Exploding on the music scene in a burst of psychedelia, Temples could well be the future of indie-rock. Tim Hughes reports

Los Angeles, Seattle, Manchester, Liverpool... some places just seem to produce all the best bands.

The same goes for New York, Bristol, London, Oxford, obviously. And Kettering. Long remarkable only for its output of shoes, playground swings and slides and (yes, trivia fans) Weetabix, the prosaic Northampton-shire market town has a new claim to fame — as home of the brightest, shiniest and spangliest new stars in the indie-rock firmament — Temples.

“It’s such an odd town really for the arts, because there’s nothing here,” admits singer-guitarist James Bagshaw. “There are probably poets in Kettering, but there’s no outlet for them.

“We’ve never done a gig here because there isn't anywhere to play!” he laughs. “We will sort something out though, even if means putting up our own venue first.”

Occupying a sartorial style hovering somewhere between Marc Bolan’s T. Rex, The Byrds and Primal Scream, Temples may look retro, but there’s is a thoroughly modern sound — mixing scuzzy, rock, glam, space-rock, psychedelia, dream-pop, Motown and folk-rock. What else would you expect to come out of Kettering?

“Psychedelic music has always been forward-thinking,” says bassist Tom Warmsley, who founded the band with James two years ago. “It’s so easy to fall into that kind of pastiche, retro-revival band thing, but our aim is to reference these things and bring something completely new to it. A song like Sun Structures talks about something contemporary using old imagery and eastern religion. It isn’t a fictional work about dragons and wizards people won’t be able to find anything in. And the fidelity of the sound alone says we’re doing something that couldn’t really be done before.

“Doing something different with a pop song, breaking the convention of verses and choruses is something we always keep in mind when recording. It’s more interesting, isn’t it?”

It was the experiences of each of the friends’ sojourns at universities away from Northants, however, which informs the band, and lends a peculiar artistic erudition to their output.

The four bonded over the writing of Aldous Huxley and Timothy Leary, the films of Kenneth Anger, and the music of 1960s West Coast folk-rock. Arriving back in their hometown, their interest in mysticism, music and literature sustained them in what less-kind souls might dismiss as a cultural desert.

“We were writing, recording, looking for work, not knowing what to do,” says Tom. “And feeling thoroughly down and out because we had to move back home from our respective cities.”

But Tom and James admit they came to love the place all over again, using it as a base to record their debut Shelter Song, in July 2012.

Like all of their music, it was recorded at home, in the box-room of James’ parents’ end-terrace house.

Fortunately, their neighbours are understanding, though whether they know they are living next to the future of British indie-rock is debatable. “I’m always apologising for the noise, but he says; ‘It’s not noise, it’s music’,” says James.

The DIY ethic shines through though. “It’s just like Joe Meek — he used to record vocals in his bathroom in his flat on Holloway Road,” says Tom.

“The way I see it, there aren’t any limitations any more,” says James. “If you know what you want to achieve, there’s always a way around it. With technology today there’s ways of emulating things that would have cost an arm and a leg years ago.”

Sticking the track online, they watched the hype escalate and eventually signed to Heavenly Records when they came calling.

Copies of the single now regularly go for £100 on eBay. “Unfortunately, I’ve only got one copy,” says James. “I’d feel corrupt selling them at a mark-up anyway. I’d do it for the list price.”

With pressure to start performing live, Tom and James realised they needed a proper band and recruited drummer Sam Toms and keyboard player Adam Smith to complete the line-up. Both were, it goes without saying, Kettering lads.

Sharing the same chemistry, the band sold-out gigs, hit the festival circuit, playing storming sets at Latitude, Reading & Leeds and Festival No.6, and shared the bill with The Rolling Stones at Hyde Park at last summer’s show.

Their genre-bending debut album Sun Structures, mixed in New York by Claudius Mittendorfer (The Mars Volta, Muse and Franz Ferdinand) has found favour among listeners craving intelligent and interesting indie-rock. And they have picked up some influential admirers — with the likes of Johnny Marr declaring himself a fan (“He’s obviously a huge ambassador of the 12-string, so it’s nice he’s picked up on us,” says Tom), Suede inviting them on tour and Noel Gallagher insisting “the future of the galaxy depends on the Temples album” after seeing them play in London.

They are currently midway through a tour to promote the album, which arrives in Oxford on Monday. So, are they feeling any pressure? “Not really,” says James. “I’m quite confident — there’s no filler and no track sounds similar to the next. I think Noel will love it. It’ll probably make him want to reform Oasis!”

“We’re not a band that just makes crazy noises for the sake of it,” he goes on. “We still want songs to be songs. We never want to re-do the same thing or use the same formula as a previous song. We’re always looking hard to better ourselves.”

It’s not bad for a bunch of lads from small-town Northants. So are they looking forward to becoming Kettering’s most famous sons? “I think we already are,” laughs James. “And we haven’t even started yet...”

Temples
O2 Academy Oxford
Monday
Tickets £11 + £1.37 fee from ticketweb.co.uk