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Nov 01, 2013 By Danielle Sills Photography by James Loveday Issue #47 - September/October 2013 - MGMT

One of the best parts of being a kid is the ability to dream without bounds. The world is just waiting for you to accomplish anything and everything. Doubts don’t cloud your vision; incredible thoughts seem close and obtainable.

And while Childhood is a London-based band made up of four full-grown adults, Leo Dobsen (lead guitar), Ben Romans Hopcraft (vocals, guitar), Daniel Salamons (bass), and Jonny Williams (drums) haven’t lost that optimistic feeling that following your dreams can yield huge results.

Two and a half years after meeting at the University of Nottingham, the now-graduates can finally forget about degrees and textbooks and focus all their attention on their music. What started as “hanging out with each other, getting drunk with each other, sharing music with each other” has become a full-fledged passion and obsession. Now, it’s all music, all the time.

“That’s all we do. It’s the only thing we’re passionate about. It’s the only thing that we do now, so everything’s moving a lot faster now that we’re done with the old education,” says Dobsen.

The band’s aspirations go way beyond London. Childhood is recording material for its first album, slated to come out early next year, and plans to soon venture out of Europe to play its first shows stateside.

“We don’t write having the intention of our songs being played in arenas, but we love huge qualities. We love huge melodies. I guess one day we could be playing arenas, but that’s a long way away. It’s kind of hard to think about that now. But we want a big pop song,” says Dobsen.

Considering this is their first band, this foursome’s instincts are overwhelmingly and fortuitously on the money. The handful of songs they’ve released so far already have the kind of production quality you’d expect from veteran musicians. Dobsen and Romans Hopcraft’s guitars intertwine, spiraling into choruses that soar.

“Blue Velvet,” the second song that Dobsen ever wrote, revolves around a towering riff that’s accentuated by lyrics that are immediately relatable. Another single, “Solemn Skies,” includes lines such as “Does it reach your heart when I touch you that way?” It’s the kind of sentiment that tiptoes between mushy poetry and sincere yearning.

Dobsen explains, “We want to evoke feelings of pining, of longing, a kind of romantic nostalgia. When we hear songs that we really like, that’s the kind of feelings that we feel, and we want people to feel those emotions from our music.”

Dobsen speaks positively when discussing the future. He tosses out phrases like “life-affirming” and “that’s a dream.” But when it comes down to it, his goal is simple.

“I just want to make the kind of music that I’ve always wanted to hear.”

[This article first appeared in Under the Radar’s August/September 2013 print issue.]

www.facebook.com/childhoodband

http://www.soundcloud.com/childhoodmusic