Stags Perform at Secret Warehouse

by Laura Patricia Jones

Quoted as “one of the best emerging bands of the year” by the Independent, this past Friday Stags invited us to a secret warehouse party for their pre-single launch.

As with all parties, the ‘secret/hipster cool’ nature of this location means it takes us over 40 minutes to locate, turn up over an hour later yet still are one of the first there, upkeeping our ‘fashionably late, music industry cool status’ – All part of the Shoreditch warehouse party experience right?

The studio is impressive and the decor stereotypical East London Chic – the thing that I am drawn to is the friendly vibe of the place and the fact that I can envisage emerging artists finding their ‘lightbulb moments’ in this very room due to its owners ‘touch and be free’ policy.

When they perform, Stags deliver a wealth of tracks which are essentially crowd-pleasers but bring about a kind of new age Nirvana meets Chilli Peppers cool and the atmosphere reminds me of  a vibe that is not dissimilar to 90’s Soundgarden footage.  Lead singer Christopher Finney showcases a vocal talent of raw and velvety tones – he’s not trying to be Kurt Cobain, he’s not attempting to impersonate Caley Followill of Kings Of Leon fame like so many of this post indie-grunge generation do, instead he finds a unique and impressive equilibrium.

In person the band have an endearingly youthful quality about them. I jokingly ask them if they’ve been living up to the rock band stereotype – it’s 1:15am and the party runs until 4am so at the sprightly young age of 22 you’d excuse them for being lubed up – but these guys are all about the music and the only thing they are high off is the welcoming reception to their raw yet promising entrance onto the UK music scene.

Their music has an addictive, hedonistic quality to it and ‘Love Will Delay’ along with ‘Stealing My Heart’ certainly get the crowd going. They strike me as the kind of band that if picked up by the right label could end up going commercial, but this is the last thing on the boys’ minds. They take their inspiration from anything to their mutual meeting at London Met University to Chris’s mum singing Joni Mitchell to him in the kitchen – it’s this laid back eclectic style of northern boy that makes the best kind of musician, right?

Check out their Soundcloud at wearestags and watch out for these boys as they break their psychedelic grunge way into the British music scene for good!