But like so many other indie bands, album sales are a different matter. Fans seem to largely ignore singles preferring to spend their money on the purchase of an entire album. So it is that despite having 11 singles all failing to chart, Pale Waves have shot straight to number eight with their debut album, My Mind Makes Noises.
Founder members, singer and rhythm guitarist Heather Baron-Gracie and drummer Ciara Doran, met four years ago at the British and Irish Modern Music Institute in Manchester.
“We got to know each other from a big group chat on Facebook,” Heather explained. “There were all these metalhead boys and then Ciara popped up like an angel. She caught my attention straight away but we only physically met on our first day at university.
“I’ve never clicked with anyone the way I did with Ciara. In many ways, we’re complete opposites. I’m a hothead but Ciara is very calm and collected. We seem to balance each other out.
“It was Ciara who persuaded me to form Pale Waves with her. I was doing my own thing writing really sad songs on acoustic guitar. I said I didn’t want to be in a band but Ciara kept saying I had more to offer and encouraged me to branch out. I eventually agreed and Pale Waves was founded.”
Guitarist Ben Bateman and bass player Ryan Marsden were recruited to complete the line-up. They began rehearsing but things did not go as Heather and Ciara might have hoped. It wasn’t long before Ben and Ryan were replaced by Hugo Silvani and Charlie Wood.
“We knew we’d found the right people,” Ciara stated. “But we didn’t have the right sound. We knew we needed to spend time writing good songs, rehearsing them and making our music the best it could be.
“We wanted to get everything right before performing in public. We had about two years of solid writing and rehearsing mostly in the basement at Night and Day. That’s a cafe in Manchester which doubles as a performance venue for a lot of indie acts.”
Pale Waves made an immediate impact when they finally began performing. A deal was signed with Dirty Hit Records and they found themselves championed by The 1975 frontman Matty Healy.
“He really appreciated what we were trying to do,” Ciara recalled. “Matty co-produced our first two singles and gave us the opportunity to tour with The 1975 as their support band. We very quickly went from playing for audiences of no more than a few hundred to sold out audiences of about 20,000 people in New York’s Madison Square Garden.”
The band calmly took this and everything else in their stride. It was no surprise that Heather would do so. She had the courage and fortitude to recover from a childhood accident which left her with a fractured spine.
“It isn’t something I ever wanted to talk about,” she admitted. “But Ciara persuaded me. She said my story could help someone who might be in a similar position.
“I was on the edge of being paralysed. I needed to have a spinal fusion. The operation was successful but I had to spend what seemed like forever lying in bed.
“The ironic thing is that it was having all this time recovering from the operation which really got me into music. I was into music to some degree because my dad plays the guitar and he was always encouraging me to play. I used my recovery time to write loads of music and realised this was what I wanted to do as my career.”
The band’s songs have been described as everything from goth-pop to shoegaze.
“I don’t think we have what you could call a specific style,” Heather reflected. “We listen to all kinds of songs so have no particular influence. I love a lot of ’80s artistes such as Prince and Madonna. The Cure and The Cranberries are other favourites. But I also listen to a lot of contemporary indie bands who most people would probably have never heard of.”
In addition to their fan support, Pale Waves have also been recognised within the music industry. They were fifth in the BBC Sound of 2018 poll and won the Under the Radar award at the 2018 NME Awards ceremony.
The recognition is nice and it’s genuinely appreciated,” Ciara remarked. “But our fans are the most important people. The response we get from them means so much to us. Everything has been so positive that despite never having a hit single, we really did expect our album to do well. We were actually aiming for number one but I guess we’ll settle for number eight.”
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