Matt Wellham
After years of photographing and filming the London music scene, Matt’s now based in Sydney, Australia. A lover of the post-punk and alternative movement, he can usually be found in the grassroots venues, camera in one hand and a beer in the other.
We chat with Welsh rockers CVC about their new synth led sound, why Cardiff’s music scene is struggling, and a lot more
Welsh six-piece CVC found success with their 70s rock inspired debut album ‘Get Real‘ in 2023. The album was full of catchy ballads that audiences found comforting and easy to belt along with on a long car ride. Recently, the group have returned with slick, synth-drenched singles ‘Bonnie & Clyde’ and ‘The Lowrider (Just About Meant To Be)’.
Ahead of their second night in London, a part of their mammoth 14 stop tour of the UK, I had the opportunity to sit down with Francesco, Elliot and David. Over the next 30 minutes we spoke about their new sound, working with a legendary 80s producer, breaking out of the Cardiff music scene and what’s next for the collective.
Matt: Getting straight into the new sound: whenever I look up CVC, I always get an interesting genre definition for you guys. Recently I’ve seen ‘soul-funk-pop-rock-goodtime’, ‘next-gen-yacht-rock’ and ‘psych-rock-indie-sleaze’. In your own words, in this new era of CVC how would you define your genre?
Elliot: Funky vibe music, I think is kind of what we’re going for right now. Cesco said that one on a whim in Austin the other day, and it’s kind of stuck. So we’re going with funky vibe music from now on.
Matt: On that tone, recent singles The Lowrider and Bonnie & Clyde have featured a much synth heavier sound than your previous record. Tell us about the sound, what was the journey like to that sonic space?
Cesco: We’ve kind of progressed into playing around with keyboards a lot more in the studio. And we got into the 80s sound, rather than our previous 70s sound. We also got involved with a producer who did a lot in the 80s. So it’s just been a natural progression.
David: We’re exploring new territory I think. We did a lot of the 70s rock stuff, and now we just want to start chipping away on some other sort of sounds to keep it interesting for us.
Matt: What’s it like working in this different space, did you have to tweak your process in the songwriting and recording phase?
Elliot: It’s been a really different process making these singles. With Get Real, we had all the songs and we’d been gigging them for years. So we went into the process knowing how we wanted things, but this was more of an experimental process. We sort of stripped everything back and got into the fundamentals of the chords, melodies and the structure. We’d start building up songs and painting them in whatever colors we want. And there’s some songs we painted purple and orange and then painted over with yellow and blue, and then painted over again…
David: …in black!
Cesco: Yeah black, dark sounds!
Matt: Were there any particular influences that found their way into your playlists during this writing phase?
Elliot: After we finished Get Real, I remember a day out we had in the Welsh mountains and we were rinsing The Best of Hall And Oats in my car. I think just generally, in that period we were listening to a lot of music that came out in the 80s. I know David rediscovered Michael Jackson.
David: Yeah, all this stuff is great songwriting, lots of harmony vocals and big fucking synthesizers.
Francesco: Also we’ve all been interested in new synth pop for quite a while, like Tame Impala and Mac DeMarco and stuff like that, which you know, has a massive use of synthesizers all over the place.
Elliot: It’s in right now! The cool thing to do is have massive synths.
Matt: You’ve mentioned you’d been working with Chris Hughes, known for working with Tears for Fears, Robert Plant, Peter Gabriel, to name a few. What was it like working with someone that produced some of the 80s biggest hits? Did that have a big influence on the sound for this new CVC era?
Elliot: It’s been really amazing. He’s just such a personality, and sometimes having that personality in a room when you’re making music is more important than being able to produce it. His ideas and persona influenced the songs, and I think that’s what he’s great at. As well as having a massive catalogue of success!
David: He doesn’t give off the energy of being a massive fucking hit record producer. He’s so down to earth. He never reminds you of the fact that he’s like, a fucking huge producer. So chill.
Elliot: Ha I don’t know, he will drop in the old Paul Mcartney reference every now and then…
David: True, but he makes jokes with us. You know, he gets all of our humor. He never turns his nose up at anything and he gets down and dirty. And let’s not forget Mark Frith, who is our engineer and absolute legend. He’s a co-producer in fairness, a genius musician and just a great team to be in a studio with.
Matt: There’s been two singles launched so far, can we assume a second record is due to come out or an EP? Any news you can share on that?
David: We haven’t officially announced anything yet, but we do have something coming this summer…
Elliot: All we can say is we’ve made a lot of music, and it’ll be coming this year…
Matt: You guys come from the Cardiff and South Wales music scene, I grew up in and around the city and can remember a thriving independent music scene at the time. You had Porters, Gwdihw, The Moon, Clwb Ifor Bach. However, a few of those grassroots venues have closed down in recent years. With that in mind, how do you feel it’s affected the Cardiff scene?
David: I think there was a big shift. It used to be a very communal scene, everybody was loving everything, and everybody was chill. And I think with places shutting down, things are getting a bit sour and a bit choked, and I think we’ve lost some of the camaraderie and vibe. Now I feel like everyone’s trying to outdo each other when before it was like, there’s room for everybody, there’s venues for everybody, there’s bread for all to eat.
Elliot: Well half of those venues you just mentioned have closed down. So like, Cardiff is struggling, man, but the bands are there, and the welsh hills are alive with the sound of music. But there’s no support for it. I don’t know what we would have done if we didn’t have those places to come through on.
Matt: After cutting your teeth in Cardiff, you were one of the bands that broke out and are now doing tours all around the UK, playing abroad and at festivals. Any advice for artists looking to break out of their local scene?
