Exciting new Liverpool teens The Night Café have come back swinging with a pop-tinged summer anthem called ‘Mixed Signals’. The story of a misguided kid that goes off the rails, ‘Mixed Signals’ is a journey through the heartbreak of a shattered relationship punctuated by the band’s signature intricately spun guitar riffs and sweet vocal melodies. The track will feature on a new AA-side release coming this October. Following their buoyant performance on the BBC Introducing Stage at T in the Park this summer, the band have also announced a huge UK tour which features headline dates in December, as well as support runs with Reading darlings Sundara Karma and The Hunna in September and October. The band first shot to prominence last year when their debut song, ‘Growing Up’, appeared on SoundCloud, and soon racked up over 410,000 spins. Formed of Sean Martin, Josh Higgins, Arran O’Connell and Carl Dillon, The Night Café are making an even bigger impression on 2016.
Having grown up in the same area of Liverpool and separately developed a love for playing music while at secondary school, it took a while for Sean, Josh, Arran and Carl to be introduced through mutual friends, but they soon struck upon a natural songwriting chemistry. Initially plying their trade as drummers, Sean and Josh began to play guitar and twisted Arran’s arm into swapping his guitar for the bass, with Carl picking up the sticks later. Strongly attached to their hometown, but eschewing the traditional musical heritage of The Beatles and The Coral, the four friends began to rehearse together, finding that their camaraderie was more than enough to fuel a deluge of joyous indie tracks — combining Sean’s charming lyricism and glowing vocal melodies with bold guitar hooks, snaking bass riffs and rich, metronomic drumming. Settling upon the name, The Night Café, the quartet made the short trip upstairs to Whitewood recording studio — their practice space is in the basement of the Victorian building, known as Elevator studios, home to The Wombats, Dan Croll, Circa Waves, Echo and the Bunnymen, and Clinic — where producer Robert Whiteley helped to polish their promising demos into the sparkling, soaring 2015 releases ‘Growing Up’ and ‘Addicted’.
The Night Cafe: You Change With The Seasons
Returning at the start of this year with two more shimmering chunks of lively guitar music in ‘Together’ and ‘Time’, the band crystallise exactly how it feels to throw off the shackles of school life and be catapulted into a world of new experiences at eighteen-years old, all tied together with an infectious rhythm and melodic crispness more akin to Fleetwood Mac than any of Liverpool’s past icons.
The Night Cafe: You Change With The Seasons Lyrics: