“Hi, I’m calling from the Cherwell newspaper. I haven’t got you at a bad time have I?” I get through to Dom Ganderton, lead singer of hot new Birmingham band Superfood as he is running for the train. “No no not at all – actually I’ll be on the train in a second.” A rocky start, you might say, not helped by the fact that his manager just ominously told him to expect a call at 5 o’clock, leading to further confusion over who exactly I am. However, sporadic Oxford signal aside, soon we’re happily conversing about the Oxford music scene – The Mystics and Supergrass.
I begin by asking him about the origin of name (eponymous with one of their early songs). “It sort of came about after me and Ryan had been playing for months and months and finally decided to record something, and we recorded that song after the first three hour session we had”. He reminisces on their previous monikers of Junk and Baby 100 but says the name “Superfood gave off this cool image – you search the term in google images, and you get stuff that is bright, fresh and colourful. That’s what we want to be.”
And when describing their mesmerising music video for their new single TV, put up earlier on in the day, those adjectives come up again. A bizarre mixture of panning shots zooming in and out of objects juxtaposed with eerie generic consumerist adverts from the 90s and images of the band singing, dancing and chucking around something resembling fruit loops. “Oh did you like it?” He laughs, passing it off as a bit of an experiment, but admits that the frequent use of pop culture, and early MTVesque shots seem to be the cool and edgy thing to do on a low budget.
I ask him if there’s anything profound about his lyrics or if a statement’s being made: “Not really to be honest… it was really just about getting down and writing some songs and getting some good riffs together – putting out what comes into your head rather than putting too much thought into it and being too clever with lyrics.”
The story behind how these b’town rockers got together is a pretty laid back one. “We’ve all just met in the last three or so years, we’ve all gone out drinking and clubbing together.” But it’s on the back of a boom in the Birmingham music scene, following the success of Splashh, Swim Deep and Peace. He mentions the significance of the latter in getting the band members with their similar tastes acquainted. “We only really started playing together as a full band properly in October last year”. Since then, they’ve certainly come a long way, landing slots supporting Peace on tour. I ask his opinion on the B-town scene in general. “I think it’s just the fact that other bands have done well, and people have thought f*** it, I’d like to do that too!”
We’re momentarily interrupted.“Hang on mate, I forgot to buy a train ticket. Naughty.” he chuckles. Very rock-n-roll. During this escapade, he tells me about Superfood’s influences. “In terms of rhythm and drums, what we want is a bit of that Motown glam, and as songwriting goes, a bit of ELO (fellow Brummies), The Isley Brothers, Earth Wind and Fire. It’s the kind of stuff we like to stick on the record player after a night out.” While their sound fits in well that of the 90s he states that “it’s important to keep your head clear and not rip anything off from the likes of Blur and Oasis. We like to start by making songs about just hanging out in Birmingham, and see where it goes from there.
I ask about their eclectic live performances, which secured their core fan base at the start. “We kind of focus on live and recorded performances as completely separate to each other” he says, “and with drums we never use any sample pads live or anything, because that’s not what we’ll actually sound like – and it lets us do a lot more in the studio”. We are briefly cut off again as the train goes through a tunnel. “We tend to use loops and distortion for demos and to try and get that the balance between the hip-hoppy sound and actually using a real drum kit.”
I never asked him where the train was going. But one hopes somewhere down the line, Superfood, with their unpretentious attitude to laying down riffs and channelling good music taste will find themselves in the subculture spotlight.
