scotland

Emma Marx-Hall: I think it's actually true that Marxes and Halls live everywhere in the world, because my mum and dad are from Wales, my great-grandparents were originally from Germany, my aunt and uncle live in New Zealand, and my cousin Greg lives in Edinburgh. More importantly, Greg heard we had a band and offered his flat as a crashing place.

Tom Thorogood: I guess Emma's cousin Greg Hall was in the habit of letting people sleep on his floor, because he let us stay in his flat in Scotland and when we got there he was telling us all about the interesting people who had stayed there before. Artists, actors, people who just preferred to wander.

Davina Thewsley (student): Evelyn and I stayed at Greg Hall's once. He had pictures up on his wall of everyone who had stayed there. He was quite proud of it. At the time we were very star-struck. We were making this massive trip around the UK—

Interviewer: Can you start at the beginning?

Davina Thewsley: All right. I'm sorry. It's just—it's weird talking about that time now, I'm sure you understand. I mean, we were kind of young and stupid.

Well, Evelyn and I went to the same secondary school. We met in first year. We were both sort of misfits, you could say, so I wanted to get to know her. Actually, I thought she was amazing.

I was just a quiet girl who'd never had many friends. I suppose I never really liked being social—I never wanted to go to parties at people's houses or to go dancing. So I'd never had any friends—did I already say that? I just kept to myself, and tried not to be noticed. But Evelyn Porter was really something else, you know? She made her own clothes. She always wore loads of silver jewelry. From the moment I saw her I knew she was such a creative and just wonderful person.

Somehow I got the courage to talk to her, I asked her for the answer to something in maths, and soon we were best friends. It was like, I never had anything to be interested in before. But she was showing me music and art. We would go to art shows, and rock shows. We went shopping. There was a strange thrill in sneaking out the house and going to clubs. We didn't even dance, because at the clubs that Evelyn knew about, no one really danced. It was more about just enjoying the music.

I found out about things like New Order and Sisters of Mercy. Things that would fill a room with sound. So that everything nasty echoing around in your head would go away.

We got IDs made that said we were eighteen, and we would have a few drinks and then we'd go out and run around in the night. Sometimes boys made passes at us but we were too cool for that—you know, we thought boyfriends were really just for all the conformist girls at our school. The best thing was just spending time together—fuck, I sound like a lesbian now but it wasn't lesbian at all, it was really just about having a best friend for the first time in my life.

There was one club we really loved, called Inversion, and every time bands came by there we went to see them together. One night in 2007, at the end of summer, we went to see a band called Knave of Hearts. We'd never heard of them but they were from London, and a lot of the bands we were obsessed with were from London, so (laugh) how could it go wrong?

Lane Kennedy: It wasn't exactly a tour, but it certainly was our first time playing outside of England or even outside of London at all. Greg Hall was great—he let us use his truck to drive around our equipment, and we all just slept in blankets on his floor. Well, when I say 'we all slept'...you know...

Emily Alexander: Harry Williams at Inversion was very accommodating. I hadn't realized until then that it really was a large task ahead of us. The band had no equipment except for amps and instruments. The club had to provide speakers for them, and we had no sound techs so we had to hire one who had never met the band or heard their songs. We were basically winging it. But they made us the main act anyway. I mean, the way it worked was they had a DJ on first, and then Knave, and then at the end they'd put on another DJ, but it was still a really great opportunity for us all.

Lane Kennedy: I'm convinced we got the spot because people recognized Emily as Pete Davies' manager. It's amazing how doors start to open for you.

Alan Léonin: I was nervous so I didn't sleep the night before, and then at 3 PM, right before sound check, I started drinking. Part of me was afraid it was going to be another Another Dead-End Street. But we got onstage and I knew it wasn't. It was almost a goth club, sort of; everyone was dressed in black or glitter and feathers. It actually looked a bit like you would imagine a world where Emma was queen and dictated how everyone should dress. But of course she shone like a star, even brighter than anyone else.

Emma Marx-Hall: We'd all had a bit of drink so we decided the show would be a bit of fun. Emily even said to us that she felt the best way to go about it was to enjoy ourselves as much as possible, because the major failing of the Another Dead-End Street show was that we weren't having fun.

Emily Alexander: Yeah, I told them that the best concert was one where the only people having more fun than the band are the audience, but if the band are at least having fun that's good enough. If your concert turns into a spectacle, like, 'look how fucked up we are', people will go to your concerts to ridicule your band, but they won't buy your albums. If you look like you're having a great time on stage, people want to join the party.

Emma Marx-Hall: We brought red wine on stage. Knave of Hearts drink of choice. No particular label, just whatever we could afford at any given time. But why am I saying this? Everyone who's reading this probably already knows what our drink of choice is, they were probably the kids who brought us bottles of wine and shared with us from the front row. Anyway, that night was really how that tradition started, because it was definitely happening at that time; people in the front row had drinks and I'd lean over the stage and ask to share, and they'd hand it to me and I'd have a sip. It's a wonder I didn't contract some horrible South American disease.

