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The Ocelots: ‘We make our videos within 1km of home’




The Ocelots, a likeable folk-rock duo comprising twin brothers Ashley and Brandon Watson, are to release their second album, Everything, When Said Slowly, later this week.

The twins moved from their native Wexford in Ireland more than five years ago to Leipzig, Germany, and it was from there that they spoke to the Cambridge Independent.

The Ocelots. Picture: Paul Tobin
The Ocelots. Picture: Paul Tobin

“We were doing a lot of gigs around Germany,” says Brandon, the older of the pair by six minutes, explaining how the two of them ended up living in Germany.

“We’re 27 now and we started when we were 18, and from the first few years of when we were starting, we were mainly playing over in Germany – I don’t know why.”

The Ocelots. Picture: Paul Tobin
The Ocelots. Picture: Paul Tobin

Ashley notes: “It was a recommendation from friends here as well. Leipzig is kind of poised as the ‘cool Berlin’ and the place where a lot of poor creatives are moving for cheaper rent so it seemed on the cards for us, for sure.”

The twins also make good visual use of their German surroundings, with the video for their latest single, the enjoyable The Good of a Bad Year, being filmed very close to home.

“That was shot in our garden,” laughs Brandon. “We usually make a session video every month or so and nearly all of them are within a kilometre of our house!

“That [The Good of a Bad Year] was a particularly foggy day.”

“We’re the laziest location scouts,” interjects Ashley, who notes that he and his brother only started playing music together when they were 15 years old.

“There was only so far we could go with carrying our piano, so we decided not to go too far.”

The Ocelots. Picture: Paul Tobin
The Ocelots. Picture: Paul Tobin

The Ocelots’ debut album, Started to Wonder, came out in March 2020, and the talented duo started recording this new one in Ireland in November 2023, after a successful Kickstarter campaign.

The narrative woven throughout Everything, When Said Slowly, which is set to ‘drop’ on 7 February, explores themes of Irish migration, the perception of time, love, and the simple joys of cycling.

Two singles from the album have been released so far: About You and The Good of a Bad Year. Brandon reveals that the next one to be released will be a song called Australia.

“It’s a song that deals head-on with Irish people’s tendencies to move out of the country and be somewhere else,” he explains, “like, I guess, financial migrants.

“And then just sort of the emotional, personal stories that were put in place with people moving to other places. It’s about Irish people moving to Australia, essentially.”

The Ocelots’ sound has previously been compared to Coldplay’s.

“I mean we’ve definitely heard it all,” says Ashley, “I feel like the easiest thing for people to do is make comparisons, and just because we’ve had an acoustic guitar a lot of the time, people have been like ‘Oh my God, you guys are exactly like Mumford & Sons!’

“So people are always going to point fingers… We’re actually happy with the Coldplay comparison, we’ll take it!

“I guess I like the melancholy, I like the sentimental and nostalgic, as indulgent as it might be.”

The Ocelots played the Cambridge Folk Festival in 2022 and the pair say they are both “very excited” to be coming back to the city.

The Ocelots live. Picture: Shane Horan
The Ocelots live. Picture: Shane Horan

Catch them at The Portland Arms on Tuesday, 11 March. Tickets, priced £13.80 in advance, are available from theportlandarms.co.uk/wp/. For more on the band, go to theocelots.com.



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