Manchester date part of Lovely Eggs biggest tour so far

The Lancaster-based duo - husband and wife David Blackwell and Holly Ross - have been making music their way for the past 16 years and now they have a new album, their first for four years out now, and their biggest tour yet about to start.

“Being independent and doing everything ourselves is not some kind of marketing ploy,” said Holly. “It’s something we’ve done for last 16 or 17 years in this band and it hasn’t changed. I think it’s important to work in that way.”

So for the release of Eggsistentialism the pair have been hand signing art cards to accompany advanced orders and packing up every album, writing address labels and posting them off.

“It has been a bit insane,” said Holly. “I think we both wish we’d organised a bit more help but it’s sort of crept up on us.

“This is our first album since I Am Moron, and it felt like we had a lot to do then. But we have never sold as many albums as we have now and the tour will take us to much bigger venues than we have played before.

“We may well get people on board in the future to help pack our records or take on some of the admin so that we can concentrate on the music. But I think it will always be Eggland and something we control. That’s something which is so important to us.

“I can only speak about what we do in our world. But we always get back to everybody; send out every order ourselves as it is something meaningful.

“Life should have meaning; it’s not just a sale of a unit or a transaction; life should be so much more than that and we try to make it that as much as we can.”

The duo’s lo-fi psychedelia featuring Holly on guitar and vocals and David on drums has won them a growing army of fans who have bought into the couple’s unique approach.

After lockdown they decided to produce their own TV series Eggland which proved far more time consuming than they had envisaged.

“We thought it would take a few months,” said Holly, “and it took us two years. It literally consumed us. But we thought if we were going to do it, we wanted to get it right. We worked with artist Casey Raymond who does all our records. That was a lot of time taken up.”

As if that wasn’t enough, the pair have been embroiled in a long battle to save Lancaster’s Music Co-operative, a building which had fallen into disrepair.

“It’s been a massive struggle,”she said. “We had to hold the council to account for the promises they made to us in 2018 which they didn’t fulfill. It took us going in and saying’ all you said in a full council meeting you haven’t done, what is going on? When can we have our Music Co-op back? Where is this long term lease you promised us? When are the urgent repairs going to get done?’ It took a massive emotional toll on me and David and rest of volunteers.

“It’s hard to deal with such a bureaucratic system but we feel so passionately about what it’s used for. We want somewhere people can create music in a safe space; people of all backgrounds, all economic backgrounds as well.

“It was bad enough in 2018 to fight them but we’ve had to fight for it again to get council officers to do what they said they would.”

The ongoing saga of the Music Co-op has had a major impact on the band.

“It was pretty much a full-time job,” said Holly. “But finally we have got a 99-year lease and the council has awarded us the funds it had allocated in 2018 to carry our repairs.

“That’s not going to cover everything now so we are having to fundraise but the building has a roof on and is watertight and we are hoping to get it open for March next year.”

The new album reflects the stress that Holly and David were under.

“There was so much unrest and turmoil. Eggsistentialism reads like a diary entry really,” she said. “We really didn’t have time to think about writing the album, we just sat down and did it.

“You can definitely sense what we were going through and as a result it’s a very human album which isn’t a bad thing. After all life isn’t always jolly.

“They do say that as an artist when you are at your lowest you make your best work, and I think that might have happened with this album. I’m just annoyed we had to go through it all to get here, but we have got a very good album out of it.”

With the Music Co-op’s future secure the pair can now look forward to embarking on their biggest tour yet.

“We can’t wait to get back on tour.” said Holly. “We’ll be visiting some old favourite places and others we’ve not been to in quite a few years It’s always a good laugh on the road. It will actually be relaxing after all the admin and sending out thousands of records.

“But music has always been our escape. It is something very precious, almost holy and now things have calmed down a bit I’m hoping we can get some balance into our lives and can go back to do what we do best - being in a band.”

Eggsistentialism is out now on Egg Records. The Lovely Eggs play New Century in Manchester on Saturday, June 1