'5 Questions With': HYYTS
"Sam fell in love and had the worst breakup of his life while I moved in with my girlfriend and got a cat so we’ve both found ourselves having a lot of that stuff to write about."
Photo Credit: Cian McKenzie
Meet Scottish pop duo HYYTS - formed of best friends Adam and Sam, both members had quite notable careers before their artistic career took off, with the former having worked as a music therapist across prisons in Scotland and the latter having built up his reputation as underground curator and promoter in Edinburgh. Hence, a career as recording artists was never actually too far off, and eventually life circumstances led to them pursuing their duo full-time. Their sound is a dreamy blend of pop and electronic, alongside captivating beats - taking us right back to the 80’s. Just the other week they have unleashed a brand new, highly anticipated EP ‘helluvatime’ which includes previously released ‘Hold On Cowboy’, ‘Avalanche’, ‘Blue & White’, and ‘Bad Tattoo’, and also came with a brand new single ‘I Kinda Need You Here Tonight’.
We don’t want to give away too much about the EP so have a read of what they had to say about it!
Read the full interview below…
EQ: Hi both! First of all how did you meet and ultimately form HYYTS?
H: Hiya!! And thanks so much for having us on, we’re buzzing! 🙂 we met when we were 10 years old at a football game (we were there with our dads we weren’t tiny independent man-children,) and we’ve been best pals ever since! I (Adam,) was always way into performing and went to drama school at the RCS in Glasgow while Sam was working in the nightlife and club promotion scene in Edinburgh but we always wanted to live together. So when I got a job in Dundee writing songs at Gary Clark’s studio, Sam moved up with me and started making music on his laptop and didn’t let me hear it for years lol! But as soon as he did we started hyyts and the rest kind of just fell into place 🙂
EQ: You both had quite exciting journeys of your own before teaming up for HYYTS! What made you decide to give up your previous careers and start a career as a band?
H: Yeah! Sam’s first job was as a professional Call of Duty player hahaha! Which is so cool. But then right before we started hyyts we were both just working in bars to kinda pay the bills. Then I got a job as a music therapist in a prison (and lost of other places like dementia wards, schools etc!) but that was while we were still doing hyyts on the side and I was still working some nights in the bar lol! The music therapy gig was my favourite job ever though I loved it. But the company I was working for lost some funding and I had to step down from the programs I was working on and that happened right around the time we were able to focus on hyyts full time! Which is a dream come true tbh now we just cut about writing songs and I don’t know how long it’s going to last but we love it!
EQ: Last Friday your EP came out, and it’s got quite an interesting lyrical storyline to it. Can you talk us through it further?
H: Yes! The story of the EP is of someone falling in love with someone only to have their heartbroken and then heal but understand they’ll never be the same again but it’s all told in reverse! As pop writers, love is the one thing we keep coming back to but our favourite bands are ones like MUNA and the 1975 who take that story and add twists and details to it to keep it new and fresh so that was kind of our idea! And it was the one thing over lockdown we both found ourselves experiencing in a big way- Sam fell in love and had the worst breakup of his life while I moved in with my girlfriend and got a cat lol so we’ve both found ourselves having a lot of that stuff to write about.
“We were lucky to be able to see each other and we just kept making each other laugh whenever the other one got bored or sad or frustrated so it kind of worked out and in the grand scheme of things we were still extremely privileged and unaffected so we just kept reminding ourselves that!”
- hyyts
EQ: How long was the EP in the making and did you find it challenging in any way to work on it throughout the pandemic?
H: That’s a good question! I mean at least one of the songs is like a year or two old so it’s been in the works for ages but the idea to put these songs into an EP and write more to fill out the story only really came about towards the end of last year so it’s kinda been quite a quick turnaround which has made it feel very fast and creative and crazy lol. And yeah it was at times, I mean just having no human interaction with more than like 2 people and no gigs to go to left us kind of without things to be inspired by and running out of things to write was a problem. But we were lucky to be able to see each other and we just kept making each other laugh whenever the other one got bored or sad or frustrated so it kind of worked out and in the grand scheme of things we were still extremely privileged and unaffected so we just kept reminding ourselves that!
EQ: Last but not least, what else can you let us in on that you’ve been working on? 😉
H: Yes! After this EP we’re going to take a little time to try and work out the next chapter and what that looks like. It’s been a full on 18 months and we’re a bit tunnel vision-ed lol. So a bit of time to work things out is the plan. That and lots and lots of gigs. And then even more new music in not too long I’m sure 😉
Thanks so much for having us on today, how lovely!!
Loads of love, hyyts xxxx
Watch the visuals for ‘Kinda Need You Here Tonight’ below…
Youtube/HYYTS
Stream ‘helluvatime’ HERE
Follow HYYTS on socials:
Instagram: @hyytsmusic
Twitter: @hyytsmusic
Facebook: @hyyts
