Love The Wombats or Arctic Monkeys and looking for a new band to pore over? Circa Waves are your guys, offering melodic, relatable tunes that are hard not to love, but funnily enough, their super affable frontman Kieran Shudall explains they almost weren’t a band at all. Kieran almost seems like he was born to tell these three stories – the first is heartwarming, the second is hilariously unbelievable and the last is a downright shocker.

His Liverpudlian accent is super inviting and while I’ve not had a long history of listening to Circa Waves, you get the feeling that their shows are homey, welcoming places where you leave with a big smile and some memories with your mates. You might have caught them on tour with fellow Brits The 1975 or The Wombats here and while they don’t have current plans to return, we’re sure their new album What’s It Like Over There? has an Aussie tour right around the corner.

Truth

Kieran: You have to tell me if you think it’s interesting enough but basically, I was born in my house delivered by my own dad on the landing.

Uppy: Wowww.

K: So basically my mum went, ‘I’m ready for the baby now,’ but before she could think, I had basically started happening. She collapsed on the landing and my dad became a doctor and delivered me within like 10 minutes.

U: Oh wow!

K: So yeah, I thought that was quite cool. Delivered by my own dad. I think that’s why I had quite a dodgy shaped head when I was a child! He wasn’t very professional but I’m still alive so that was good!

U: So your mum didn’t have any plans to deliver you at home or anything? Like she didn’t want a homebirth or anything like that, it just happened?

K: No, nothing like that. It just happened! She was like, ‘it’s coming, let’s go to the hospital’, and by the time she’d started to leave the house, she was like, ‘no it’s happening now, let’s go.’ They couldn’t make it to the bedroom – she just stopped on the landing and that’s where I arrived.

U: You were in a hurry, weren’t you?

K: I must’ve been, yeah! Apparently I didn’t speak for like 15 minutes, I was very docile. So I was quick to get out but very chill once I was out.

U: So what has your dad told you about the delivery? Was he terrified? Did he know what he was doing or just went with it?

K: I think he went with it! He’s a very fun man but he’s an electrical engineer so he’s very sort of mathematic. I think if it happened to me, I would be in the most panic ever.

U: Me too.

K: Can you imagine? But he said he was relatively calm and then the midwife came and I’d already been born. I think because it was so quick, I happened so fast that I don’t think he had time to be too worried.

U: Yeah, it sounded like you were well on your way out!

K: Yeah, he just caught me [laughs].

U: Yeah! Obviously if there were any complications that would’ve been troublesome but you must’ve just… shot right out! [laughs] And how cool, now he gets to say he’s delivered a child – his own son!

K: After all the madness, I think he was pretty much like, ‘that’s the coolest thing that I can say’. You know when you’re down the pub and someone says, ‘I’ve done this!’ and he can say, ‘well, I delivered my own son! And I’m not even a doctor!’

Truth

K: Okay so, I basically lost my voice singing karaoke in Japan two days before Reading Festival when we were meant to play. So essentially, you know in Lost In Translation where they all sing karaoke in the Japanese karaoke booths? We wanted to recreate that so we played in Japan, went to a Japanese karaoke, sung and drank ‘til 7 in the mornin’, and then realised we had Reading & Leeds two days later. I completely lost my voice from singing my own songs in karaoke. Then essentially, I was so panicked that it was our first big show. It’s just such a legendary thing in the UK, so I had to go through acupuncture where they stuck needles in my ear to try and get my voice back.

U: In your ear, did you say?

K: Yeah, it was weird. It was absolute bollocks, it didn’t work but he basically said, ‘we’ll try acupuncture, we’ll stick needles in your ear and you may get your voice back,’ and it didn’t work.

U: Absolutely didn’t work?

K: No. I tried every remedy. So we’re about to go on stage and I had been locked down, hot towel around my throat, not speaking the whole day.

U: Wow.

K: And just as we went on, I threw down two gin and tonics and hoped that when I got on stage and opened my mouth somethin’ would happen, and like some sort of beautiful miracle, I was able to sing.

U: That’s insane! What if it had not come back?

K: I know! I was so stressed. I’ve never been so stressed in my life, just not knowing that you’re stepping out to over 5,000 people and you might not be able to sing. I felt really terrible.

U: Well, the risk paid off! A lot of people cancel when they think they’re not gonna be able to.