Francesco: You’ve got to keep on getting the gigs you can get in your city at the time, and then it’s networking as much as possible.
David: Yeah, sticking around, watching other bands, and then speaking to other people, finding out who’s managing who.
Like Cesco said, networking, going to gigs, meeting people. Everything in this industry, or at least 99.9% is who you know. Like, nobody’s going to find you if you’re not out there drinking pints, water, or whatever, with the people who are putting the shows on. You’ve got to make those contacts and make those friends.
“Everything in this industry, or at least 99.9% is who you know“
Elliot: And remember to just keep going. One of the last gigs we played before we met our managers who allowed us the opportunity and the platform to break out of Cardiff, was in London and there were maybe four people there. Three of those were the bar staff.
So, you know, like, just keep going, keep networking, keep doing all the things you need to do, and if the music’s great, everything will follow.
Matt: Even though venues are shutting down, there does seem to be a particularly exciting crop of fresh talent coming out of Wales at the moment (Adwaith, The Royston Club, The Bug Club, Kelly Lee Owens to name a few). Are there any welsh artists on your list that you think people may not know about and should check out?
Francesco: Slate are a big band in Cardiff at the moment.
David: The Family Battenberg are doing things. We recently played with them in the Netherlands, and they were fucking good.
Francesco: Ah yeah, they’ve got a bit of a King Gizz vibe to them, some really heavy good tunes.
David: Panic Shack are good mates of ours. And they’re always producing some good shit.
Elliot: Pigeon wigs and Stack Of Terror.
David: They’re all good bands, man. They just need that spotlight.
Aside from Wales, people have to check out Getdown Services.
Matt: I had the opportunity to photograph them a couple of weeks and and they’re fucking brilliant. They’re so funny. It was honestly like watching stand up comedy. Dog Dribble is an unbelievable tune.
Francesco: Yeah they’ve got some serious talent, those boys.
Matt: At Clunk we’re all about championing rural communities and ensuring that live music reaches them. As an artist is there anything you’d like to see change in the industry to help get bands out to play further afield?
Elliot: We’ve just touched on it, but the grassroots issue, I want to see some support from the government, we need to see some funding opportunities. Because if everything keeps going, where is art going? And I really believe art leads culture. It leads to creativity in all areas of humanity. So if there’s no art, then what do we do as a human race? I don’t want to go too deep with this stuff, but just some support from people who can actually provide it would be good.
David: The biggest thing for bands is money is so hard to make. I know bands, and we’ve done it for years, who drive themselves in two cars with all the amps and all this shit up to London for £30. You’ve got £100 in fuel. Probably a parking fine, because you parked on double yellows outside the venue for two hours. You go home and you’re all £80 in the hole. I mean, there needs to be some money to lubricate the wheels. And currently, there’s none until you get way up the ladder. You’ve got to spend years making a loss to get anywhere near making any sort of money.
Elliot: I will say, in fairness, there are some places in the UK which do it right, like Edinburgh. My girlfriend lives in Edinburgh, and she works in the music industry as a sound engineer. There are people there who are in bands, just within the local scene, who are living off being musicians. The local venues payout £150 per gig. I know that’s not amazing for a six piece band trying to afford their bills, but it’s a start. They can survive there. Most bands are working three jobs on the side, just to afford their rent, and then they have no time and energy to be creative. So, you know, something needs to change.
Matt: Going from a small local scene in Cardiff and selling out venues like Clwb, to now kicking off a 14 stop tour of the UK. How has that shift been for you as a band? Do you enjoy being out on the road?
Francesco: It’s class going further afield on tour with your best mates to play music to people. I have the best time doing it. It takes us to amazing places like Austin and SXSW. You know, like I would never get to go there. I would never have even thought to go there. But it turns out to be one of the best cities I’ve ever been to in my life.
David: We can go to places like Hull and sell 300 tickets there. You know, if you’d have told us that 10 years ago, I’d never believe you. Let alone travelling abroad to Austin.
But yeah it’s just good to travel. Travelling is one of the great joys of life.
Matt: What’s your favourite aspect of playing live?
David: I like speaking to the crowd, man. I’m always trying to make the crowd laugh. I had a couple of laughs last night. I like to make sure people have a good time…
Elliot: …all I heard after he spoke was a tumbleweed rolling around the back of the crowd.
I like the unpredictability of it. We never know what will happen. I fell over on stage last night during a solo and I find those moments are the best.
Matt: You played your first of two London shows last night? How was the atmosphere down here in London?
David: Absolutely pumping. Yeah, good vibes. People were dancing, lots of smiles, lots of laughing people, lots of happy people. I think our main objective is to make people have a good time. That’s what we’re here for. And I think we achieved that last night. Thank you to everybody who came!
Francesco: We had a lot of fun, maybe too much fun…
Matt: What’s next for CVC after the tour? Have you got any festivals booked this summer?
Elliot: We’ve announced In It Together already and there’s a couple not announced, but one ends in a *. I’m not sure we can say that actually, maybe strike that from the record.
Matt: Oh shit, that’s a huge announcement, congrats boys. Don’t worry we’ll put an asterisk in the write up.
Matt: Is there anything else you would like to say to our audience?
David: I would like to say thank you to everybody who’s ever done anything remotely inclined to help us on our journey to being successful. Thank you everybody so much. It means the world to us.
Elliot: And I would like to thank anybody who’s ever done anything to help somebody else in this world. Thank you.
Check out CVC‘s latest single Bonnie & Clyde: