‘IT’S A REALLY SPECIAL THING TO BE PART OF’| INTERVIEW WITH PERMANENT (JOY)
Emerging under a new name, new sound and new outlook, Permanent (Joy) have set the upcoming music scene alight with their debut single ‘Josephine’. Formerly known as Blondes, the band has rebuilt themselves from the ground up, starting a new chapter within their musical journey. I had the opportunity to sit down with frontman Alex Davison on the release day of the band’s second single to discuss the transition into their new sound, supporting slots and so much more!
Interview By Keira Knox
Keira : Congratulations on the release of your second single ‘Aeroplane’! What do you hope to achieve with this track?
Alex : Thank you! It’s just, for us now, it’s like we’re trying to build this world, because this is all very new. As a band, we’ve been working on this for a little while. The first single only came out in September, so to a lot of people, that’ll be the first thing they’ve ever heard from us. We were really pleased with how that song went down. That track was called Josephine.
With this song, we chose it because it’s almost like a second chapter in the same story, both in terms of the actual story of the song and also sonically, it’s quite similar. It’s all part of trying to establish who this band is. This felt like the best sort of next step to take. I think, it is a close favourite amongst us and our team, between ‘Josephine’ and ‘Aeroplane’. As soon as ‘Josephine’ went out, we were very much like, this is the next song. We’re trying to continue building the fan base and speaking to people who like the first track and see if people want to get invested in what we’re doing, basically.
Keira : How did the idea for this track come about? What can you tell us about the production process?
Alex : So this one actually was written kind of in the immediate aftermath of recording ‘Josephine’. We came out of the studio, and we were very inspired by where the sound was going, because at this point, we were recording lots of different things with different ideas. ‘Josephine’ was like the first time that it was like, oh, wow, I think this is a really sort of interesting new direction, just as a band. So I went home and I was like, I’m going to write another song like that. I just wrote it like on an acoustic guitar.
It was very much in the same world, it’s sort of telling a similar kind of story because it’s kind of like based in characters. Both ‘Josephine’ and ‘Aeroplane’ sort of take place in the same sort of like character’s lives. I wanted to tell like a fictional story in that way. We then put the song together like as a band. Our guitarist, he has this like string synth from the 80s that his like family friend lent him. It’s like really wonky sounding, but it really takes the music into a particular place.
That was a really big part of both tracks, especially like this one, when we had the idea, let’s do something similar. So recording it, putting it together as a band, we put all this instrumentation in and then took it to the studio and finished it with our producer Tom Roach. And yeah, it was something that came together like really organically, I think.
Keira : As fans will know you were previously called Blondes. How have you found the transition into becoming Permanent (Joy)?
Alex : It was slow at first, because it was figuring out what we were going to do next. We were still going as a band, but we hadn’t decided to whether it was going to be like a full break with the previous band, or we were going to carry on and release different music. Over time, we realized that everything we were writing was a bit different and a bit darker. Then we made that decision like earlier this year, that we were just going to start fresh and have a sort of clean break with it.
Once we made that decision, it became a lot clearer, that it was going to be a bit more drastic a change, because it then gave us the opportunity to kind of do whatever we wanted, if you know what I mean? Before, I think we would have felt maybe like, oh, is this still Blondes? Can we do this? As soon as we were like, right, we’re changing the name, it gave us the freedom to do whatever we wanted musically. I think we’ve really enjoyed that as well. That’s been a big part of the writing process for this project.
Keira : I mean, for me, I loved Blondes and I love Permanent Joy. You can tell the difference between both, but I really like in this new sound. It is very, very different. It is really working well for you all!
Alex : Thank you! Yeah, well, that’s the thing. When I was saying like ‘Josephine’ and ‘Aeroplane’ were like a real moment where it was like, oh, this is what the new band sounds like. Because we’d written a few things that were in the kind of post-Blondes, pre-Permanent Joy era. It was like they were sort of transitional songs. They sort of sounded like the hangover from Blondes. ‘Josephine’ and ‘Aeroplane’ were the first times that we were like, wow, this is like this is something not only something new, but something that’s kind of sure of itself and its identity, which was nice for us.
Keira : What has been the biggest learning curve in this transition overall?
Alex : That’s a good question, actually. I think that we’ve taken a lot from our experience with Blondes. I think that the biggest learning curve has been doing all of this independently, because as Blondes, we had a record deal with a record company in the US and in the UK. Obviously, starting again and changing the name and all that kind of thing, we’ve then had to go and do that independently, because it’s essentially a new band. That has been a big learning experience, because we’ve had to kind of take control of the full thing ourselves, and nobody’s really doing that for us.
