The seven-piece offer an insight into what we can expect at this weekend’s festival… and beyond.

The Orchestra (For Now) have become one of London’s essential live bands. Cementing their reputation with countless shows at the Windmill, their music speaks of influences from contemporaries and elders among the likes of Black Country, New Road and Ethan P. Flynn, but with seven idiosyncratic instrumentalists, it pulls in all sorts of different directions. Really, the band’s closest resemblance to the acts they admire is their sprawling (they say “foolish”) ambition.

Having won Green Man’s Rising contest after a Battle of the Bands at Clwb Ifor Bach, they will be at the festival this weekend opening its main stage on Friday, before also appearing on the Rising stage. Ahead of this first ever festival slot, we caught up with the band, whose answers have been pooled from the groupchat.

How has playing live shaped your sound and identity as a band? 

We are a live band first, and studio band second. We have a really strong bond on stage and have a lot of fun performing together. We are nearly always smiling. We write all our songs for the live environment and adapt them for record. It takes a really long time. 

What decided the range of instruments involved in the band’s setup?

Foolish ambition, and a healthy amount of experimentation. We’ve iterated a lot of the last year and a half, finally resulting in the 7 on stage now. Also, who doesn’t love a string section? The range of possiblities is massive and we feel we’re only just getting to grips with such a powerful line up. Bill our guitarist was originally on bass but he kept on playing over us during practice with pentatonic blues licks so we put him on guitar and found our excellent bassist Izzy who is a double bassist, so in the future we are a viola away from a slightly wonky string quartet on stage.

The early demos of the tunes also kept on calling out for more. They were written with space to arrange lots of intricate layers and designed to be built up over time. 

Have any of you been to Green Man before? Do you have any favourite Green Man memories?

None of us have. Which is a shame. But hopefully we’ll make a lot of memories this year, and next year, and the year after that. We’ve been watching lots of the sessions they publish on YouTube and various clips of the Mountain Stage, so we’re making memories vicariously through the backlog of amazing green man performances. 

Can we expect any festival covers? 

Not this time, but we’ve a couple prepared for our warm-up show at Windmill, Brixton (Tues 13^th Aug). 

How was the experience of performing in a competitive setting in the GM Rising final at Clwb? 

It wasn’t competitive at all. We turned up for a gig, met the other acts (some of them we already knew), shared some beers and chats and played the show. Erin (cello) and Charlie (drums) were going crazy at the front for Mari Mathias. They came away shouting “It’s ok! We’ve lost! She is the best!” TTSSFU was phenomonal and ladylike were brilliant. We just had a really nice evening watching bands and hanging out. We were on very early and going first was great because we could relax after. 

How would you describe your show to entice those who haven’t heard you to come along to one of your sets? 

It is always changing. We’ve written three new songs in the last month which are the first for our debut album but were fast tracked as we needed to fill a 45 minute slot at the festival. We really grinded them out and they sound pretty good to us. 

Our set is very dynamic, very carefully arranged and very big. We love being loud but also indulge in more stripped back moments. 

Seven is quite a big sample size, so if we all love it then there’s a strong chance you will too.

Presumably a festival debut is something of a bucket list moment checked off. What band goals do you have your sights on next?

We’re playing a few more festivals this year on some other big stages. Then the plan is to make next year as big as possible. Release our EP, tour, support shows then into recording our album and then going onto a big summer of festivals. We’re not afraid to be ambitious … otherwise, what’s the point ?!

Preview The Orchestra (For Now)’s live show with this video from Lou Smith: