Dynamic duo Slaves are Laurie Vincent and Isaac Holman. We caught up with Laurie to discuss the recording of their new album, an upcoming slot on the NME Awards Tour and meeting Bono…

Hi Laurie. How are you and what have you been up to this week?
I’m good thanks. We we’re doing a photo-shoot yesterday and I’ve just been doing a few interviews and press stuff. Today I’m at home doing a lot of organisational stuff.

You’ll be on the NME Awards Tour next month, joining Palma Violets, Fat White Family and The Amazing Snakeheads – looking forward to it?
I’m looking forward to seeing how every night will make each band up their game. All of the bands bring a big live performance and their reputation with it, so I think it’s going to be interesting by the last night to see who is fainting on stage and stuff, we’ll all have to up our game every night when we’re playing with such good bands.

You’re playing the opening slot, following the likes of Franz Ferdinand, Florence + The Machine and Coldplay in recent years. 
Yeah, I’ve heard it’s very prestigious. It’s quite surreal to be in that position, I never really considered we’d have a chance at doing that kind of thing, so we’ll just keep our heads down and try and pull it off…

Is there anywhere on the tour you’re specifically excited about playing?
I always get excited about coming back to London, which will be the last show. I’m excited for Scotland as well, especially because we’re playing with the Snakeheads – it’s going to be exciting to see that. But pretty much everywhere, they’re all big venues for us, like on the Jamie T tour; we’re just really excited to be playing big venues and not taking a step back.

Your latest single ‘The Hunter’ came out earlier this month – it’s safe to say it’s straight to the point and full of energy like your other tracks. How did you write the song?
We were just writing our album and it came when we were wrapping up. There’s a lot of depth to  The Hunter’; Isaac’s melodies and how they flow with the lyrics, which are syncopated with the guitar. It just came out really quickly in about an hour. It’s kind of like all the best songs; they just like flow out of you. We had an hour left of this practice room and then the first single off the album just came out, so it was quite exciting.

The video for the track is interesting to say the least…
We filmed a video beforehand and it really didn’t come off well. I had a massive realisation that we were going to release something that doesn’t represent the band. At that point we didn’t really enjoy being in videos, and I asked myself how important is it to get across what the band is like. We had a little discussion with our label and convinced them to let us pull the original video because I had an idea for a new one. I wanted us to have that 80s Top Of The Pops vibe, where it’s very obvious what we’re doing, but we’re obviously not playing any instruments. I wanted to have bright colours and us smashing things when “the Hunter” drops in. We got Youth Hymns in and they just took my idea and ran with it. We’re over the moon with it, it’s the best video we’ve done so far I think. They smashed it.

You and formed Slaves with Isaac when you lived in Kent, before moving to London. What’s been the most pivotal moment of your career so far?
Playing Reading and Leeds for the first time on the BBC Introducing Stage. If we hadn’t played that I don’t think we would even be here. We got the opportunity through BBC Kent, and when we played the show no one really expected it to kick off as much as it did. Then we got label interest and it just started the whole process rolling. Looking back, that was the start of everything.

You mentioned before you’d been on tour with Jamie T – how was that?
It was amazing. Jamie T is one of my personal heroes, I’m a massive fan and it was just really surreal to watch him play every night and to even be playing on the same bill. I think his style of music crosses over with the mainstream in the same way I hope ours could. I think we surprised quite a lot of his fans by being slightly heavier, but still maintaining that indie/rock vibe. It was a really great opportunity for us and I think it did us a load of favours in the long run.

Last year you played Later with… Jools Holland, performing your song ‘Hey’ on the same night that U2 were on the bill. Did you get a chance to meet Bono? Yeah, we did a photo-shoot before, like they line up all the artists who are on that night and take a picture and I overhead Bono telling the Edge to fuck off. He actually called him ‘the’ Edge – “Fuck off the Edge” – and it just sounded really strange. Isaac was standing in their way during the interval and Bono was getting whisked through by security. Isaac was in the way, so Bono tapped him on the shoulder and went “good show mate” and he replied, “Yeah you too”, just as you would with anyone, but it caused a bit of a media stir, It’s fine, though.

What can we expect from Slaves in 2015?
There’s an album coming out and we’re doing a lot of festivals, a lot of touring. I hope we just keep doing more songs, more artwork, and just keep going as we are.

James Cummins
@CummyBear