Manchester’s YAANG Talk Weird Gigs, their New 17-Minute Single and the Meaning of Life

Words: Darci Jackson

Photos: Izzi Glover

It’s YAANG’s world and we’re just existing in it. Not even living, just existing, because they’re the ones who are really living it up.

YAANG are Davey Moore (vocals, electronics), Oliver Duffy (guitar, vocals) and Ben White (bass). It’s pretty impossible to describe the Manchester trio, but if we’re giving it a go, then it’s a culmination of three creative brains resulting in a medley of punchy synths, scuzzy electronic hooks with a Northern twang. It’s moreish, basically.

But despite their exhilarating music, the band themselves are quietly content and laidback. White began by explaining where their recent adventures have taken them.

"We recorded an EP in Liverpool at The Motor Museum. That took up quite a lot of time and energy, but it's worth it because it sounds great. We're just working out a bit of a release plan for that."

"We're off to Europe at the end of April as well," added Duffy.

YAANG are also headed to the in-between towns of Shrewsbury and Atherton, and Moore explains what makes the lesser appreciated places better:

 "When you go to all these little towns, the people love music and we love them. So we want to play for them.

"The weirdest we played in was a Freemasons Hall in Clitheroe. It was like those pictures of Winston Churchill and random right-wing figures on the walls. It was like an alright pub and then you just went into this little weird function room. The promoters were really lovely. They were basically like the only youth of the town."

"When we did Left of the Dial in Rotterdam, we played on the back of a moving bus. They strapped all the amps down but they didn’t strap us down so we were just getting rag dolled in the back of the bus," furthered Duffy.

"We played a huge room afterwards, and that was fucking awesome. It was the biggest venue we've ever played. I had a weird feeling on stage going, this is fucking awesome, I don't know if this will ever happen again. But it wasn't the bus" explained Moore, rather dejectedly.

Duffy and Moore were proudly sporting No Band Is An Island merch, a bi-monthly gig in Manchester, bringing community, live music and activism together in aid of charity.

"They're all good friends of ours. Jimmy from Martial Arts and Aoife from Westside Cowboy. All the other Westside Cowboys and the rest of Martial Arts are really good mates of ours. It's been very good to see that they're doing something positive. It's just nice because it sells out every time before they even announce who's playing. There’s nothing else really like that at the moment, I’m very happy to be involved with it in any capacity," explained Duffy.

"For people who are very busy in their own musical careers to do something that's for charity and for people who need it but then also, what I love about it, there's zero ego attached to it. It doesn't matter if you're playing huge venues, you do it for the cause and you play a little room and everyone has an awesome time. I've done sound for quite a lot of them and it's just a pleasure to be a part of," followed Moore.

Talking of community, YAANG spoke about their relationship with Stoke-on-Trent trio Formal Sppeedwear.

"They are our ride or die homies," started White.

"Beck, the frontman slash producer, is my oldest friend. I love him to bits. We went to college together," followed Moore.

"He kind of taught me how to be a musician in a way. He always tells me to shut up when I say this, but I was a little indie boy. I had Fred Perry, I love Arctic Monkeys, and he showed me new wave and how to make weird posters on Photoshop and make VHS tapes. He birthed my entire creative brain, I love that man very much. He’s annoying, but I love him, and I'm annoying too."

"I don’t like any of them," added Duffy.

"Didn’t you go to Scouts with Charlie?" asked Moore.

"I did go to Scouts with Charlie, it doesn’t mean I like him."

We think that’s a conversation for another time.

YAANG describe themselves as being ‘genre-less’, as White explained their music "kind of happens."

"I think the place that that comes from is the fact that we use the sampler to create the drums, and that can sound like anything. So if Davey's written a part already on the sampler, it could sound like ambient sort of droney stuff, but then the second [we] come to it with guitar parts, it can change it completely, and then that pretty much happens with every song that we write. We're sort of defining the YAANG brand a little bit more as we go along."

"Or at least for now. I don't think we'll ever sit in one style. These two have a lot more in common musically, but we all are quite obsessive people and we'll get really into something, and then we just try and merge it together," followed Moore.

