MUSIC | Creeper DON’T FEAR THE CREEPER
With a new tour, a new book and big future plans, Creeper’s Will Gould talks to Kirstyn Smith about the power of music for making friends and the strange case of James Scythe
‘T he main thing with us is always trying to inspire other people to do their own things. We’re just trying to get people to leave the house. That can often be the hardest thing to deal with
when you’re young.’ Will Gould, vocalist with horror punks Creeper, is calling from Oslo. He’s just off the bus on a layover on the band’s European support slot with All Time Low. After this touring stint, the band have a break for a couple of months before launching into their own Theatre of Fear UK headline tour. For now, though, Gould is thinking about the past.
responding positively to the cryptic nature of the book and the tour. ‘Life has begun to imitate art a little bit. We have investigators of our own with fans looking into everything that happens in the world of Creeper, much like the i ctional world of the music videos, the album and the book.’
Creeper play O2 ABC, Glasgow, Sun 3 Dec. The Last Days of James Scythe is out Thu 30 Nov via 404 Ink.
‘I certainly dealt with a lot of anxiety when I was
younger,’ he says. ‘About leaving my house, about moving. I think what saved me was going to gigs.’ When he was younger, he found it hard to make friends, so going to shows at venues around his home town of Southampton opened his world to new experiences and, importantly, new people – friends he made as a kid that he still has today. ‘Our whole message is about putting
something out into the world and doing your own thing. Be creative and join communities of people who go to gigs. It’s about trying to leave a positive impression on people.’ As well as their tour, another way Creeper are exploring their creativity is with the release of their i rst book, The Last Days of James Scythe. The characters of James Scythe, the Callous Heart gang, and the Stranger will be familiar to fans of Creeper’s EPs, and this year’s debut album Eternity, in Your Arms, but a new face, Lilly Banning, has been introduced into the mix. Borrowing from JM Barrie’s Peter Pan, The Last Days of James Scythe is an investigation of the titular character’s disappearance.
‘The Stranger represents Tick Tock the crocodile; in our world he represents the things that keep you awake at night,’ explains Gould. ‘James is Captain Hook, trapped eternally between two things: the lost boys and running away from the crocodile. He’s running away from time and chasing what he wishes he has, everlasting youth.’
The story of Scythe is intrinsically linked with the band’s upcoming tour, but in ways Gould can’t delve too deeply into without spoiling what’s to come. ‘It truly is unlike anything we’ve done before. It’s involved a lot of different elements coming together to try and make it work. If you order the book before the tour, you’ll have more of an insight to what we’re doing. You’ll probably get more out of it if you’re paying that kind of attention.’
What’s most important to him is that fans are
100 THE LIST 1 Nov 2017–31 Jan 2018