World Radio are the Manchester-based romantic pop duo who’s nostalgic eighties feel is completely addictive. Made up of Luke Rowland and Alex Currie, who became friends after bonding over their mutual love of pop while playing in punk bands, World Radio are all about creating something genuinely interesting, and they definitely succeed. Not satisfied with re-hashing the over-hyped 80s elements, World Radio re-work the glitz and stylised pop-rock and create exquisite modern day pop that has nostalgic tinges that will give you the shivers.

Inspired by Currie’s dad’s old band (from which they took their name from), World Radio embraced the idea of writing serious pop music with an electric edge, and have been working away over the past three years to create a sound that is carefully considered and shows just how interesting pop music can be. World Radio are ones for articulating and expressing their own ideas, and presenting them in a way that engages with and reacts to the modern world.

Sum up your sound in five words?

That ones for the listeners…

Where did the name World Radio come from?

It was actually the name of Al’s dads band back in the day. We found it really interesting so we wanted to take the name and re-introduce it into a new world. For us, the name defined what the band was going to be before we even knew.

How did you start making music together?

We started writing together about three years ago, which came about after Al over heard a demo Luke sent to a mutual friend of ours. We ended up sending a few demos to each other online and met shortly after that. We then played in punk bands together for a short while but realised we both have a liking for pop music so World Radio essentially started from that.

There’s a lot of 80s disco elements in your sound – who and what inspires you?

Something that we tend to get drawn to and take inspiration from is night time. Trying to capture the feeling of night time and turn that into how we think it should sound is something we find really interesting. As for musical influences, we’ve recently been really into the band Haircut 100, their songs are really fun.

Tell us about your track “Love Me Not”? What’s the story behind it?

“Love Me Not” for us is an exploration of the more disco side of our sound. We generally try to delve into different elements of popular music and look at ways we can interpret them. We wanted the song to be really simple but consistent throughout, so once we had the bass line the song kind of wrote itself.

What’s the Manchester music scene like and does it affect your sound?

Of course Manchester is known to be the home of so many successful bands over the years, and it’s where a lot of our favourite bands are from so it’s cool to be surrounded by that. It’s definitely something that’s influenced us and our sound a lot. At the moment there’s a really diverse range of stuff going in Manchester which is nice be around, everyone’s really supportive!

What’s your writing process like? Are you spontaneous?

There’s an element of spontaneity in our writing for sure, usually starting in the form of a melody or bass line. We often make demos of the ideas and sit with them for a few weeks to get a proper feel for them. This enables us to really embrace a song and try to define where it naturally wants to go.

Who’s your dream collaboration?

One of our favourite song writers Paul Buchanan would definitely a dream collaboration for us. His outlook on music is so cool. Also the artist Julian Klincewicz would be great to work with. It’s good to see someone so focused and doing well in so many different fields of work. To be able to work with him in some way would definitely be an interesting experience.

You have a very distinct look – how integral is your look to the overall feel of World Radio?

We feel that the overall aesthetic of World Radio is really important and it’s something we try to consciously put equal effort into as we do with the songs. We think it’s a good way of communicating our ideas around the music and hopefully enables people to see/hear things how we want them to be.

What have you got in the pipeline?

A lot of music. Our main plans are to further explore the concept of World Radio and to introduce people to the vision for it that we have. We also plan on playing a debut live band performance in the new year, which we’re really excited about!