Interview: Caravella

1: How did you decide on the name, “Caravella"? 

After reaching out to Charlie in Summer 2019, myself and Charlie immediately began brainstorming names, some great, some funny and some just plain gross, but the one we settled on was Caravela. Two weeks into making the band socials in September 2019, we realised there was already another band called Caravela, so we added an L, similar to our lecturer Davey Ray Moor who experimented with his band ‘Cousteaux’, previously ‘Cousteau’ In the early 2000’s. The name Caravella is not only a breed of jellyfish in Portugal- where Charlie has family, but is also the name of a boat out there too!

2: What inspires you to create? 

We are all inspired by the music and artists around us. Pre- COVID, we would all attend local gigs together around Bath and Bristol, and constantly find ourselves shouting to each other our new ideas. We all write our own music in similar ways, by sitting in a room alone with no concept of time writing and seeing where it goes.

3: What advice would you give to someone who wants to be in a creative profession? 

The best advice we have for people wanting to be in the music industry is to never say no and just throw yourself in the deep end with everything. From our experience, you can get a whole lot out of collaboration, blind networking and socialising, whether that be contacts, exposure or an audience. The money making should be a last thought, as annoying as that is, and it often is very very difficult to keep that steady income if you have lots going on, but the long term rewards of creating a fan base are so worth it, we are only really just tapping into this!

4: Do you feel open minded about what you listen to? Do you like going out of your comfort zone? 

Otto (our bassist) likes to listen to new music everyday. He gets the most inspiration and biggest buzz out of listening to a song for the first time. He listens to everything from funk to Jazz to Pop and into the Indie scene we are trying to inject ourselves into! With myself and Charlie, we mostly listen to the same genres of music- mainly bedroom pop and indie pop- but I like to venture into Jazz frequently and Charlie enjoys the 80s hits that his dad introduced him to! At the end of the day we have all been to punk and neo soul gigs together, and appreciating all music is something we are all ultimately good at.

5: What outlets do you find out about music from? (Record stores, magazines, samplers, etc.) 

Whilst we all pay attention to our Spotify discover weekly playlist, we do all have our individual ways of finding new music. Many of the bands Charlie and Otto have introduced as inspirations to the band they’ve seen live in Sofar Sounds sessions, or foreign festivals such as ‘Be Good’ for example. I get a lot of my new music suggestions through Instagram and word of mouth. Often if I reply to a story with a song that sounds cool, people love to give other recommendations and such!

6: What was the inspiration for your song “the way that it is.”? 

So, the way that it is was written at the same time as our first ever release, around a week apart in late 2019. I wrote it at a very dark time and saying “the way that it is” was my only coping mechanism at that stage in my life. For such a dreamy and fun song to play it seems weird that I used to cry and find myself in a dark place telling myself that these things just happen for no reason. I took the song to the band, who corrected the structure and added the iconic bass intro. It was Produced by our mate Sam Barratt from Open Arms, who also produced internet bby- a completely different pace of song! The song hasn’t performed to the standard of the other two- but releasing a slower song a month after the last is going to have those results. We appreciate everyone who has streamed shared or used the song in a piece of content, it’s made us very happy!