In their bones: Interview with Femur

Christmas feels like a very distant memory, but slap in the middle of the festive season we headed to The Washy to hang out with psych-grunge rockers Femur for a natter about about their debut album, tragedy on tour and a well-known Sheffield familial link…

Fresh out of a spritely soundcheck, the band and I relocate to The Washy’s well-used beer garden and given that it’s December in Sheff, it’s really bloody cold. The button for the heater is nestled behind lead singer and guitarist Felix Renshaw’s head, and because I’m nesh I have to keep awkwardly reaching behind their head to fire it up. Seemingly, the cold is not seeping into Felix’s lank frame, as they sit caning roll ups.

Alongside Felix and I are the other members of the band; guitarist Eddie Burks, bassist Ryan Gillvray and drummer Danny Cox. Later, the four dwindle to two as the rhythm section are forced to dip out mid-interview for a pre-gig curry, that sadly for them didn’t actually arrive before they had to return for the show! The perils of being an in-demand Sheffield musician, eh?

Femur from l-r: Ryan Gillvray, Eddie Burks, Felix Renshaw, Danny Cox. Photography: Benji Wilson @jamburrito1

Anyway, while our number is still five, we get into how the band’s sound and line-up has morphed over the course of its 11-year history. The current line-up has been solid for the last seven of those years and it was with the arrival of the final piece of the puzzle, drummer Danny, that the Femur sound we’ve come to know and love began to develop.

Felix is the only original member and, believe it or not, they tell us Femur was very poppy affair in the early days. Danny humbly adds that when he joined, he couldn’t play what the old drummer was playing, so he ‘flashed the shit’ out of his kit and the sound immediately changed.

Ryan tells us: “There was a point, for about a year after we all met, that we could easily have passed as a Wytches tribute band”, which should give you an idea of the direction the band were heading. Femur were beginning to live up to their namesake and rock harder than the strongest bone in the human body! They were doing the legwork, so to speak!

Photo credit Benji Wilson (@jamburrito1)

The period of enforced downtime in 2020 afforded them plenty of time to think about little else other than music, and the sound crystallised into the bewildering, hook-filled, psych grunge onslaught we’ve come to expect from live shows.

Last year, they decided it was important to capture the essence of their live energy on record, and their self-recorded debut album, People Parts was the much-anticipated outcome of those sessions, bringing together the disparate influences of all four members.

“I was listening to loads of different stuff.” explains Felix, “I love this band called Lalalar, from Turkey. For me, it’s fucking incredible (ed’s note: they’re right. It is) and loads of other psych-y world music… and then I ripped all that off!”, they add, with a knowing, raised eye-brow.

Photography: Benji Wilson @jamburrito1

Eddie jumps in: “I think the album is the crossroads of our four musical tastes. As a four, we’ve got completely different influences. Dan’s big into hip-hop, I’m more into soundscapes and film scores, Felix likes his world music, and Ryan listens to a lot of doom metal.

“The album has elements of all that, so there’s seriously heavy stuff, but there’s also groove, and like, cowboy stuff!”

Danny adds, “A band that comes to mind for me, in terms of being similar to in dynamic structure, is the Pixies, because there’s bits where they’re fucking loud and those bits are really fucking loud, and bits where they’re really quiet.”

Photography: Jamie Heawood

Eddie interrupts: “We once got asked what we sounded like after our first EP and you (looks accusingly at Danny) said we were Spook Core! I died inside. You said it deadly seriously, like you’d invented your own genre!”

Mild cajoling aside, Spook Core, Psyche Grunge, Alt-Doom (I think I’ve invented that one)… it really doesn’t matter. People Parts is simply Femur being their best Femur selves.

Recorded in their rehearsal space on the top floor of the historic hotbed of Sheffield music, Stag Works, the process was admittedly a long one. Coming in six months over deadline (much to the chagrin of management) the band utilised this time to perfect the recording process, while continuing to write songs, with Felix often making the lyrics up on the spot. Doing it ‘DIY’ felt right and they wouldn’t have had it any other way.

Photography: Benji Wilson @jamburrito1

“Going into a studio, that’s not yours, for a day, is the shittest experience.” Says Eddie, “When we’ve recorded in the past, the recordings have been good, but they’ve never sounded like us.

“We cut our teeth as a live band and we try to put on a show, and regard ourselves as a live act, so recording always came almost secondary. There was a long time where we were just having fun, getting pissed and playing music. We’re a bit more grown up now.”

Danny holds the most technical recording experience, so took the lead when it came to engineering and producing the record.

“I was trying to find a way to make it sound cohesive,” says Danny, “because I thought, we’re doing it ourselves, it might be a bit shit, but I really made an effort to get the sound of the room in. All of the album was written and recorded in that room, and I really wanted it to sound like we were playing from our hearts, in that room.”

Eddie said: “There was a long time where we didn’t call it an album, because we weren’t sure how many songs we’d end up doing, but it just carried on growing. Some of the songs weren’t even conceived when we started.”

Danny confirms: “Comeback Kid was written and recorded three weeks before it went off to be mastered…” before Ryan confidently adds: “And it’s one of the best tracks on the record!” (ed’s note: He’s right. It is)

Photography: Benji Wilson @jamburrito1

With some of the songs being written as long as five years ago, and others less than five months ago, the album has an eclectic feel, something that the band are happy to embrace.

