go listen.

TMR: Finally, we're absolutely loving Big Wows, but what does the rest of 2019 look like for Stealing Sheep?

We’re about to announce our US tour and more festival slots- we’re releasing a full set of karaoke videos for the whole album, releasing a remix album on cassette (featuring our fave Liverpool artists) and we’re revealing more wowz later in the year... it’s the year of the WOW.



Big Wows is out now via Heavenly Recordings.

-Holly Mullineaux