Indie-folk band Ivan Campo share the love at the Harris

Anna Colivicchi talks to indie-folk band Ivan Campo about how they met, their lyrics and their next tour in Spain.
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Adam Shaw, Ben Atha and Will Rogers were studying contemporary music at UCLan when they first met in the early 2000s.

Since their first project together at university, they recorded nine studio albums and are now in the process of writing and recording their 10th.

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They have toured sunny Spain three times in the last few years - their band is named after a Spanish footballer, after all - and they will be setting off for a new Spanish tour this March.

Indie-folk band Ivan Campo performed at the Harris on Valentine's Day.Indie-folk band Ivan Campo performed at the Harris on Valentine's Day.
Indie-folk band Ivan Campo performed at the Harris on Valentine's Day.

However, they often like to come back to Preston, where it all started.

Ben said: “At UCLan, we did part of a project together and we found that we got on really well and decided to carry on.

“I actually started doing the contemporary performing arts course and then I moved over to contemporary music within the first week, before I met these guys.

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“We ended up living together in our third year at university - and we managed to graduate, at least!”

Having been on hiatus during 2019, they started performing live again at the end of January and Preston warmly welcomed them back.

Their Valentine’s Day concert at the Harris was completely sold out, with people turning up on the night to see if they could buy any spare tickets directly at the door.

The band openly confess that their music is inspired by their own lives, by their own feelings and by the books they read.

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Will, who writes some of the lyrics of their songs, explained: “I like to steal book titles and then turn them into something else.

“If I find a title I like, that’s a good inspiration for me.”

Ben added: “I think all of us have a common interest in literature.

“Will usually offers me a lot of books he has read - we have a very similar taste in literature; a similar taste in a lot of popular culture as well, we share a lot of that and we talk a lot about it when we are together.

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“But it’s obviously things that happened to each of us, even more so to Adam and Will who write the songs, and the relationships they had with certain people (and girlfriends), that inspire the songs.”

One of their most popular songs, The Bloodhound and The Fox, from their ninth album The Season of the King, was inspired by the Sherlock Holmes books.

Adam said: “It’s told from professor Moriarty's perspective and it’s essentially a love story between Moriarty and Sherlock Holmes - there’s been lots of songs we’ve written that have been based on literature.”

At the start of March they will be heading to Spain, for a tour that will take them to play venues in Barcelona, Girona, Zaragoza and more.

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Adam said: “My father is a big Bolton Wanderers’ fan and around 2003 Ivan Campo signed for Bolton and we just thought the name was utterly ridiculous - just perfectly fitting for our music.”

In 2017, after Ben was interviewed by a Spanish TV station, the band flew out to Madrid and performed on Spanish prime time TV show Late Motiv, hosted by Andreu Buenafuente.

Ben added: “Because we are named after a Spanish football player, we approached someone in Spain who was interested in booking us some shows over there.

“Our name is quite catchy for Spanish people, they are interested, they are curious to know why we named ourselves after a particular Spanish footballer.

“And we just love Spain, we are very lucky to be playing over there, it’s a privilege.”

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