Interview: Theme Park

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We get lots of emails consisting of demos, amateur videos and so on, as every other site does. However, it's very hard to come across someone worthy of exposure and praise. Not in Theme Park's case though, they rolled into our inbox from one of our more trusted industry friends and immediately blew us away.

The bands debut double A side, "Wax/A Mountain We Love" will be out via ParadYse (an imprint on Transgressive Records) on August 29. They will also play their first show, two days later at The Lexington, London.

Theme Park have the potential to go far if they can keep up their infectious melodies and captivating vocals. We need to know more though. So far all we know is they're a four piece from London, twins Miles & Marcus Haughton, Louis Bhose and Oscar Manthorpe and they formed in early 2011. Because of this we took matters into our own hands, here's what they told us last week.


(One For The People) Give us a brief introduction to who Theme Park are, members, how you came about?

(Miles) Hey! So Theme Park are Miles, Marcus, Louis and Oscar.

(Marcus) Me and Miles are twins, so kinda always just been making music. And we went to school with Oscar and Louis.

(Oscar) Primary school! And we’re just family friends really.

(Miles) We’ve always done music stuff together, so it made sense when we wanted to put a band together that we’d all play together.


(1FTP) What made you decide on a name like Theme Park for the band?

(Marcus) We like theme parks. But more than that we liked the ‘TH’ sound! Better than heme park.


I like combining something with an immediate aural impact, a hook, a nice chorus, with a more quirky, a little less obvious side. (Miles Haughton - Theme Park, 2011)


(1FTP) As a collective what motivates you and makes you tick?

(Oscar) We just love playing together.

(Miles) It’s just cool that moment when you’re writing a new song and you’re suddenly like “ye, that’s really cool!”

(Marcus) We like wine and funky riffs!




(1FTP) Define your style, we see it as kind of Indie Pop template cohesively mixed with elements of New Wave and Avant Garde. Basically Indie Pop with substance.

(Miles) Hah, wait till you hear our new songs, you can take out the substance bit! Only kidding. I think that’s fairly accurate. Hopefully the songs are quite catchy, which I guess is the poppy element. And I like combining something with an immediate aural impact, a hook, a nice chorus, with a more quirky, a little less obvious side.

(Marcus) And I think they’re quite rhythmical, which is a big part of the sound, the groove.


(1FTP) How do you feel about the recent comparisons with Talking Heads, surely that's a good thing?

(Oscar) We’re glad because we like Talking Heads, but we hope it sounds like other stuff too! I think for instance the next song Wax, which is one side of the double A side release coming out on August 29th, that’s much different.



(1FTP) In terms of recording, is it all hands on deck or do you have a dominant orchestrator in the band?

(Marcus) We record demos between us, but we’ve been taking the demos to our friend frYars (Ben Garrett), who has a great ear and feel for the tunes.

(Miles) I guess the earlier songs were mainly Marcus and I, just writing at our parents house. But we’ve been writing songs more as a band recently, and that’s been really fun.


(1FTP) Whats the plans for the future? Touring, Releases, Labels?

(Miles) Well our first single comes out on the 29th of August which is exciting! And we will be doing some shows around that time. The first one is the 31st of August at The Lexington. And hopefully some touring before the end of the year but I guess we’ll see how everything goes!


(1FTP) Any other bands from your area we should be keeping an eye on?

(Marcus) The new Summer Camp Stuff it pretty great! Plus here’s an inside scoop. The new frYars album is awesome.


(1FTP) Fill in the blanks....

(TP) Theme Park are a big bunch of n00bs mixed with a lack of self confidence with a little bit of grade 5 theory thrown in.


*EDIT - New video for "Wax", shot by Ferry Gouw.


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