They grew up on vintage vinyl, and their sound is steeped in classic soul and garage rock. But it was film and TV licensing that helped make stars out of the UK band The Heavy.
Their 2009 hit “How You Like Me Now?” alone was in a dozen TV shows including “Vampire Diaries” and “Entourage,” it also appeared in a slew of sportscasts and was even heard at President Obama’s first victory party. So whenever The Heavy makes an album, including their just-released sixth disc “Amen,” the movie and commercial folks start lining up.
“I do believe that’s because Dan [guitarist Dan Taylor] and I always try to take the songs as far as possible and make them as cinematic as we can,” singer Kelvin Swaby said this week. “That probably attracts music supervisors. Being music fans, the two of us were looking for a big sound when we started the band, and we were always ambitious. We’d be chopping up Doors samples and throwing in bits of Bill Withers and Bo Diddley — anything to make it sound like more than two people {They’ve since added bassist Spencer Page and drummer Chris Ellul). That seems to have been the draw when people started to use our stuff. And it made us lucky in the pandemic, because we were still working when we weren’t out touring.”
Still, they were confident enough to give one of the new album’s first singles a title and chorus lyric that will definitely keep it out of radio and TV. “It was funny to record that one because it sounded so raucous. And we decided well, it is what it is — The label said ‘Did you do a censored version?’ and I said ‘We did not!’”
Swaby’s vocal heroes are gritty singers like Howlin’ Wolf and Tom Waits, and he recalls an epiphany a few years ago when he heard ‘60s garage punks the Sonics. “Someone played their song ‘The Witch’ at a party and I stopped dead and said, ‘What the absolute hell is that?’ Since then we’ve tried to put a garage punk number on each of our records — but if you listen to our soul tracks, there’s some grit in there as well. We may have these wonderful glossy strings, but under that is some real gutter drums.
“My dad played a lot of rock and roll when I was growing up, and I really noticed that Hi Records stuff, singers like Al Green,” he says. “And I love the essence of the old bluesmen, there was this beautiful arrogance in the way they performed. They’d walk around Chicago like the baddest guys in town, because they knew they were.”
Though the band hails from Bath, England, Swaby became a US resident a few years back after marrying a woman from Florida. The Heavy begins its US tour at Brighton Music Hall on Monday, and he treasures their chances to get together and blast.
“We played in England last month and it was so good,” he said. “We hadn’t played the songs together in awhile with all four of us being in the room. When that happens, I find different ways of singing — That’s why it’s absolutely necessary to play in a room together, because the magic happens when you’re all there. It feels like a sermon without bringing in the religion.”