Words by Huw Jones
Photos by Rob Low

With their debut single “Whatabitch” (Chess Club) readied for release, Kurran and the Wolfnotes have, like so many of their ilk, been unwittingly sucked into a fashionably growing vortex of nu-folk. Fresh from their first tour and with comparisons ranging from Hank Williams to Johnny Cash, Fleetwood Mac to Fairport Convention, ‘SUP was more than willing to get out of London’s cold crush of Christmas shopping and into the warm to find out more about their short eight month existence. But Kurran (vocals and guitar), Tim (lead guitar), Ben (bass), Chris (drums and vocals) and Natalia (percussion, keys, vocals) are late, leaving ‘SUP lonely, exposed and increasingly conspicuous by their absence; ironic really as our venue of choice is a bar called The Social. With the dregs of a lukewarm cappuccino all but drained, Natalia arrives with only a flurry of apologies for company and ‘SUP can finally get down to business.

The only wolfnote ‘SUP had heard of prior to you guys was from Columbian She Wolf, Shakira.
Natalia: I hope we’re different to Shakira’s wolfnote. We do have a hideous wolf mask, which we like to scare people with when we’re on the tour bus. It’s meant to be scary but it’s really crap and that’s as far as we go with the wolf thing.

Do you share it around between the five of you or is there a designated wolfnote mascot?
Natalia: It’s usually Chris who wears it as he’s the mascot. He enjoys wearing it for some strange reason so we just let him get on with it.

Fair enough. How was the tour?
Natalia: It was a great experience, it was my first tour and I kind of knew it was going to be a bit hard. We haven’t even released a single yet so my expectations weren’t too high.

What did meet your expectations?
Natalia: Just being the only girl I would say, smelly boys and a smelly van. They sort of forget that I’m there and just get on with their boy ways so I know a lot more than I did and definitely more than I want to know.

Associating with smelly boys can be annoying as can being prematurely associated with the British nu-folk scene, purely off the back of your debut single.
Natalia: I would say that that particular song “Whatabitch” has a lot of folk elements but we’re sort of merging into a new direction. It’s a bit more heavy a bit darker. We don’t want to be lumped in with that group of people we just want to do our own thing and I think with the newer songs weíre breaking away from that.

(Chris and Ben arrive)

Chris: Sorry we’re late – we thought it was at two o’clock.

That’s a lame excuse.
Chris: I don’t know if Natalia told you but we just got back from tour on Saturday so literally yesterday was our only day to try and do some washing.

I take it you’re wearing clean pants now then?
Chris: Yes, definitely, that’s a must. I don’t know about Ben but -
Ben: No, no mine are clean all the time.

We were just talking about the hasty associations made between you and the nu-folk scene.
Chris: You know how these things happen. You’re maybe friendly with some people who are involved in the scene and then you get lumped in with that scene. I don’t think it’s necessarily a bad thing but I don’t think a pure folk band is what we are. Whenever people lump you into a certain thing sometimes you have to fight your way out of it. Plus we just happen to live here but we’re all from different parts of the world.

Coming from different parts of the world, do any of you clash culturally?
Ben: (laughing) They don’t like French music at all, I showed it to them but they didn’t like it.

Any particular French music?
Ben: Most French music didn’t work out with them.
Natalia: What’s that band that did that horrible cover of Blur’s “Song 2″?

What’s this?
Ben: There’s a French TV show called Taratata and usually bands just go in to record whatever they want. There was this cover from a band called Dionysos a huge, huge band in France and another band called Louise Attaque and they did a cover of Blur’s “Song 2″.
Natalia: Terrible, the worst thing I’ve ever heard.
Ben: It was terrible.

Was that because it was sung in French?
Ben: No that’s why it was terrible (laughs).
Chris: Woo Hoo! (laughs).
(Chris attempts to sing the chorus of “Song 2″ in a bad French accent much to the amusement of Ben and Natalia).
Natalia: There’s a lot of accent impersonations as well. We’re always trying to get Ben’s French accent down which really pisses him off.
Chris: Natalia’s quite good at doing the Northern Ireland accent too.

I love dodgy Irish accents. Can I hear it?
Natalia: I’m not doing it now.

Go on.
Natalia: No, but going back to talking about Shakira, Ben here -
Ben: No! You didn’t say that did you? I just think some of her songs are good.