K: Yeah, I didn’t wanna cancel because it was such a big gig. It wasn’t just some random show, it’s Reading & Leeds. So famous.

U: And iconic.

K: And because it was my own fault too, staying up ‘til 7 in the mornin’ in Japan of all places. I couldn’t let the lads down.

U: I mean, if you’re gonna sing your heart out and your voice off at karaoke, it better be in Japan, I think!

K: [laughs] Yeah! Those Japanese booths are amazing.

U: It would’ve been hella embarrassing if it was just some shitty little place in your hometown and you didn’t even have a story behind it, you know?

K: Exactly. It all worked out in the end and I feel like I’ve learned my lesson. I won’t do that again.

U: No more karaoke ‘til AFTER the show. I mean, if worst came to, could someone else in the band have sung instead?

K: Joe, our guitarist, knows the rough melodies but doesn’t know the lyrics so it would’ve been him singing and shouting in some sort of correct melody with his own made up lyrics, which might’ve been better to be fair!

Lie

K: I suppose, Circa Waves is the biggest lie I’ve ever told. When we started, I just recorded a demo at home but I recorded it as if it was a whole band. I basically did all the bass and drums and guitars and stuff, so then I put it out as if Circa Waves was this new band and then people started calling when it got played by Zane Lowe on Radio 1.

U: That was your second single right?

K: No, actually, the demo [Young Chasers] was played by Zane Lowe too.

U: That’s amazing.

K: So basically there was no band, it didn’t exist, and people were calling and going, ‘you should bring the lads down,’ and ‘the drummer sounds great!’. I’m like, ‘yeah, yeah thanks so much!’ They had no idea it was just me pretending.

U: So any bio you wrote, you didn’t say it was a one-man band or anything?

K: No, I made it all sound broad. I wanted it to sound like a band and the demo was quite raucous. It was just really funny, people were calling me up saying, ‘the drummer sounds great, he’s got a great feel!’ and it was all made in Logic! Basically people wanted to meet them all and I had to hold them off until I found a band. People wanted to come see us, come to the rehearsal, I was like, ‘yeah yeah, we can do that, can we just wait until next month?’ And then I’d start ringing people asking to see if they could play guitar in my band.

U: WOW.

K: Yeah, so, it was a good lie. Another stressful moment.

U: You’re a conman.

K: I am a conman! I know. I had every major record label asking to come see my band live and I didn’t even have a band. That’s what cracked me up so much.

U: And you didn’t consider actually being a solo act that played everything? And having a backing track live?

K: I’ve always been in a band since I was like, 16, so that’s what I love. I love the camaraderie of a band. You’re all sort of in it together. That’s what I wanted Circa Waves to be, I didn’t want it to be 'The Kieran Show'. Basically from that moment I got a band together very quickly – I don’t think I could be a solo act. I wasn’t even the lead singer before this band, I was a rhythm guitarist so the fact that I was singing on this project was scary for me. I wanted people around to kind of cover my insecurities!

U: I mean, you made quite a splash just by yourself though! So how did you find the boys in the end?

K: Through various contacts. I played football with Sam, someone told me he played bass. I met Joe through another band who were breaking up at the time, he got really drunk one night and came up to me while I was working in a bar and he said, ‘I’ll be in your band if you want!’ I was like, ‘yeah cool. Sounds good.’ And we got Colin because he was guitar-teching, he looked like a good drummer. It was all very quick and worked out pretty well in the end.

U: And then did you have to tell them, like, ‘guys, pretend you guys also wrote this first song with me. Just say you were sick or on holiday when Zane Lowe wanted to meet.’

K: [laughs] We had to do a lot of gigs under different names to try and get good. Basically we were put together when we were already on the radio.

U: Wow.

K: We did gigs under names like Malkovich Malkovich, that was one of our names. Wet Wet Wet Wet Wet was another one. We just had to get good live before anyone saw us. By the time we got to the “first show” we’d already played like 10 shows.

U: That’s so crazy.

Circa Waves’ brand new third album, What’s It Like Over There?, is out now.

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If you’re a musician and have some stories to share and some secrets to tell – be it hilarious or heartbreaking, humiliating or honourable – send us an email at twotruthscolumn[at]gmail[dot]com.

We might be telling the whole world about the time you accidentally killed your brother’s pet snake and replaced it without anyone knowing in no time.