Among a busy summer of festivals Good Health Good Health are appearing at Are You Listening? Festival in Reading and Truck Festival in Oxfordshire. They are vocalist/songwriter Bruce Breakey and guitarist/producer Simon Kuzmickas. They are known for their mix of indie, spoken word and a hint of UK garage. We sat down for a chat with Bruce ahead of their AYL gig at The Facebar at 9:15pm on Saturday the 9th of May.
Reading Indie Life: Your album This Time Next Year We’ll Be Millionaires came out last November. How are you feeling about it half a year on?
Bruce: Well, we’re not millionaires yet, but the reception has been really amazing. It’s just so nice to have the songs out and they’re really important songs to us. I think like that, that project, was really personal and to have those songs out in the world and have people, you know… we just finished a couple of tours and people singing the songs back to us, people with tattoos of the lyrics and stuff. And we’re very independent in the most obvious sense of the word that we, we do it all ourselves. And it’s all coming from in here (Bruce taps his heart twice). So to have that is amazing, man. So, yeah – good. In a word.
Is the choice of title a deliberate nod to Only Fools and Horses? Or was it just a phrase you picked up on?
No, it was definitely Only Fools And Horses. Growing up on that and I had a bit of an affinity with the Delboy character. And yeah, it felt like a, it felt like a nice thing that a lot of people would know. Some younger people don’t have a clue, you know what I mean? But people of my age and up are always just like, oh yeah. It lets people know straight away what we’re about, which is quite good.
It speaks to that sense of fun that you put into your experience.
Yeah, yeah, because it is a little bit tongue in cheek in places. And, you know, we, we don’t want to take ourselves too seriously all the time. There’s obviously like a poignance to it. Like Only Fools, it’s one of the funniest programmes in the world, but it’s got some of the most like, beautiful moments as well. So we wanted to really show both of those sides.
More recently you have put out some remixes of the tracks. Were there any of the collaborations that you were particularly happy with, or inspired by?
Honestly, they’re all amazing. Like, it was such a nice thing to be able to do the remixes because the album was quite short. We wanted to give people a little bit more to sort of sink their teeth into. But also it meant that we could collaborate with some of our friends that we otherwise wouldn’t, you know what I mean? Because we kind of lean into that dance world a bit, but less so than say the White Men remix with DRIIA. That’s like a jungle song, we’re never going to make that. But to have a little stamp on that world as Good Health Good Wealth, I think was really cool. So all of them are great. And it was quite nice even for us to have our little versions on there. Like I made my hip-hop version of I Forgot and I’ve been making beats since I was fourteen. So I’ve never put any of them out, but it was quite nice to be like, oh, actually that now exists as well. Yeah, It was a really fun process and people seem to be really liking them again. So yeah, it’s gone down well.
Do you see yourselves more as an indie act or a dance act? Where do you feel you sit in the spectrum?
I think indie more so because it is still guitar based, so it’s probably more akin to N.E.R.D, I suppose The Streets is kind of similar. It’s LCD sound system, it’s always these slightly left of centre acts that we kind of get compared to. And I think that’s right. And I think moving forward our stuff, it’s always going to have that kind of UK dance/garage side to it because that’s the kind of world that I come from. But I think we’re going to lean a little bit more into the indie side, especially with this new record, because we’re getting a drummer. So that will change the live sound. That will change the live sound quite a bit.
So you’re in the process of recording at the moment?
Yeah, yeah. Over the next month or so we’re trying to get this next album put together. A lot of work, but hopefully it’ll go smooth. We got all the songs there, it’s just a case of actually getting them finito.
You have a really good turn of phrase. Is there a favourite lyric you’ve written so far that you’re really happy with, or a favourite one that sticks in your mind?
I mean, the one that people seem to be getting like a tattoo of is “Be brave and believe or behave and die anyway. Choose.” Quite a few people have got that inked, which I’m like, that’s quite mad because I remember writing it on the bus. It’s mental to have people like, get touched by it enough to actually ruin their bodies with ink for it. Do you know what I mean?
What sort of connection have you built with the fans?
We try and be as open with everyone as possible. I mean, we are very independent. So I’m selling the merch after the shows. I’m chatting to everyone. I’m seeing some like familiar faces coming to a few different shows. Some people that I kind of half know now, some people that you just meet and you have a nice conversation with and they tell you what the song means to them. And yeah, I try and be… while I can anyway, you know, you never know where this is going to go. If it goes bloomin’ stratospheric then you won’t be able to do that forever. So for now, I want to make sure people know like how thankful we are for them to be there, especially in these smaller, more intimate rooms of like a few hundred. We need to obviously sell merch after because it’s the way we make our money and keep things, keep things moving. But also I do want people to be like, you know, we are normal people, I want people to know that as well. I want to say cheers to them, you know, because this could have gone very differently to where we are now. So where we actually are is amazing.
You played the Chevron Stage at Reading and Leeds Festival last year, how was that as an experience?
Yeah, mental, I mean the Reading one in particular was like, I mean for us coming on at like 11:00 AM there was loads of people there so that was really mental. That was like a sort of pinch me moment and we had like a good little Firm with us. We had a lot of mates it felt very special. It’s obviously like very strange for someone that has kind of – we’re not new, but newish to a lot of people playing on the stage that big and to see so many people there was amazing man. We’ve got another festival in Reading next weekend, that Are You Listening? Festival. That’ll be nice to go back on a slightly more intimate scale as well and see the people. Yeah, mad, mad times. To be honest, all those festivals are crazy. Like playing them is still a very pinch me moment.