That’s not what we were talking about Ben but if you’re a fan of Shakira that’s okay. Anything you want to tell us?
Ben: No, I’m not a fan of Shakira, I just think some of her songs are good.
Natalia: He’s a fan of her looks, we’ll leave it at that.
Ben: Yes.

(Kurran and Tim arrive)

Kurran: Really sorry we’re late. I don’t know if they told you but we just got back from tour on Saturday so yesterday was kind of our first day to do all our washing and stuff.

That’s the second time I’ve heard that one. Are you wearing clean pants like everyone else?
Kurran: Yeah I’m just about doing that today, yesterday that wouldn’t have happened.

So if you did all your washing yesterday why are you late today? I was the only one here on time.
Kurran: Well, Chris almost got clamped this morning because since we’ve been on tour they’ve turned his road into a clamping zone. He shot over to mine so we had to wait for him to get across London before we could come back. It’s not that exciting. What have you guys been talking about?

Shakira, French music and the assumption made that on the basis of “Whatabitch” you guys are a folk band.
Kurran: I think that people called it folk just because of the use of acoustic guitars and maybe some of the turn of phrase that I use with the lyrics. I don’t think we set out to call it folk, so we’re not going to call it folk. The association doesn’t hurt but we don’t want someone to buy our record on the basis of a Mumford and Sons record and then be really disappointed.
Tim: Essentially it’s a rock band, just a rock band.
Kurran: Just as equally as we can be really acoustic we’re not shying away from going very delayed and very distorted. If that’s what the song suits then that’s how it will be.

That’s good to hear and you can easily unpigeonhole yourselves from the whole folk thing by social networking through MySpace, Twitter and stuff.
Tim: I’m still not quite sure about Twitter.
Kurran: Chris does most of that stuff but we haven’t really got too personal with it. I mean we’ll say we’re going to be in this town on this day but we haven’t really taken it by the horns like some people have.
Tim: We’ve been so busy with touring itís hard to keep it all updated.

Not because you’re scared of attracting cyber stalkers or anything.
Kurran: We have had one guy actually on tour who’d never heard us before and after the gig came up to us and said he wanted to get some of our lyrics tattooed on his back. Since then he’s emailed me and I’ve had to send him over the lyrics to four or five different songs so he could choose which lyric he wanted.

Seriously? This guy had never heard of you before the gig then he wants your lyrics tattooed on his back? That’s a massive commitment.
Kurran: Yeah exactly he came fully committed without even knowing a single lyric, an instant commitment.
Tim: He was a really nice guy too, a really good guy.

Is he going to email you some pictures after he’s had it done?
Kurran: Yeah apparently, that’s what we’re hoping for. He’s chosen the lyric as well.

What is it?
Kurran: It’s “where did you get those eyes” which is a lyric from “Your Four Limbs” and he’s getting it with a wolf following a girl red riding hood style.

I don’t know if I like the sound of that.
Kurran: I think it sounds pretty good. I kind of helped him along with it, I told him I was thinking about the red riding hood thing when I wrote that song.
Tim: That makes it a bit more personal.
Kurran: You see that’s the thing. Anyone who says anything nice I always talk to because I’m so surprised that someone should come and get in contact with us through that kind of internet medium. It’s so impersonal if you know what I mean and if someone would put themselves out there like that you have to say something back.
Tim: I’ve just joined the band so I’ve yet to come across these MySpace stalkers.

What were you doing before you became a wolfnote?
Tim: I was working a full time job as a print finisher. I really enjoyed the job but obviously this is ten times better. Suddenly I meet Kurran and I have this option to join and suddenly I have to quit my job and go on tour and my world has literally turned on its head. I’d just got promoted as well to manager of my department.

That has to be the most enjoyable resignation letter you could ever hope to write. Did you say sorry boss I’m leaving to join a band and go on tour?
Tim: No I left that bit out. I shouldn’t have really but they were really bitter about it.
Kurran: It was so new for him, he’d only rehearsed for two weeks before he went out on tour.

That’s a massive deep end to be thrown into.
Tim: I had two weeks to learn all these riffs while I’m still working in my job during my notice. All I was worried about on tour was that my guitar didn’t fail on me or I didn’t miss any notes but other than that everything was incredible.

No wonder you guys are buzzing so much.
Kurran: The band hasn’t been going for that long anyway but it all took off really quickly before I even had a full band put together and everyone has jumped into this machine that has formed around the band so it’s still really really new. I think that’s why we’re so tired after this tour and so late.