The trio have recently announced their newest single Z.F.A.L, a 17-minute-long track only available to buy on vinyl, of which only 100 are being pressed.

How does one even begin to come up with a 17 minute long track, we hear you ask? Wait until you hear this:


"It was originally 34, 35 [minutes]," started White.

"And then we played it live at Psych Fest, and it ran about 28. And then when we re-recorded it for the vinyl, it went to about 17."

Speaking about the backstory, Moore added:

"It kind of was birthed because we got asked to do two sets for Psych Fest, and the idea headlining Factory, and then two hours later just doing the same set again seemed ludicrous to me. With a slight hesitation for these two at first, I was like, can we just do a psych kind of krautrock jam? And we all just slowly built it and added dynamic because the concept of trying to keep everyone's attention for that long is, even if you like krautrock and even if you like that kind of thing, it's challenging. But I think we played it off."

But what really sold it to us?

"You only get to hear the full thing if you buy it. There’s only one chord in it as well so, buckle up.

The drums don’t even come in until minute eight as well. You have to turn all the lights off and shut your eyes for 17 minutes," explained Duffy.

We’re sold.

And in terms of the rest of the year?

"Get the EP out, hopefully," was White’s reply.

"Take over the world. Play and that," from Moore.

"Split up," finished Duffy.

But we’re not quite done yet. Here’s a final Q&A with all of our burning questions for YAANG:

What’s your go-to to Chinese order?

B: Okay, so I discovered everyone has their own way of doing a Chinese. I discovered when I started going to my partner's family home for Chinese that they do it completely different to how I do it. usually I would have a little bit of satay chicken, some crispy chilli beef, some seaweed, a little bit of this, a little bit of that. Whereas they get their main and rice and that's it. They don't share. So I was disappointed and ridiculed for everyone being like, oh, you've just got chicken nuggets.

D: I didn't start liking Chinese food or Asian food in general until I went vegan slash vegetarian. So the menu is quite slimmed down for us, but I'm more of a Thai boy. I prefer to make my own food now because vegan and vegetarian Asian cuisine is hard to get. But it can be done and it's fucking delicious.

O: I haven’t had a Chinese in a while. It’s whatever brown stuff they have that's not made out of animals.

Where’s the best place for a first pint?

D: This is a very heavily argued thing. I don't know if you want to open this can of worms right now.

B: I think airport pint is up there, but I think it is overrated to a degree. The novelty is like, you're having a pint at 5am but you're paying £8 for a pint. If you're that arsed, get up at 5am and have a can in your kitchen. There’s nothing stopping you. Holiday balcony pint, I think is good.

D: Post work, post shift, that's up there. As soon as the sun comes out, the English genes in us just erupt, that's a good pint.

B: A pint on anything moving.

D: If you're feeling sad, the shower can. It's either a low or a high point in your life, depending on how you look at it.

O: What’s more exciting is having the little can on the plane itself. The holiday doesn't exist until I'm on a plane, really. I can go to an airport, have a pint, the flight gets cancelled and I've achieved nothing. Once you're on the plane, it's like, well, I'm on the plane, I've made it. Unless the plane fucking crashes. I think the little warm Heineken silver can on the plane is a bit more... It's not as nice, but it's a bit more meaningful, I think.

Sell YAANG to us in one sentence.

O: No

B: Fake drums, real guitars

D: It's dead good, you'll like it, promise you, buy it.

What is the meaning of life?

B: See, I could go really basic and say 42, but I'm not going to do that

D: Keep breathing. Take each step. Eat food. Have a laugh. That’s all you can do really.

B: Life is actually an acronym. It stands for Let’s Identify Friends Errday.

What film would you want to be in?

O: Threads. It's about Sheffield getting nuked. It's actually the most harrowing film I've seen in my life. I could be the comic relief in Threads I think.

D: If you've never seen Kung Fu Hustle, it's the greatest film in existence. There's a landlady in there that runs really fast and has lions roar when she screams for a bell. And she always has a cigarette and I would like to be her.

B: Probably Toy Story 2. I want to be in the room when he fixes Woody. I want to ask him what his process is and take notes because obviously you can see it but I want to go through his toolbox and see what he’s working with.