Was there a bit of a different vibe between them? Because at Reading the Chevron is now fully enclosed in the tent, but Leeds was an outdoor stage?
Totally different, Leeds we were on the Sunday or something and we were like, it was, as you said, totally open. I think most people are more inclined to come into a tent than like when something’s totally open and you’re like walking around in the morning. You’re less likely to gravitate towards something, unless there’s thousands and thousands of people and you know who it is. Whereas in a tent I feel like you’re a bit more like, oh, let’s poke our head in and see what this is. And yeah, I think we nicked a lot more people in Reading to be honest. But yeah, they were both great though. I almost enjoyed the Leeds show more even though it was less busy. I think because we’d played the one the day before we’d done the big stage and so it was just a bit more loose. Also, I remember it was the first time I had a wireless mic so I was just sprinting around.
How does it compare to do a festival compared to doing your own headline shows?
Totally different kettle of fish to be honest. It’s like festivals are more like big supports because you’re like, you’re selling yourself. So you’re, you’re having to win people over. You’ve got a few people that you know, but obviously at our point where we’re, you know, playing our first shows at some of these festivals, a lot of people still don’t know us. So you’re, yeah, you’re trying to win them over. Whereas at your headline, you can fully do what you set out to do. You know, we can make the show a proper show. It’s not like, OK, we’ve got half an hour, let’s put all the, all the sort of quick bangers in. In your headline you can take a bit more time, you know, yeah, make, make a bit more of a statement with it, which is nice. But we enjoy both. I, I like winning people over. I like when you start and there’s no one there and then by the end it’s chocka.
So you’re coming to Are You Listening? Festival next Saturday. Are you just coming down for the show or is there anyone you’re looking forward to catching on the bill as well?
Well, hopefully if we can, I want to see Murkage Dave after us. He’s been a friend of ours for quite a few years and it’s nice that we’re both sort of on the same little circuit. So if we can, if we’ve got the time, then we’ll stick around and watch him because he’s got the new album out, the Brute Force album, which I really like. So yeah, that’d be good. That’d be really good.
Who are your biggest influences, the acts that you look up to and have inspired you over the years?
Obviously Mike Skinner is massive for me. I’m really, I’m a huge fan of Tom Waits. He’s kind of lyrically, I think he’s the best ever to be honest. Ian Dury is massive for me. All those kind of like the, you know, The Jam, The Clash, Thin Lizzy, like bands that my Dad would play in the car, classic sort of British and Irish bands. I’m a big hip-hop fan. So I like people like Kanye West, like 50 Cent, Eminem, N.E.R.D. particularly Pharrell’s thing was big because that kind of merged the 2 worlds a bit with the sort of rock side with the more R and B side of some of the Neptunes stuff. That’s kind of what we’ve always been looking to try and do, like make something new out of things that are recognisable. So the kind of merging garage with a bit of indie or merging a bit of spoken word with a bit of funk. And it’s just making some stuff that’s a bit new and a bit more interesting. But then you hope people kind of hone in as the sound of what you’re doing, you know? And I think people are getting that now, which is really good. Like people are understanding what we’re about because when we come out, we have quite like an eclectic sound. People, I think they didn’t 100% know what we were about yet and they couldn’t quite buy into it until we put a bit of more of a body of work out. I think that’s where the album really helped because it was like, OK, I can see what these boys are about now. It’s pulling from a few different areas, but here’s what they’re actually about. And like intrinsically it’s about real life and like the little things. And now I think people are getting that. It feels more like the fans are becoming proper fans. They’re not just like, oh, I like that one song because I heard it on whatever.
Its pretty tough being in the music industry at the moment. What would success look like? What would make you feel you’re absolutely living your best music life?
A million pound! I think honestly, honestly it would be just being able to do this full time and not having to duck and dive and do any other sort of work. If we could do this and support whatever our little family units are then that would be a success to be honest. Just like comfortably being able to do what you love and survive off it or survive comfortably survive off it. That would be a success, you know. We are getting closer to that now. Which is mad but good.
So over the summer you’re doing Truck Festival as well. Are you looking forward to that one?
Yeah, Truck’s always been good to us. We’re playing, I think it’s called the Market Stage. Which will be really good. We’ve got like four shows on the bounce, so we’ll be in the groove by then. Very excited. It’s a good line up as well.
Do you have a favourite Truck Festival memory?
Last year, Truck Festival last year was amazing. Yeah, we played the This Feeling Stage and Mikey who runs This Feeling got us a really good slot. It was after Block Party finished and there was nothing else on. So everyone just crammed in where we were. But it was properly like limbs in there, which was amazing. That’s how you want every show to feel, you know, just absolute chaos, organised chaos.
So you’re recording the album and doing a few shows later on?
It’s going to be festival season and recording the album simultaneously. And then we have got a… we’re basically going to announce our next tour, which will be around November, but we haven’t properly announced it yet, but from me to you, it’s going to be in November and it’s looking very exciting. Some big, big shows in there. So yeah, yeah, a step up for sure. So it’s exciting. We’ve got to sell those tickets, but we I think we will.
Leave a Reply