Eddie said: “We’ve always had people say I like this track, or this one, but I don’t like this one. Or they’ll say I can’t put a finger on what you guys are. Jack of all trades, master of none and all that. So, in a way, for the album to come across that way, I’m quite happy, because that’s what we’re like.”

Ryan continues: “I came up with the name of the album, because I thought it perfectly reflected our different inspirations and people bringing different shit to the table. It’s people parts.”

Photography: Benji Wilson @jamburrito1

Felix adds: “Lyrically, a lot of the album is about struggling with gender identity, so it fits with that theme.”

Felix identifies as non-binary, often wears dresses both on stage and in their day to day life, uses they/them pronouns, and has long grappled with the subject of gender.

“Over the last couple of years, I’ve gotten to know myself.” says Felix, “At first, I was like, I am what I am – Whatever. But you get to a point where you see all the fucking awful things going on on the planet and it feels like you do have to say something. Even just to start a conversation. Kids are being fucking killed. It’s dog shit!

“It’s easy to back yourself into privilege, but people have started on me loads. It happened on Eddie’s stag do. It’s fucking bizarre. It feels like it’s going backwards, and I don’t understand why people give a shit enough to hate someone they’ve never met, but Costa’s coffee is gay for a month, so it’s fine!

“And let’s not get started about Tories. Cunts. So many cunts! Just give a shit about people. It’s not that hard, is it? A lot of people voting for them are working class, and I find it so weird that people will vote against their interests.”

Eddie adds: “As a band, we’re fiercely working class, which can be rare in this industry, and that brings it back to the record, which was DIY as fuck. Jarred Up, the label that we’re on is a CIC (Community Interest Company) and we’ve benefited hugely from that. Watkins, who is our manager, is a legend, and I know at Tramlines I sang, ‘Fuck Watkins’ on stage, but I love him, really! He does so much for us.”

Photography: Benji Wilson @jamburrito1

The Mercurial Watkins also doubles as their booking agent, and once the album was released, sent them off on a nationwide tour to help promote it. The tour saw them swimming on Brighton Beach, drinking in parks up and down the country, and playing banging shows, in cities they’d never even been to before, to sold out crowds.

Devastatingly though, the tour was marked with tragedy halfway through.

“My dad was really ill.” says Danny, “On the way to Manchester I got a call saying I needed to come home. We got back to Sheffield in time, and I got to say my goodbyes, but it was really rough.

“Two days after, we had more dates, and the guys were really great about it and almost tried to persuade me out of doing them, but in a weird way it was good for me to get some space away from it, and some of those dates ended up being the best of the tour.”

“It’s obviously really nice to have your best mates around at a time like that.” says Felix, “I almost found it wholesome. Like, it felt really sweet that we could be there for him.”

As cliché as it sounds, Femur do feel like a family. Sometimes they might squabble over set lists or the memory of the odd bad gig back in the day, but then there’s clearly a lot of support and love between the four of them that’s more than just musical kinship.

Photography: Jamie Heawood

Their impressive stage presence is another aspect of the band that shouldn’t be diminished. In a world of preening shoegazers, it’s a rarity to see a band demolish the wall between themselves and the audience with such chaotic abandon.

Ever humble, Felix says, “We just like the tunes and like to piss about, and we do it even when we’re rehearsing. There’s something primal about it.”

Felix, in particular, has a mesmeric stage presence, and it would be remiss of us not to mention that certain mannerisms they evoke are eerily reminiscent of a very famous, bespectacled Sheffield son.

Photo credit Benji Wilson (@jamburrito1)

Felix has, in the past, been uncomfortable talking about their Uncle Jarvis, feeling, perhaps rightly, that they would prefer to ‘make it’ under their own steam with the absence of nepotism. In fact, Eddie had been in the band for two years before he was aware of the Cocker family link. However, these days Felix is more candid about the subject.

“I don’t go around going on about it because that would be bizarre,” says Felix, “and for a long time if anyone asked, I’d say it wasn’t true. I don’t Like is actually about it. There was a lasse in here [The Washington] who wanted to fuck me just because of it. When I found out I was livid, because that’s such a weird put down emotionally.

“Nowadays, I just think, it is what it is, and I probably should use the contacts a bit more. I’m still mulling it over in my own head. It’s probably why the band sounds so completely different to any of that stuff. It’s a strange vibe, because I don’t give a shit, it’s just my uncle to me. It’s other people who care.”

Photography: Benji Wilson @jamburrito1

Whether they know it or not, people seem to care about Femur right now, so with the album out, the tour finished, Christmas and the new year out of the way, what does 2023 hold for them?

“I don’t know if we’ll record this way again,” says Danny, “because it took so much investment of time and love. We’ll obviously do something new and exciting; it might just be a bit more easy-going.”

As Danny and Ryan depart for their ill-fated curry, Eddie leans in, “Don’t tell Danny, but we’re doing another one!”

So, there you (and Danny) are, you heard it here first, folks. Just maybe pencil it in very lightly. It could be a while!

@femurband_