Words by Tate Powell

Ahead of their nomination at the Welsh Music Prize for their debut album ‘Sŵn o’r Stafell Arall’ – released back at the end of July, we sat down with Jac Evans and Gruff Parry of Hyll and discussed the disbelief of their nomination, thievery in the press tent, and the importance of the Welsh language in mainstream media.

Tate: Tell us a bit about yourself then

Jac: We’re Hyll, a band from Cardiff, we started 9-10 years ago now, in sixth-form. I’m surprised we made it this far!

Gruff: We’ve had quite a busy summer – we released our first album this year – I can’t remember when

Jac: July 28th

Gruff: July 28th! So we did an album release gig then immediately went into hiding after that
because we didn’t want to do anymore gigs

Kath: You played at Tafwyl last year didn’t you?

Gruff: Was that last year? God we were all definitely hung over – it was so bad (laughs) We got loads of people on stage and they started singing the words and we were like ‘what the
hell is happening’

Jac: Do you remember those two guys we got on stage to sing the last song for us? They knew, uh, half of the words which is a good amount considering!

Tate: What Welsh artists have and are you taking inspiration from?

Jac: Ysgol Sul would be a massive one! We all loved Ysgol Sul; we listened to them in our formative years and were a key music influence for me and probably for Iwan, the lead singer, as well!

Big ones are Los Blancos and Mellt as well; Los Blancos are like our band dads in a way (laughs). Brechiau Hir as well have been there from our first first gig til now; amazing people to know and a great band! Oh and Rogue Jones as well! We probably share very similar musical vibes.

Gruff: We share a band member as well!

Jac: Oh yeah, our drummer, he drums for them as well.

Gruff: He’s actually got two nominations today, but he’s not here – he’s stuck in Vancouver or something

Tate: Onto the nominated album then, Sŵn o’r Stafell Arall! Tell us a bit about it! What was the creative process like?

Jac: So the album was sort of Iwan’s [vocalist] brainchild.

Gruff: But we all kind of enjoyed pitching in creatively during recording and figuring out the songs.

Jac: Iwan does all the thinking and we do all the doing!I like it – it saves me all the thinking! I don’t think Iwan likes it (laughs). It’s obviously difficult to get your head around. For Iwan it’s taken years to develop his songs to a point where he’s happy to share them with us and develop them with us.

Gruff: It does cross quite a lot of genres – the album – which is quite nice. I only started playing with the band two years ago and our drummer Owen started about five, six years ago. So I feel like we’re just starting to figure out this sound for now, which is different from how it was at the beginning.

The genres we’re going through, we’re touching on a bunch of different things, we’re testing it out to see whether we enjoy it. We’ll hopefully go down these avenues in the next few albums – possibly – we all have different tastes in music so it’s nice to have it all mesh into an album.

Kath: So it’s pretty special being nominated for a Welsh Music Prize – did you celebrate being shortlisted? What were your thoughts when you were nominated?

Gruff: Very confused.

Jac: We thought it was a joke! We found out through a Whatsapp message from Huw Stephens. He sent it to Owen and he was like ‘Hey Owen, it’s Huw Stephens here’ and Owen was like ‘Hi Huw, how’s it going?’. Honestly, it felt like some sort of scam!

Gruff: We were super surprised by the nomination and all the albums that have been nominated we’re huge fans of as well! Like Stella Donnely, we’ve been to her gigs, so it’s really bizarre being alongside them.

Tate: I read that you had a bucket list moment back in August – you played Green Man didn’t you? Was it a dream come true?

Jac: It was great to play at Green Man, because we’ve gone together for the past few years. We love that festival and the artist perks were amazing (grins) We got to ride in the Green Man buggy!

Gruff: They had a bowl of mixed fruits which I thought was a myth, a joke, but they actually give that to artists who are not small time (laughs) But yeah, everything Jac said. We’ve been going for years and we’ve been listening to the artists shortlisted for years, so we’re just fans of the scene but now we’re part of that scene.

Kath: What would you say was your dream venue to go to next?

Gruff: I think a higher stage at Green Man next. Melin Melyn went from Rising to Walled Garden to Mainstage – they started at 2PM mainstage this year which was amazing!

Tate: The Welsh music scene is really thriving at the moment and it’s in the mainstream media – what’s your opinion on it and has opportunity improved?

Jac: A variety has changed massively.

Gruff: When we were growing up, obviously I wasn’t in the band then, but we just saw the same bands coming through,and now you’ve got Sage Todz, and Dom and Lloyd doing their Welsh rapping – it’s fucking sick! It’s nice to not just have indie rock as the main thing – even if we are a bit of an indie rock band (laughs)

Tate: What’s next for Hyll?

Jac: Probably an album. I actually think we were all quite surprised how much hard work making an album is. Not just the practising and recording, when we actually got to mixing it, getting everything right, merch, and setting up gigs, it’s quite tiring – especially when it’s alongside your full time jobs. We’ll take it easy for a while I think. But Iwan is always writing
so something soon I suspect.

Gruff: It would be nice to get another album out in the next few years

Jac: It took us nine years to release our first one, so maybe less than nine years the next one will be out

Gruff: We’ll go for five years

Jac: Maybe seven

You can listen to ‘Sŵn o’r Stafell Arall’ here

The piece was written for Quench Magazine and is being displayed as a portfolio piece here.