The Propolis – Synth Pop Lives! – Scene Magazine

The era of synth pop duos dominating the charts may have passed, but the enduring influence of the 80s lives on through brothers Tom and Matthew Sanderson whose new act The Propolis first blossomed when they began connecting with some of Brighton’s more eclectic LGBTQI friendly electronic music community last year.

We caught up with the brothers at the spiritual home of [beep] (Brighton Experimental Electronic Party) who hold all genres, anything goes gigs the first Saturday of every month at The Verdict Jazz bar & cafe, 159 Edward Street, Brighton.

“We’re originally from Sheffield,” Matt says, “so we have a synth pop heritage. Human League, ABC, et cetera.” He’s always been passionate about electronic music, especially synth pop.

Tom used to work up the road from Phil Oakey and Joanne Catherall. “She used to come into the library where I worked but I didn’t tell her that I knew who she was!” The brother’s mum was a piano teacher and gave Tom lessons. “I used to write crap songs about going to the park, things like that, when she was out of the house. Our dad noted them down because he does music himself.” Then at 14 he joined a melodic rock band for a while.

The first song the brothers wrote together was in 2010 and a few years later they both moved to Brighton and began getting tracks together. The Propolis only became serious after they’d already started sending each other sounds, vocals, lyrics back and forth.

“We found out about [beep] through Facebook via someone we knew” says Matt.

They discovered an inclusive and supportive community of friendly electronic music geeks keen to share their collective knowledge. “It’s a sort of incubator with technical & emotional support to nurture the creative musical journey of new performers. It sounded quite good, although we didn’t really know what it was. They’re all electronic musicians, DJs and like-minded people. So we thought we’d give it a go despite not feeling confident in what we were doing. We didn’t feel legitimate to sit there talking about electronic music and hold our own, but now we feel maybe we’re a bit more legit now, but not quite! Our first ever gig was playing at [beep]stock, an all day electronic music festival in Brighton last summer. We only had 3 finished songs, not much to perform. So a few days before we threw loads of stuff together and wrote some lyrics to one of them.” Matt laughs. “We did every song we had at that point, but we’ve tripled our catalogue since then!”

So what are the meanings behind the brothers songs? “In general our songs are about anxieties, relationships, dark themes. We’re slightly into politics.” Tom adds that “for us, they are cathartic. Hopefully other people can enjoy them too. When we wrote Comfort in the Kiss, I knew a few people who were depressed and suicidal. I was talking to a friend about their friend being in a bad place and I was thinking about people getting help and not suffering in silence. The ‘kiss’ is a metaphor for accepting help in the form of antidepressants or counselling or whatever; being supported in that way. It can also be taken as a love song.”

“Yeah, a few of our songs have layered meanings in that way. They’re definitely quite emotive,” says Matt. “I hope so!” says Tom.

The first time Matt had written lyrics was for The Secret. “I was jogging and came up with this idea about not quite giving yourself up completely and keeping part of yourself away from people. If you show a bit too much of yourself people don’t take too kindly to it and then you become shy about it. Then we developed it into more of a relationship scenario, like most of our songs.”

“You sent me it as a demo when it was just a verse, then I modified the melody, wrote the chorus and chords. The middle 8 came 2-3 months later” says Tom. “Yeah, that one really evolved” says Matt. “It had lots of effort put into it, and our sounds evolved with it now that we’re learning new techniques and ideas through [beep].” The brothers reckon their newer songs feel a little bit more impressive than some of their previous sounds. “The scene has really opened up our sound with bigger sounds.”

And what are the future ambitions for The Propolis? “Well, we’re still learning our trade,” says Matt, “sort of exploring in terms of other genres and our sound. It’s really nice being able to perform, having people appreciate our art, doing things like [beep] where people go nuts when we perform!” They both agree “it’s a good feeling getting away from the daily doldrums!”