Llio Angharad

You know when you hear an artist and you feel like you just HAVE to see them live? That’s what I felt when I had a listen at Midas & The Goldstream’s Soundcloud.

I got the chance so send Alex from the band a few questions.

‘Da chi’n gwybod y teimlad pan ‘da chi’n clywed band yn chwarae a ‘da chi’n teimlo fod bo’ rhaid i chi weld y band yn fyw? Dyna’r teimlad gesh i wrth wrando ar y band Midas & The Goldstream.

Ges i’r cyfle i ofyn i Alex o’r band ychydig o gwestiynnau.

Why did you decide to create a band?

We’ve all known each other since the beginning of secondary school or earlier but the idea of forming a band only came together fairly recently. After a party at the twin’s (Jamie – Bassist & Kristian – Guitarist/Singer) house we started jamming all the classic acoustic guitar tunes and had everyone singing along. When everyone else had cleared out we carried on trying out a few bits and pieces, got Cal on the cajon for a bit of a beat and just carried on from there really.

How did you come up with the name?

The name is slightly less organic. We started off trying really hard to find a name with some meaning but ended up with some pretty contrived garbage; J.A.C.K – an acronym of our first names…, J.Ä.C.K – an acronym of our first names with an umlaut over the A to look cool… and then we settled on ‘The Jacques’ as a slightly more subtle nod to our previous attempts. Eventually though we were drowned out a little by an up and coming signed band called The Jacques and coupled with the addition of Hugo on the electric guitar the initials thing carried no weight anyway. ‘Midas and The Goldstream’ (as in King Midas) is just some words nabbed from a song we wrote and then dropped that we liked the sound of.

What is the best gig you have done?

Its hard to just name an outright favorite gig as we’ve played some pretty good venues with some decent crowds but its not always the best venues or biggest crowds that have given us the best gigs. We played a fairly random gig in a tiny cocktail bar all the way out in Bradford a few weeks back. We’d not practiced since the last gig we’d played 2 weeks prior and the bar had no recognizable sound engineer or system but we just got up there and started playing without worrying about it an it was one of the best gigs we’ve ever played. Not even for the quality of the sound we were making just the atmosphere that was being generated from the handful that were actually listening. I suppose in terms of the main gig that stands out as our all round favorite though, it’d have to be when we supported Andy Jordan (of Made in Chelsea fame) back in March at The Wardrobe in Leeds. It was probably the tightest we’ve ever played with some of the best sound equipment/engineers we’ve worked with to almost the biggest crowd we’ve gigged to. Not to mention the exposure we got on Twitter & Soundcloud etc from supporting someone with such a big following. A few people were after selfies with us when we came off stage – that was a bit crazy.

If you could perform on any stage in the world, where would it be?

If you asked most bands this question they’d say similar things, we’re no different. Glastonbury would obviously be unreal and we’ve always wanted to play Leeds fest as it was the first big festival we all went to, but if we ever got onto Jools Holland I think that’s when we’d know we’d made it. Anyone who performs it onto that show is respected as a proper musician and aside from playing the massive gigs everyone mentions, that’s something we’d love to achieve.

What’s the best piece of advice you’ve ever received?

Probably just when we were told adding some electrical stuff to the acoustic set would make us a bit more suitable for radio play and give us a stronger recording sound. Oh and to bring in a full drum kit, Cal’s working on that.

Do you have any up-coming gigs?

We’ve put live performances on the back burner a little for the next few months as we’re working really hard on recording and producing our new EP, which we’re hoping to have out by the end of this summer. In the meantime we’ve got our first play on national radio coming up on Sunday with Tom Robinson’s Introducing Mixtape , BBC Radio 6 Music.

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