Hope of the States

The panoramic, Pink Floydian soundscapes on The Lost Riots—the Epic debut disc from Chichester, England’s grandly dubbed Hope Of The States—comes from one distinct place, swears singer/composer Sam Herlihy. Or rather, one particular moment, he elaborates, “when things in films and books, or just little items you read in the paper, kinda set you a little bit out of sync with everything around you. Things that displace me a little bit.” Such as the atmosphere of David Gordon Green’s film George Washington, which Herlihy attempted to capture in a Hope anthem of the same name.

These rifts in time occur at surprising intervals, adds former film student Herlihy, who stokes Hope shows with plenty of cinematic visuals. “The other night we were in Toronto, and I hadn’t seen Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind, so I went to the theater,” he recalls, over lunch in Los Angeles. “And I didn’t expect anything from it, because I’m not a big fan of Jim Carrey or Kate Winslet, and I think [director] Michel Gondry is pretty overrated. But I ended up just crying my eyes out. There was this weird half hour in the middle of the movie where everything suddenly got very strange for me, plus it was pissing down rain when I got outside. So I ended up with this little moment where I just started writing down tons of thoughts in my book—not so much a journal, more like a diary—and I filled four whole pages in it that night.”

There’s a dark film-noirish melancholy that hangs over The Lost Riots, perhaps partly due to the tragedy the band endured during its recording, when guitarist James Lawrence inexplicably hung himself in the studio. Herlihy was best mates with the man, but he didn’t see the suicide coming. And many of his favorite flicks, such as Harmony Korine’s Gummo, echo that grim gravity. “But I’m a sucker for shit as well,” laughs Herlihy, 22, trying to stay upbeat. “We watched Mrs. Doubtfire the other day and I loved that thing! It made me cry again—I was pathetic. So I veer between being this young arty-farty wanker and just some guy who loves schmaltz at the same time.”