Zulu Winter

How refreshing to encounter a band that haven’t thrust themselves straight into the limelight with only four tracks and half a chorus to their name. Zulu Winter’s sonic spark has been nurtured, honed and developed; four of the London quintet met at school, “messing around like everyone else with Nirvana covers and sounding terrible,” laughs lead vocalist Will Daunt. It wasn’t until they’d finished university and returned to London that they realised they had something they’d be foolish to ignore.

Zulu Winter formed at the end of 2010, then plotted, planned and wrote an album’s worth of music before letting anyone else hear it.
“We’ve done it a strange way around,” admits Daunt, “but we wanted to write our record and have the songs ready by the time we played any shows, because if you come out and aren’t up to speed playing-wise, without enough material, people are quick to write you off. We believed we needed to be as good as we could be before people heard us.”

Debut single, the Steve Reich-inspired ‘Never Leave’/'Let’s Move Back To Front’ shines a light on eerie, shimmering art-pop.
“We’re influenced by artists that have depth and are doing interesting things without alienating people. Radiohead do that impeccably,” says Daunt.

“T.S. Eliot is a huge influence on my lyrics. The mood he creates is very beautiful and kaleidoscopic but there is also something sinister underlying and I like that. We want our music to have the same effect.”

Zulu Winter’s album is due in April next year, but until then the five-piece are going to have to get used to the hype and the hoopla.

“It will go away at some point,” shrugs Daunt, “and nice as it is, we’re focussed and sensible enough to know that any band that responds to that kind of fickle attention, well, it’s the kiss of death.”

Camilla Pia