Zulu Winter

It’s South London in December, and three-fifths of Zulu Winter are finishing up work on their debut album. Though singer Will Daunt is tucked up in bed at home, nursing a seasonal bout of cold – we’re assured by his bandmates that it certainly, categorically, was not brought on by heavy drinking or all night partying, OK? – Iain Locke, Guy Henderson and Dom Millard are keen to tell us all about their recent show supporting Friendly Fires at Brixton Academy. “Beforehand I really thought I was going to need a change of underwear,” laughs keyboardist Millard. “But the songs worked really well in that huge environment and as soon as we sound-checked we knew it was going to sound great.”

It would be naïve to predict that Zulu Winter will be headlining their own enormous shows in 12 months time, but then again, their debut single, the Double Denim-released ‘Let’s Move Back To Front’, attracted the advances of so many major record labels that success seems inevitable. However, those offers were spurned in favour of a deal with PIAS, something bassist Iain Locke explains as being about, “the relationship with the people there and being able to retain a degree of control.” Having written an album’s-worth of material before they’d even played a gig, recording has been much less of an ordeal than it is for most new bands. Due out in the first half of 2012, they claim the record has huge pop potential, too. “I don’t feel that we have shown our most melodic moments yet,” says Locke. “But, at the same time, we have much more moody and atmospheric songs on the album too.”

The group admit they are likely to face a backlash, a natural reaction to the hype and praise they have received in 2011, and are more than ready for it. One criticism they don’t take well to, however, is the suggestion that their influences, which include the Czech new wave films of Věra Chytilová and the Merce Cunningham Dance Group, could be, well, a little pretentious? “Absolutely not!” says a now impassioned Locke. “The things we like make us who we are as individuals and influence us as people. If someone likes our songs but is put off by our tastes, then that’s their loss.” As drummer Guy points out, “It’s not as if I’m thinking about foreign films as I’m drumming, is it?” Pretentious or not, they’ve literary tastes. A quick scan of Zulu Winter’s blog unearths a love of Ayn Rand’s 1943 philosophical novel The Fountainhead. Keen readers will know its message is that those who doggedly follow their own unique path and ideals often end up shunned and ignored. Luckily for us, Zulu Winter look set to stick it to the Rand.