King Hannah are a severely underappreciated band from the United Kingdom. Their debut, "I'm Not Sorry, I Was Just Being Me" was one of the best rock records to come out of 2022. The album featured a blend of alternative rock, blues rock, psych rock, and, eclectically, some trip hop-ish elements. The songwriting was stellar, the vocals low-key and deadpan but oddly appealing. The staple members of the band are Craig Whittle (guitar) and Hannah Merrick (vocals). A note: since this is a recent band, there are fewer interviews to sift through (i.e. for multiple release years / eras / what have you. Still, there weren't a dearth of pieces; this record was fairly well anticipated.
Related lists:
Chelsea Wolfe Interview Compilation
Below I've compiled some interesting interviews from the dynamic duo, with standout quotes included.
*DISCLAIMER: I CLAIM NO OWNERSHIP OF THESE INTERVIEWS. Links to the original site included at the bottom of each entry.*
01. Nbhap || 02/23/2022
“I think we’re quite the melancholic, nostalgic, sentimental people… That’s what we love most in all forms of art”, Craig asserts, while Hannah adds that “it’s very natural … to write that sort of style. I think, that when you’re in a sort of mode of thinking about songs and thinking of yourself as a writer or an artist … you’re always thinking about music, thinking about what could potentially be a song. We never really switch off from that.”
https://nbhap.com/stories/interview-king-hannah-debut-album
Addicted: I hear a lot of PJ Harvey and Portishead in your sound. Apart from them, who are some other influences that we wouldn’t immediately come to expect?
Craig: "We love PJ Harvey and Portishead! During the writing and making of the album we were listening to a lot of Bill Callahan, Sun Kil Moon, Red House Painters, Jason Molina, Mazzy Star, Courtney Barnett and also a lot of older 70’s stuff like Neil Young, John Prine and Can. I think all of these influences seep into the record in one way or another. We really love records that sound honest and real, like people playing in a room together." Hannah Merrick: "We always say too, that the music we write and record reflects the artists we’re listening to at that very moment in time, which is why the EP sounds very different to the LP. Both from a songwriting perspective and how the record sounds. We were listening to very different artists when making both records."
03. ondarock
During your live performance you often play, if not always, an incredible cover from Bruce Spingsteen’s “State Trooper”, which is itself, if not exactly a cover of, very inspired from Suicide’s “Frankie Teardrop”. Why this song? What does it mean for you?
Craig: Well we love Springsteen and love the Nebraska album, because it doesn’t really feel like a typical Springsteen record. It’s lo-fi and he recorded most of it by himself on afour-track, and it just has that DIY quality we love in music. It also has the imagery and atmosphere and pacing that we love, so we just thought it was a song we could do something cool with.
Hannah: I’ve never been massively into Brucey the way Craig is, but I love this song’s pace, mood and drive, plus I generally sing in my lower range, which I think (and hope!) suits this song! Also, any song that allows for a huge ending, we’re all for!
https://www.ondarock.it/interviews/kinghannah.htm
04. Life Elsewhere
Their moniker is clever, a deadpan kick in the shins of conformity and gender identity. Yet, Hannah nonchalantly says, “Oh, it’s a name I came up with ages ago, I thought it sounded good. So we used it”. That’s the thing about these two, everything is all matter-of-fact. There’s no pretensions, no deliberate persona they are eager to get across. When they are told that Crème Brûlée is an incredibly sexy song, they both sound surprised. Craig, between a chuckle or two, says, “Just look at us!” We did and we like what we see. The authenticity of King Hannah is right up front, their music does not mess about. “We’re determined to get it right”, says Hannah They genuinely enjoy making music together “We know when to finish a song without even looking at each other,” Hannah shares.
https://lifeelsewhere.co/2021/03/12/a-conversation-with-king-hannah/
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If any one song on I’m Not Sorry shows King Hannah are built to last, it’s that one. “It’s Me and You, Kid” captures their entire journey in microcosm, from its humble beginnings—“And I thank God the day we met in the gross bar / We’re doing it so that we can live our whole lives / Just doing this,” Merrick sings over Whittle’s lone guitar—to its climactic uplift of self-love. “We always knew that it was gonna be the last song on the album, didn’t we?” Whittle recalls. “We wanted it to be a celebration of us, basically.” They’re preparing to share that celebration with the world, touring the E.U., U.K. and U.S. in support of I’m Not Sorry, and bending their “quite malleable” set of songs into new shapes along the way. “Writing has begun” on their next record, Merrick says, joking, “Before we forget how to do it,” and the pair hope to find lyrical inspiration on the road: “Maybe the reason we both [wrote about] our childhood so much is because we haven’t done anything for the last two-and-a-half years,” Whittle says. “I’m not gonna write a song about, like, watching Parks and Recreation, are we?” Merrick points out, “You never know.”
https://www.pastemagazine.com/music/king-hannah/king-hannah-the-best-of-whats-next
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06. Loud & Quiet || 01/05/22
“My favourite kind of films to watch are from a period in American cinema between the late 1960s into the 1970s,” Craig Whittle considers over Zoom. “Badlands,” he exclaims, “I think that’s my favourite film. I suppose that’s where the wide, cinematic sound comes into our music; I love when songs sound the way those films look.” The King Hannah guitarist’s fondness for Terrence Malick’s 1973 directorial debut chimes with the influence of cinema on the band’s output. “We love film and I love film scores,” Whittle continues. “So it must seep into the music somewhere. It’s not a conscious thing, though. I used to love listening to film scores when I was writing or reading, so I guess it’s always there in the back of my mind.”
07. New Noise || 02/22/22
In line with that, would you say that the down-to-earth vibe is something that you intentionally pursued?
Merrick: I think so, because we go for—we just love the stuff to sound real, don’t we? And I think that’s always going to make it sound honest.
Whittle: Yeah, like the more sort of raw the sound is, maybe that translates as sounding down-to-earth. And we are very sort of down-to-earth people, aren’t we?
Merrick: It’s just the music Craig and I love, isn’t it? It’s just what we love listening to, stuff that sounds so, so real. And nothing pretentious.
Whittle: And not, like, produced to within an inch of its life. It’s just natural, giving the songs room to breathe, I think.
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08. Get in Her Ears
Do you have a favourite track on the album? And if so, why?
C: I have a few! I’m really liking one called ‘Go-Kart Kid (HELL NO!)’ at the minute. I remember Hannah showing me this song on her acoustic and being blown away, I felt like I was right there with her during her childhood, her writing is so vivid and personal. I just love it. And then it also has this grungy, sludgy, 90s end that is really loud and aggressive. It has a bit of everything that we like in music.
Hannah: I’m big into that one too but also really like ‘The Moods That I Get In’ and ‘A Well-Made Woman’. When touring the UK last October, we experimented a little with a few of the songs live, ‘The Moods That I Get In’ being one of them and it completely grew into this body of work that no one expected. And I just love ‘A Well-Made Woman’ as it’s so dark and sounds like it’s from the 90s… well it does to me at least! Plus Craig’s guitar work is phenomenal, as always.
https://getinherears.com/2022/02/23/introducing-interview-king-hannah/
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