South west London-based band Achilles Heel have been creating neo-soul music since meeting at university in Cornwall.
Songwriter and frontwoman of the band Caitlin Pinkess empowers with her lyrics as her band brings her vision to life.
Keyboardist Harry Sargent said: “We started to bring Caitlin’s songs to life.
“She wrote many songs about her experience, in general, writing music as a woman, relationships and friendships.
“Then we developed into a collective where we all wrote our own things and chipped in.”
From D’Angelo to Eric Badu, the band are influenced by late neo-soul with a twist of their own.
Talking about current musical work, Harry said: “There’s a new song that that Caitlin’s written that’s quite centred around being confused in your feelings because your mates are doing well in music.
“Although you’re kind of like, I want to be happy for you, you’re kind of jealous like why isn’t that me, which is really hard to be torn like that and you really don’t want to be like that, especially with your best mates.
“I feel like in that sense, we’re writing more relatable lyrics in terms of that way, which sort of drifts apart from a lot of other neo-soul, or just soul music in general which is often centred around love and romance.”
When it comes to the creative process, the band attend a studio in Acton run by Sam Beer who has all the gear and a “homely” space.
The process starts with Caitlin who will have written a little song with basic chords or has a rough idea of what she wants to sing, then it is taken into the studio with Sam or Harry.
Caitlin and Harry often sit down together and try to make the chords more interesting before bass player Lucia Sorrell comes into the mix.
Harry said: “Because it’s like jazz, it’s not one of those things where you can sort of meticulously plan out a writing process.
“You sort of just make a rough cluster of ideas, and we just sort of freestyle.
“We all sort of improvise we make a big mess, and then we can listen back to the big mess and go what are we taking out, what we doing with this, what we bringing back and what are we doing more of so that’s one way we do it.”
However, Harry also talks about an alternative creative process that he and Caitlin used for their single “Dirty Laundry” which uses DAW production.
Looking back at 2024, Achilles Heel achieved a lot from releasing their first single and many more, performing at The Finsbury, The Ned and on Ludo’s Bus.
However also looking into the future, the band have applied for as many festivals as possible to push their music out more and has a strong dedication to take it as far as possible.
Lots of music is in the works as they plan to work as more of a collective by branching out into everyone’s ideas and coming up with different ideas, after being meticulous about the sound they were creating.
I asked Harry for advice to give those who wish to start their music journey, he told me it is easy to get stuck in and about the importance of being authentic as well as opening up to new ideas.
He added: “It definitely has to be said that if you are a woman in the industry, don’t let anything give you a glass ceiling.
“Women are just as entitled as anybody else.”
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