We still have our management, and they’ve distributed the record for us. But in terms of the sort of branding of it and where we wanted to go musically, that was completely in our control, which is great. That was very liberating. At the same time, it meant that like all of the hard work has to come from us. I think it’s rewarding then when that pays off.
Keira : You’ve recently supported Seb Lowe alongside The Guestlist at London’s Electric Ballroom. I had the pleasure of watching you support Inhaler last year too. How do have you found supporting such incredible artists? Do you feel more pressure supporting in comparison to headlining?
Alex : It’s tricky, really. At this stage, in the band’s career, it can be quite difficult to support because you have to go out and you have to win people over. There are certain artists and crowds like Seb Lowe and Inhaler are really great examples, where the crowds there, they love discovering new music as well, because they’re music lovers!
Sometimes you go to shows, and you play as a support act. And you know that the crowd are only really there to see the headliner, which is completely fair enough. I go to gigs sometimes, and I only go really to see the headliner. But there are shows where the crowd is willing to kind of hear you out. I find that some of those bigger shows like Inhaler and Seb Lowe, for us have been really, really great opportunities to put our music out to new people. We’ve had some really great responses!
Those shows are a bit more daunting, because the crowd’s bigger. I’m sure you’ve heard this before from other people as well, but sometimes the bigger crowds are easier. You play to a room of 10 people, you can see everyone’s face. Whether or not they’re enjoying that. A lot of the time, it’s hard to get a real atmosphere out of a room of not very many people. I think that’s part of the reason why it can be difficult headlining so early in your career as well. So those support slots where you get a big crowd and a really great artist, like we’ve been lucky to play those shows. It’s super exciting for us, if anything, we’d love to be going and doing that, like week in week out.
Some of the Inhaler boys have been really nice about the new music, they’ve been sharing on their stories and stuff, which is just great! Maybe we can leverage something! Those kind of slots, bands all around the country are trying to get on those kind of gigs.
Keira : Have you got a favourite artist you’ve supported so far? If so, why?
Alex : Probably the Inhaler shows. I know that was like pre-Permanent Joy. But they’re just great because the crowds are so up for it. As Permanent (Joy), we did some really great shows with an Australian band called Teenage Dads. We played in London at the O2 Academy Islington. That was great! That was our first time in London as the new band.
Then Seb Lowe was just absolutely fantastic. He’s great live. You play to those crowds, young people who love music, they’re there to see support acts as well as main bands, which is just a really special thing to be a part of.
Keira : This weekend you’re set to perform in your hometown of Liverpool at Rough Trade as part of Favourite Days Festival. What can fans expect from this performance?
Alex : New tunes, obviously, and there’s one that’s coming, probably in the new year that we always close our set with that’s pretty rowdy. What you’ve heard so far isn’t the full extent of what we do. I think if anyone’s coming, you can look out for some of the more upbeat songs, the more guitar heavy songs, and hopefully people enjoy it because there’s there’s kind of two sides to our catalogue. That really comes out in the live show, which I think is exciting.
Keira : You’re set to support The Zutons at the end of this month. How excited are you to be supporting a fellow Liverpool band?
Alex : It’s great. They’re like Liverpool royalty. They’re up there with, The Coral and The Wombats! We played with them a couple of times as blondes and they’re so nice. They’re just fantastic musicians, just unbelievably good. I’m really looking forward to that, it’s going to be really great. Never been to Keele before as well, which is exciting!
Keira : If you could pick one of your tracks for The Zutons to cover, which one would you pick and why?
Alex : I’d probably pick ‘Josephine’ because I’d love to hear like Abi play sax on it. We’ve got all the string parts. It’d be really interesting to hear that on a saxophone instead!
Keira : What can fans expect from Permanent Joy in 2025? Is there anything exciting you can share with us?
Alex : Interestingly, it’s a very good day for Permanent (Joy) today, one of our videos has like gone a bit mental on TikTok and Instagram. Our guitarist, is playing a solo from the next single. We were recording the solo and we filmed it and we were like, we’ll put that online. And it’s just gone a bit mental!
So people are asking for that song now, but first we’ve got another one so you need to go and listen to that instead! But in 2025, that song will be out. It’s called ‘I Want to Go Home’. And we’re going to follow that with more releases. We’ve got a whole EP of stuff recorded and we’re always writing more.
We’re just going to be looking to put out as much music as possible and play as many shows as possible. We’re going to get back to London as well. We were looking at doing another show at the end of this year, but I don’t know if that will be this year or if it’ll end up happening early next year. Either way, we’ll be back in London. We’ll be around the North West and we’ll hopefully get around some other places in the UK as well!
Author
