English Teacher’s Lesson Plan for Indie Stardom
The Leeds, England-based English Teacher released its debut EP, Polyawkward, in 2022, and its first album, This Could Be Texas, in April. So it surprised even them that they sold out New York’s Bowery Ballroom in June — on a Monday, no less.
Frontwoman and lyricist Lily Fontaine and lead guitarist and producer Lewis Whiting chalk it up to relentless touring, which has honed the band into a tight unit that melds Radiohead-style guitar and synth sonics with hard funk flourishes and elegant melodies that showcase Fontaine’s literary lyrics about place, identity and broken relationships. (The quartet has actually been playing together since 2018 when they were a very different dream pop band called Frank.) At the Bowery Ballroom, Fontaine’s electric stage presence also galvanized the crowd, as she paced the stage and alternated between rhythm guitar and synth.
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English Teacher’s road work and original sound resulted in This Could Be Texas garnering stellar reviews and on Sept. 5 beating out Charli XCX‘s Brat, Beth Gibbons’ Lives Outgrown and The Last Dinner Party’s Prelude to Ecstasy for the U.K.’s coveted Mercury Prize
London’s Guardian reported that the band seemed lost for words as they collected their award. “We just thought we’d make a band,” Fontaine said. “What do we do now?”
Answer: They capitalize on their momentum. At the end of August, the group released a new EP, English Teacher: Live From BBC Maida Vale — which includes covers of Billie Eilish‘s “Birds of a Feather” and LCD Soundsystem‘s “New York I Love You But You’re Bringing Me Down” — and on Sept. 15, they return to the road, playing a slew of dates in North America supporting IDLES.
Days before they won the Mercury, Fontaine and Whiting (briefly) Zoomed in from the United Kingdom to talk about the band’s success, the origin of its name, its songwriting process and its plans for the future.
You’re a very tight band. Is there a lot of practice involved?
Whiting: Less than you think.
Fontaine: We’ve been on tour for at least the past four or five months, and we’re about to start up again. We don’t really have time to practice because we’re playing the set over and over again.
That’s practice of a sort. I do think that strong live shows are crucial to building a fan base. Lily, you’re riveting onstage. Were you influenced by any other artists in terms of stage presence.
Fontaine: It’s not really a conscious thing to be honest. I’ve been doing it for such a long time — 10 years — that I feel quite confident now on stage. I also think that being a music fan, the affectations of people that I have enjoyed slip in with my stage personality.
How did the band’s name come about?
Fontaine: Ugh.
Whiting: It was a name Lily came up with quite a while back. There are different ways of looking at it. Like, a lot of our family members we’re English teachers and it’s a bit of a connection.
Fontaine: Now, I like the idea of what an English teacher is. We go to so many different countries, and the English language is so prevalent— people do speak it everywhere now — that people sometimes resent it. I hate the name, but also I like the idea of an English teacher being perceived negatively or positively depending on which country you’re in.
How did you all get signed to Island UK?
Fontaine: It was baby steps.
Whiting: Yeah. We’d gotten some support slots, Our guys were floating about. Nothing happened for a long, long time after that. They must have been aware of us and then yeah, the EP came out, we started to play more and they started sniffing around a little bit more.
A number of bands are striking deals with labels that enable them to keep their masters. Was that something you did?
No. It was like a split. We have a percentage.
What are the best and worst parts of touring?
Whiting: The best parts are being able to travel to places and play music that we’ve written to people who don’t know it as well. That’s the best bit, and then I suppose all the rest of it is the bad bit. The traveling is taxing for sure.
The price of touring has ratcheted up, which particularly effects indie bands. What has your experience been?
Fontaine: We don’t really make money. We only ever break even or lose money.
Regarding the title of your album, This Could Be Texas, you could have chosen any state or city here. Why Texas?
Whiting: It must have been in our minds subconsciously because it had just come up on the news about [us playing] South by Southwest. I think it was the best descriptor for where we stood. It was a really hot day and we were at a car park. At first it was a bit of a joke phrase, but then it morphed and attached itself to the song, which is about the process of writing the album. Then it became us saying this should be the title for the album. It wasn’t a sorted-out thing from the start. It just kind of presented itself.
Lily, on “The World’s Biggest Paving Slab,” you sing, “I’m the world’s biggest paving slab, and the world’s smallest celebrity.” Can you give me some context behind that?
Fontaine: I grew up in Colne, Lancashire, and outside the town hall there’s a giant paving slab and that’s one of the town’s local celebrities if you will. The song is about exploring this great display and not necessarily ever leaving the town. It’s a juxtaposition of exploring feelings of grandeur and feelings of self-deprecation.
There also seems to be a little bit of, “Don’t tread on me.”
Fontaine: Yeah, definitely. I think that’s the grandeur element.
Do you and the rest of the band write songs collaboratively?
Fontaine: It’s different every time. Sometimes, one of us will come in with a song quite finished and sometimes just a bit of poetry and a riff come together. Sometimes it’s separate songs. Sometimes it’s all together. It’s different. We like to work like that. So far, it’s been all right.
