In Conversation – Pleasure Island

We caught up with Pleasure Island frontman Sean Ekins to talk lockdown, new hobbies, taking the piss out of politicians and football.

Liverpool Noise: Hi Sean, how have you been finding life in lockdown?
Pleasure Island: Hi there! Yes I’ve been having a pretty nice time all up, although I missed out on all the good furlough cash so I’ve been spending my days selling bits and pieces on reverb.com. The actual day to day lockdown has been alright, I’ve got my guitars plus plenty of tea and red wine, so it’s all fine until I run out of guitar stuff to flog on the web.

LN: Have you developed any new hobbies?
PI: A few new ones, I never thought YouTube lectures on epidemiology and virology would ever be interesting or even relevant, but they’ve helped kill plenty of time. I’ve also discovered Twitter, which is pretty bad for a band to admit these days as I’ve been told to use it for ages. Turns out you can just take the piss out of politicians which has been surprisingly easy of late… I’ve also been taking lots of eye tests over the last few days.

LN: How about writing songs? Has the lockdown got you writing new material?
PI: I’m currently writing a song about football called Tunnel Club which we should be recording soon. I recently found out that in the new Everton stadium they’re going to be installing a one way piece of glass between the players tunnel and a very posh restaurant, so people can enjoy a fancy meal while perving at the footballers before they go onto the pitch, all very voyeuristic. 

Football’s one of the few loves in your life that you have with you all the way, so I kind of feel that the move to the stadium is a bit like your girlfriend getting a boob job, lots of concern and hoping it all goes well etc. While the stadium having a tunnel club is like finding hidden cameras installed in your bathroom. Maybe a bit strange.

LN: Your new single Help Me NHS feels more relevant than ever right now, can you tell us a bit about the track?
PI: Well we recorded it last year for release around April. Then the world ended and we’ve been deluged by an endless parade of washed up acts and the terminally crap churning out these rubbish musical hostage videos to raise our spirits in these dark times. Unfortunately, our song isn’t quite in keeping with the current NHS love in, so we’ve sat back and waited for peak cynicism to hit, which may just have occurred thanks to Dominic Cummings, before getting it out there.

LN: Planning any hostage videos yourself?
PI: We did actually do an online show in the end, for the Liverpool Digital Music Festival last week. The set was done in one take and recorded live, so it has a very natural feel to it. Hopefully it wont be too long until we’re back onstage and all this nonsense is behind us, but at least people can watch that in the meantime. (You can watch the full video below).

LN: What’s next for Pleasure Island? Can we expect an EP soon?
PI: I haven’t figured out how we will do an EP given the lack of money and we won’t be able to tour it, so expect more digital singles until this all blows over.

LN:What do you think the Liverpool Music Scene is going to look like after the lockdown is lifted? 
PI: The music industry didn’t seem to be working before all this happened so whatever comes next I hope it’s better than before.

Pleasure Island Live Set From Liverpool Digital Music Festival

Pleasure Island Help Me NHS is out on all major streaming platforms on 5 June.

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