All-dayer, two rooms.
Twenty years is nothing.
By September 2023, the 20th anniversary of the bands first gig, there will have been 14 albums, numerous 7″s and 12″s, split records, compilation tracks and probably around 500 gigs. Or maybe 400. No one’s ever kept count. The band has certainly toured through most of Europe numerous times, playing peach farms, BBC Radio sessions, squatted victorian mansions, Glastonbury Festival, and art galleries. A count should have been kept.
There’s been 17 people through the ranks, some have come and gone and come back again, not including many guests on records including Nik Turner (Hawkwind) and Mark Lanegan. Nowadays, if you were to drive from one band member’s house to another, and onto them all, it would take 11 hours and 47 mins. You’d cover 586 miles. Geography has never been an issue.
From the beginning through to now the song writing / recording technique has remained head-scratchingly unique. To step in as an outsider would be baffling. Over the years the system has been tried, tested and failed; then tried, tested and succeeded. It’s still the same as it was at the beginning only now the results seem to be arriving as actual songs with almost classic structures. Just like The Fall. Just like Sonic Youth. Just like any band who never sat still, who were developing until the very end, Hey Colossus have shifted and mutated.
The band’s 14th album is out in September on Wrong Speed Records. There’s plans to play through Europe. There’s more studio time booked. Playing live, recording music and travelling are the three basic elements of Hey Colossus. Plotting the onward movement is the driving force.
Twenty years is nothing, but what you can do in that time can be everything
