Quick-fire Questions: 10 minutes with Lots of Hands
Lots of Hands, consisting of Billy Woodhouse and Elliot Dryden, first connected in a Newcastle school music program when they were just 16. They’ve remained friends ever since, which is just as well because that’s always how the best music is made. There is a connectedness to their sound, a deepening of a seamless idea shared by two wandering souls.
Dryden will often trek out on long walks in the northern countryside before returning with a rough gem of an idea for Woodhouse to polish. This exchange results in a form of filagreed folk with worlds onto itself. Their songs twinkle and shimmer—they might be dainty, but they feel like bedroom-bound reconciliations of modern life itself, riddled with adolescent angst.
The Newcastle duo have honed this over the course of many years, but now they’re signed to Fire Talk Records, and in January 2025, they’ll be releasing their debut album. As they say themselves, the album is the product of two friends who have supported each other for the best part of a decade through life’s myriad hoop-jumping hardships. The experimentation therein hints at the catharsis of music that has helped them along the way, too.
With the duo on the rise, we caught up with them to chat about their thoughts on The Beatles, the best bar in Newcastle, and the record they’ve listened to more than any other. There is a whimsy to their cultural takes that is reflected in the lightness of their sweet music. Tracks like ‘Into a Pretty Room’ create a breeziness out of solemnity in a Sparklehorse fashion—warm sun on a cold day.
Quick-fire Questions with Lots of Hands:
1. What song would you want played at your funeral?
“Elliot has always said that he wants ‘In My Life’ by the Beatles at his. It was his grandma’s song and potentially his dad’s (in the works). My (bil) dad’s was ‘Veridis Quo’ by Daft Punk. Sends me on a fleeting journey, thinking through my own life. That’ll be mine.”
2. What song are you most proud of writing to date?
“When we wrote ‘Barnyard’. It was the most collaborative track me and Elliot wrote together and that felt like a very prideful point in our ‘career‘.”
3. What has been your favourite album of 2024 so far?
“We have been binging the Tapir catalogue this year, as they are good friends of ours and amazing, amazing writers in the UK scene.”
4. Where is the best pub in the world?
“Tyne Bar in Newcastle! The GOAT.”
5. What is the weirdest gig you have played so far?
“I don’t want to out anybody in our scene as an asshole. But we played a very unorganised and slimy day event in Newcastle where they didn’t treat us well and refused to let us sound check! That’s probably pretty weird…”
6. Have you ever cried at a concert?
“I have cried at many, many concerts. I find the concept of listening to someone play their own music really cathartic. As for me and Elliot together, we both saw Big Thief and cried our little eyes out.”
7. What one album have you listened to more than any other?
“Elliot and I have always been huge Paul McCartney fans. His record Ram is always on in our house at the minute. As well as Nick Drake’s Bryter Layter. The classics, pretty much.
8. What is one strange internet rabbit hole you have fallen down?
“I’ve been on a massive Geoguessr binge at the minute, learning about different sign poles and minute things that separate different countries.”
9. Who the fuck is Mark E Smith?
“No idea, to be honest, haha.”
10. Who was your first celebrity crush?
“The beast in human form! Elliot’s was apparently the girl from the Black Eyed Peas, also there is definitely another, more embarrassing answer… (Marge).”
11. What is the best way to cure a hangover?
“Drink more beer. Maybe a Lemoncello.”
12. How do we solve the independent venue crisis?
“No idea, honestly; make the rent less high here in the UK. Stop taking funding away from arts.”
13. What’s one ‘classic album’ you’d like to delete from history?
“Any album by Pearl Jam… Boring. Boring. Boring.”
14. Do you believe in ghosts?
“Hell no!”
15. Are The Beatles overrated?
“Hell no! One of the greats. We will fight anyone who disagrees. John Lennon was pretty horrible, though… And the others, too… The music is amazing, though. We love you, Paul.”