Tom Thorogood: Emma and Alan kept getting drunker and drunker. The rhythm section was basically holding the music together, but the two of them were a sight to behold. Emma was fumbling through her riffs, but at the same time she was doing high kicks and quoting Sartre, and Alan would lean into the microphone and say something to introduce each song, something like, "Love is the power of man to delude the mind, and the mind to delude the man," or "The music is the soul, I am just a fashion accessory."

Davina Thewsley: Somehow Evelyn and I both knew that something was happening. The one thing about our lives that had always really depressed us was that all of the music that really inspired us or that we thought had some sort of integrity was ages old. But Knave of Hearts was a new band and while their sound was a little bit rough, they had a really strong image and they were also saying a lot of really intelligent things in between their songs. We felt like there was something they wanted to communicate to us. Perhaps even to us in particular, like they were speaking specifically to people who thought the way we did, who came from the same sort of worlds as us. And I think that's something that no one had ever done for us before—I think a lot of music, art, and writing was able to express the same feelings as us but it was still from the perspective of someone from a different time and era, and now Knave of Hearts was speaking to us from our own time, in our own world. Understanding us.

Before the very last song, Alan took off his jacket and rolled his sleeves up. I remember it really well, especially because Evelyn did lots of drawings of it—did I tell you she was an artist? He was wearing this ruffled shirt with the top half of buttons undone, so his chest was bare, and he was wearing these like maroon skinny jeans, and thick eyeliner, I think maybe he was trying to do a Clockwork Orange thing? And when he took off his jacket Evelyn just grabbed my arm and said "Oh my God, Davina, he's so beautiful," and she was starting to cry. At first I thought she was on drugs or something but then I looked back up to the stage and I realized that I was feeling a lot of really strong emotion. It didn't quite make me cry, which is weird because I always used to cry more than Evelyn did, but I just held onto her tight and listened to the music and in the corner of my eyes I could feel that little sting of tears threatening to come too but I just smiled instead because I was the happiest I could ever imagine anyone being.

Emily Alexander: It became less like a concert and more like a party. By the time it was time for the band to come off and the DJ to go on, the band were all so drunk on the audience's drinks that they were giddy. They didn't want to get off stage and talk to anyone in the audience, because Alan was freaking out that people were going to throw things at them or be rude toward him, but I think they were a little starved for attention, and so they stayed up in the DJ booth for a lot of the set and petted and cuddled the DJs. It was pretty awkward, but you know, I was always happy that the band I managed was more of a 'get drunk and invade people's personal space' band than a 'get drunk and wreck a hotel room or get in a fight and stab someone' band.

ºAlan Léonin (recorded in interview, September 2007): The moment after the music is completely meaningless to us. The only important thing is what we play, and the connection that forms when we are playing. We are just a vessel. That's why we never stay around and sign things afterwards.

ºAlan Léonin (recorded in interview, March 2008): The people who support our band are more important than any of us. Honestly if anyone is the fifth member of Knave of Hearts, it's the audience. For me there is nothing more important than making sure that the fans are aware of that, are aware how much of the experience of our music they control, and that's why we do our best to make sure we meet every single person who comes to our shows. We've been forcibly removed from venues along with the people who stayed and I think that really says something about how much of us we owe to your love.

Davina Thewsley: Evelyn wanted to sneak backstage and meet Alan, but I knew that I couldn't let that happen. I looked at her and told her that if she actually spoke to him it could ruin him forever for her, that the most important way to see him was as the man who sang and spoke from the stage. I felt like this love she suddenly had for him was a really positive thing for her, for both of us, and I couldn't let it die that soon. Maybe it would have been better if we had gone and talked to him. But maybe he wouldn't have talked to us anyway!

Emily Alexander: We went back to Greg's, minus Emma, who had gone home with one of the DJ's. Tom tried to advise her against it, I think he was a little worried for her safety, but she ended up coming back unharmed and I'd never accuse Emma of having bad judgment based on other things that happened.

It was a really strange night. Alan was panicky again, this time he was terrified that everyone hated him and I think at some point he got to the point where he was worried that people thought so badly of him that they were going to stalk him down and kill him. I was beginning to get an idea of what Lane meant when she said to look out for Alan, but that night Lane was looking out for him. She stayed up all night talking to him and trying to calm him down.

None of us slept that well. Tom and Greg were having a pretty intense conversation about who-knows-what, and me—I was fielding phone calls. Already a couple promoters were asking about getting the band to do shows, which was a little strategically difficult because they all thought we were Scottish and wouldn't have too many issues with transportation and lodging. But we talked about future dates, and I tentatively put things down on the band's calendar. After that there was no way I could sleep. Too excited.