we’re back with our next Knead To Know interview, with the amazing Manchester-based indie rockers Cottons! 🤘

we had Cottons perform for us down at The Old Abbey Taphouse here in Manchester back in 2019, and they absolutely smashed their set, it was a brilliant gig. since then, they’ve been releasing some proper bangers, we’re massive fans of their sound and they’re lovely chaps as well. 😊 one of our favourite tunes of theirs has to be “Disregard The Times”, it’s got a lovely groove to it, proper boss songwriting and the album art is simply gorgeous.

since then, they’ve put out a load of fantastic music, most recently their new single “Time To Leave” – continuing with their calming and mellow indie signature sound, but really moulding their style to create something really unique to them. it’s a lovely tune with their usual classic songwriting, definitely one to catch if you’re a fan of indie or alternative rock. ☀️ we’re proper delighted to be able to have been able to ask them a few questions about their music, find it below!

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Tell us a bit about yourselves and what you guys do! 

We’re a four piece band living in Manchester, playing a familiar indie sound with melodic verses & driven chorus’. Consisting of Ricky, Jasper, Jack and Charlie, Cottons began by meeting at Uni. We’re currently working on new music that we’re pushing to release throughout the year!

We had you guys perform for us back in like 2018 over at The Old Abbey Taphouse – feels like a lifetime ago now! How has it been over the years in the band?

That was a fun gig. It was Ricky’s first gig as part of the band so that definitely made it a memorable one! We’ve had a quiet few years due to the pandemic but we feel like we’ve developed our sound a lot, the next few songs will sound quite different to our previous releases so we’re excited to see how they’re received! I think Time To Leave has been the first song to move in that direction.

What are your main inspirations for music and creativity? 

Lockdown gave us space and time to listen to new music and find new artists, when we all got back to Manchester we would listen together and share demos and ideas we had created. Change of environment is a big thing for us too, a lot of these songs reflect where we were and what we were doing at the time. 

How do you write? Do you take a group approach to it, or do you have someone focus on lyrics, jam the tracks out to build them from ideas or otherwise?

Usually one of us will have a shell of a song that we take into a practice room to jam through, this gives us a basic idea then we can work on individual sections and parts. Lockdown forced us to become comfortable with logic, so we wrote a lot on there too and sent bits across to each other. 

Did you find it difficult to work together as a band creatively during the lockdowns? Obviously it wouldn’t have been easy to practice together, or did you use other means such as video calls / streams?

We just focused on content really, we did a couple of lockdown covers remotely which did help us grow. 

How have you been readjusting to gigging and post-pandemic music over the past few months?

We did a headliner in Manchester, Charlie was sick down an alleyway before we played so as a first gig back not the worst. In all seriousness It was quite nerve racking running up to our first gig back but as soon as we got on stage we remembered why we’re doing this.

When you’re performing live, what do you each find best about it?

• Ricky – Jumping off stage
• Jack – ‘I don’t know, I just find it fun init.’
• Jasper – Riffin’
• Charlie – Giving it large

How have your releases been going lately? You’ve been doing videos, putting out some top singles – what response have you guys got from audiences?

We filmed our first music video, we shot it in Derby whilst Boris was probably having a party. The response has been good to the video and helps put some faces to the name. We’ve had some recognition from Dean Jackson on BBC Intro East Mids which has been really encouraging.

Is there anything coming up we should know about?

Yes.

Have you got anything else planned for 2022?

We’ll be playing Bearded Theory in May, it’s our first festival so we’re very excited! 

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as always, it’s super lovely to be able to conduct these interviews with some of the best talent here in Manchester! we love hearing each artist and band’s unique perspectives and experiences, and Cottons’ here is really interesting in that they used lockdowns and pandemics to focus on themselves as a band, expand out their sound, try new things and it’s really worked out for them! 🙌 it’s a similar aspect to ourselves here at the label, in that we expanded out our online features, which in turn has worked out amazingly and we’ve seen some brilliant feedback from people and really managed to help push the musical community in a positive manner. great stuff! ☀️

brilliant to chat to the lads here, a massive shout to them for helping us with this. ❤️ we hope that you guys enjoyed this as much as we did! make sure you check out their tunes, we’ll pop some links below for you all to have a look at and let us know what you think! 🍞