Ahead of his show at KOKO tonight, we speak to emerging indie-R’n’B artist George van den Broek AKA Yellow Days
- TextBen Perdue
Taken from the S/S18 issue of Another Man:
It’s more than the kush-induced croak in his voice that lends George van den Broek, AKA Yellow Days, a sense of soulful maturity. Still living at his parents’ in Haslemere, the 18-year-old has crafted a stripped-down indie-R’n’B sound that weaves everyday stories of suburbia into raw hypnotic melodies. “I’ve used it as a tool growing up,” he says. “I’m a normal teenager; I’ve fallen in love, broken up, fallen in love again, done some drugs, felt sad, felt happy. I just choose to write about it.”
His debut album Is Everything OK in Your World? reflects a talent for storytelling that belies Van den Broek’s youth, a sonic journey to be experienced whole in the age of shuffle and playlists. There are nods to Pink Floyd, Led Zeppelin and The Beatles, influences discovered via the gateway music of Mac DeMarco, Tame Impala and King Krule – all bands that offer some escape from the stifling pleasantness of living in a commuter town where you don’t fit in.
“I walk round like some homeless hippie and people in their button-up shirts give me dirty looks,” he says with a laugh. “But that’s fine, it just reaffirms what I do. It would be more weird if they didn’t.”
