Rhianna Greensmith
Following the release of their latest single Marbles, Rhianna Greensmith sat down with Chloe Howard and Tippi Morgan of Brighton four-piece Lime Garden to talk all things from supporting IDLES to their wacky fashion and dreams of writing in a Californian desert.
Meeting with the pair over Zoom, their enthusiastic yet effortlessly chill nature radiated from the very beginning of our conversation. Tippi Morgan (bass) began with a reflection of the stop-start nature of last year’s touring: “It felt like we were constantly getting on a roll with it and had something to look forward to and then we had to reschedule again”. She added, “obviously we’ve got a taste for it again now and we just don’t want it to stop”.
The band had never played a venue anywhere near as big as that before and, although it was lots of fun, they felt “kind of overpowered and very overwhelmed”
Fresh out of a support slot with none other than industry giants IDLES, and a few dates with FEET and Dream Wife on the horizon, stopping it is not. Chloe Howard (vocals/guitar) says that playing at Brixton Academy for IDLES was “ridiculous, it doesn’t feel real”. The band had never played a venue anywhere near as big as that before and, although it was lots of fun, they felt “kind of overpowered and very overwhelmed”. With so many bands on the scene recently backing them, I asked who their dream artist/band to tour with would be. “I think we’d all have different answers to this”, laughs Chloe, “but we’d all collectively say Metronomy. We love Metronomy.” “Or Caroline Polachek”, Tippi suggests, “she’s the coolest!”
Moreover, the pair talk fondly of their base Brighton, the place where they particularly bonded as a group over joint trips to gigs. “The thing we’ve always loved about Brighton is it is very welcoming and not as competitive as somewhere like London,” reflects Chloe, “when you see another band in town who are starting out everyone’s so supportive and we all help each other, which is lovely”. In addition to citing Penelope Isles as established local legends, Chloe was keen to put newbies Porchlight in the limelight (excuse the pun). “They are so cool,” she gushes, “I think they’ve made everyone in Brighton quite excited about the scene again”.
The conversation swiftly returned to Lime Garden’s own musical success. Being a fan of the contrasting uplifting energy and slightly downcast lyrics in their song Sick and Tired, I asked what the band’s motivations were behind creating this dynamic. “A lot of it is our fluctuating moods really,” Chloe laughs, “we have months where we are absolutely living our best lives and wanting to party all the time and then, like everyone, there will be months where we are feeling a bit shit and a bit down and we reflect that in our music”.
“We all value listening to music that we can connect to on a deeper level”
Their latest single Marbles has a similar introspective quality. It lyrically expresses quite a common hyper-awareness as a twenty-something that everybody is on a different path. Chloe agreed that relatability is definitely something that they strive for in their music. “We all value listening to music that we can connect to on a deeper level,” she says, “and we’ve realised through talking to people who like our music that they also find this personal relatability special”.
Even through just scrolling on the band’s Instagram feed, it becomes apparent that they have quite a distinctive style and visual identity as a group. “I think we all try and wear the wackiest thing possible,” Tippi observes, “for photoshoots and videos we just go crazy and wear so many clashing patterns it’s quite funny”. Chloe contributes, “it’s just glorified dressing up for us and we’ve all really enjoyed that even before being in a band, so we’ve egged each other on to the extreme and now there’s no way back”.
Drawing the conversation to a close, I was intrigued to know what the rest of 2022 has in store for the band. “It’s hard to be a band these days,” Chloe says, “so we just want to keep writing better music and keep people interested”. She also expressed the band’s desire to tour outside of the UK after receiving increasing requests from fans abroad. “We’ve always said our dream place to write an album would be in the desert in California. I think we’d fit in perfectly,” Tippi chuckles. “We would love to play Desert Daze in California that would be the biggest dream come true. We do also just want to go to LA so bad, it would be so iconic. We’re manifesting that”.
You can catch Lime Garden in Nottingham as part of this year’s Dot To Dot Festival in Nottingham on 29th May.
Rhianna Greensmith
Featured image courtesy of Lizzie Clark-Noorgard. Permission to use granted to Impact. No changes made to this image.
In-article images courtesy of @limegardenband via instagram.com. No changes made to these images.
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