Before their gig at Edinburgh’s Sneaky Pete’s venue in August, I sat down with Korey Patterson (guitarist) and Benji Haynes (bassist) from Dumfries-based noisemakers Yabba. They have been creating a bit of a stir with their live sets and so I grabbed the chance to learn more about the band.
How did Yabba first come together as a band?
Yabba was a different band before. Josh (Kirk, lead singer) and Max (Thomson, drummer) were two of the founding members of Franky’s Evil Party. Then the other guitarist Elias Muusavi joined, then I (Korey) joined at the very end when we changed into Yabba. Benji joined very recently.
Was there a specific reason for changing into Yabba?
It just felt right. We were a new line-up and writing new songs that were a bit different from when we’d started. It felt right to change the whole band, and change the name into something less cumbersome, one word.
I first saw you in Broadcast in Glasgow supporting Enola Gay and they were describing you as “Yabba, the best band in the world”! I had no idea what to expect and you came onstage and blew the room away, including Enola Gay who were in the crowd.
It’s crazy to hear a band that we respect calling us the best band in the world. We’re your favourite bands favourite band!
How did they become aware of you?
Hagen, our manager, was the first person to book Enola Gay in Scotland, and the UK. We met them that night when they played in Dumfries and we got talking to them, and said we should play a gig together. And the next thing we know we’re invited onto their debut headline tour.
You’ve had two singles out on tastemaker label Nice Swan: ‘Get By’ and ‘Jawbone‘. How did you come to their attention?
We were playing in Manchester at Yes, supporting Enola Gay. Apparently Alex Edwards from Nice Swan saw us that night and made his mind up there and then they wanted to sign us. Live shows are the best time you’ll hear us, and Yes Basement in Manchester is the perfect venue. Small space and sweaty.
Post Covid we all went a bit crazy going to gigs because we hadn’t had them for a couple of years. I saw you play Mutations in Brighton in November 2022 and by the time you returned to Brighton for The Great Escape in May 2023 the room was bigger, and it was rammed.
It was totally packed in, people were trying to get in to see us. It was quite surreal, we weren’t expecting that response. Partly because of the location but we just didn’t know if people really knew us. Maybe people heard us from outside and wanted to come in, but we weren’t expecting that at all.
So you’re generating interest from playing live. Would you agree?
That’s all we have been focusing on the last few months now. Getting the live shows ready and preparing for them. We found it’s the most immediate way that people are going to listen to our music and resonate with it.
I think there are two different kind of bands. There are those that record their music and at gigs play the songs they have recorded. Whereas we are the opposite. We write a live show and then record the songs to try to do them justice. Yabba is a live band and its quite hard to capture that sound on a recording. Also it’s where we get to interact with fans directly. That’s when you see the results, the fan interaction. There has not been a single show we’ve played when someone hasn’t come up and said we’re one of the best things they’d seen, and when can they see us next. Once we get on people’s radar they’ll come back again and bring their friends.
How do you create your songs?
Someone will come in with an idea and we’ll jam it out. I suppose what we are looking for is to see what makes sense but also what’s exciting in the live performance, that excites us. So we’ll maybe take one idea that someone has brought into the practise room and make it bigger. There is no one person that writes the music. Our front man Josh is solely responsible for the lyrics, no -one else touches the lyrics. So maybe we’ll jam as a band instrumentally and Josh will sit and write lyrics along to it, or he’ll write lyrics in his free time. When it comes to any recording a lot of that is done at first on a phone just to get the idea down. Sometimes I’ll put some ideas onto a laptop, sometimes its even Josh just freestyling which is fun to see because you can see him performing the song. It definitely goes off the feeling.
And are there any main themes that influence your songs?
It can be anything really, but real-life events. There’s no agenda to it. Literally write about what you know. A lot of people might think it’s political but its based on stories, telling real life stories. It’s not in any set direction.
Because of the sound of Yabba, you can see how people maybe think it is political. It’s intense and almost feral, yet still captures the audience.
That’s why the lyrics have to mean something to Josh, otherwise its not worth it, there’s no passion behind it. And that’s why he writes about things that resonate with himself. He’ll put his lyrics to the instrumentation. We’re not pushing an agenda on anybody. For a lot of bands that’s their thing, but not for us. If you like music that’s fine, that’s all we ask. We’re working really hard to get it tight. Rehearsals two or three times a week which helps with everything including the synergy that you have to have together.
Do you have plans for more new music to be released?
We’re focusing on the live shows just now. We always want to see the audience reaction to certain songs before we decide to record them.
Yabba have dates in Europe in September including Paris, Antwerp and Rotterdam. And you have quite a few festivals booked for this year?
Yes, including Green Man festival in Wales. We played Doonhame Festival in Dumfries in July, the first time we’ve played in our home town. We packed out the tent which was great.
We also played Leopallooza in Cornwall and the owner of festival said we were his highlight of the weekend. He knows Enola Gay as well and said we had to play together.
I’m interested in know when you drove from Scotland to Brighton, which shows a real work ethic by the way, for The Great Escape, what was on the music in the van?
We don’t have a van! We were in two hatchback cars! I think we’ve only turned down one gig as Yabba. We never want to refuse a gig. The music we had on were all road trip songs: Lynard Skynyrd, ZZ Top, Jimmy Buffet.
And finally where did the band name Yabba come from?
Originally Ya Ba is the Thai word for amphetamines. Franky’s had a song called ‘Ya Ba’ so when we changed the name of the band we thought Yabba because it could be anything – any genre, people could come and see us and make their minds up. We love that song, we’re playing it tonight (at Sneaky Petes). That song is ever evolving, its constantly changing. It’s a really good song to play, one of our favourites.
For more information on Yabba check out their facebook and instagram.