Whiting: It’s a quite chaotic approach. It’s kind of just throw things together.
Another standout song on the album is “R&B.” On it, you sing, “Despite appearances, I haven’t got the voice for R&B.” Is that subtext about expectations of you as an artist because of your skin color?
Fontaine: The whole song isn’t about that, but part of it is. At the time, I had writer’s block and the only thing I could come up with in my head was a melody for an R&B song. I thought that was so ironic because that is the genre that people always assume that I make when they look at me. Not always, but there’s been times when we meet another musician, and the look on their face is a big shock when I say that I make guitar music.
You come from a mixed-race family?
Fontaine: Yeah, my dad’s side of the family are from Dominica in the Caribbean and my mum’s just I don’t know, England I guess. They’re both British.
Now that Kamala Harris is a presidential candidate, race issues are at the forefront of the campaign. I don’t know if it made news in the U.K., but Donald Trump made headlines here when he said that Harris only recently had decided to identify as Black instead of Indian. Is that kind of racism familiar to you?
Fontaine: Definitely. It’s so funny because it depends on who you’re with. It depends on how Black you are, how white you are. So, if I’m with my white friends, then I’m the Black one, but if I’m with my Black family I’m the whitest person in the room. Race is fluid in a sense — and what a prick [Trump] is. Sorry.
Are you following the presidential race here?
Whiting: I’m following it closely. Biden dropping out was an extremely good call. I can’t say I knew a crazy amount about Harris before this, but I like following American politics. I’m an avid American politics podcast listener.
Fontaine: I don’t have as much knowledge of [politics] as Lewis because I don’t listen to any podcasts or anything. I’m glad that Biden dropped out. I think that was an obvious decision. We’re going to be in the U.S. when the election is happening, so it will be an interesting time to be there.
Lily, the lyrics to “Broken Biscuits” are quite powerful and sound very personal. Is there an autobiographical element to it?
Fontaine: That’s probably the most personal song on the album actually. Yeah, it’s really personal. There’s this John Cooper Clarke poem, “Evidently Chickentown,” that has a lot of repetition, and I wanted to see how many different ways I could use the word “broken.” Then I was seeing how I could use all those different ways to relate to things in my life that were broken or that have been broken.
There are references to all sorts of things: breaking in shoes and broken homes, but also “Smithereens,” which is a Black Mirror episode and the show’s creators [Charlie Brooker and Annabel Jones] call their company Broke and Bones, which I use in the lyrics. There’s lighthearted stuff in there as well. It’s not all sad. But a lot of it is quite dark actually.
Do you come from a broken home?
Fontaine: That’s me. Yeah, my parents split up when, I don’t know — maybe I was like one. It was when I wasn’t conscious, which is a blessing probably.
I noticed that the band worked in more melodies on This Could Be Texas than you have on prior work. Has that been a natural progression?
Fontaine: That’s probably because when we were writing the first EP and some of those earlier songs. I was listening to more post-punk. That was the time of the post-Brexit, post-punk resurgence in the U.K., and I was quite influenced by that. That trend wore off, and I was listening to a lot of classic songs — not classical music. I’m coming to music as a singer, and I felt it was just natural that I would probably go back towards that eventually.
At the end of August, English Teacher put out a live EP that includes covers of Billie Eilish’s “Birds of a Feather” and LCD Soundsystem’s “New York I Love You But You’re Bringing Me Down.” Why did you choose those?
Fontaine: LCD felt natural, because we all really like them, especially that song. I think it felt like a song that we could tackle given the instruments that we had at our disposal. With “Birds of a Feather,” we were asked to do a cover for BBC Radio One which is as you probably know is more of the pop end of the spectrum. So, we looked at what had come out recently — and my boyfriend said, “You should do this song.” We listened to it together, and I was just crying. I found it really moving, and I was like, “I want to do this.” We put it together in a day, and it felt right.
Are you working on the next album?
Fontaine: Yeah, we’ve got a few songs written actually. It seems like it’s come around so fast. Yeah, I’ve got ideas of the concept for it and everything.
Can you share the concept?
Fontaine: It’s too early to say really, and it’s not entirely up to me. But I don’t think I would want to put out a body of work that didn’t have some kind of unifying aspect to it. It happens naturally when you pull everything together that something connects it. It’s not exactly a concept album but always a bit of a through narrative. Thematically, it will probably be a sadder and darker album.
You are clearly into literature, poetry and media. Is there anything that has your attention these days?
Fontaine: Yeah. I’m going through a big phase with Octavia Butler, the science fiction writer. I’m obsessed with her and I just finished the second of two of her books. I’ve immediately ordered the next one because I want to read it whilst I’m still in that world.
She’s my focus at the moment. I’ve been watching The Bear. I think it’s amazing. The writing is brilliant, and the acting is so realistic that it’s kind of scary that people can act but also be so human at the same time. I love food as well so it’s a good one.
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