Lime Garden
Words by Rosie Lowndes Photographs by Saffy Padget
It’s not a party without a lime, and there’s no lime like Lime Garden. Post coffee and croissants, several worlds away and separated by a screen, Lime Garden’s energy is cheerily infectious on the damp day chosen for our first meeting. I speak to three quarters of the Brighton-based band on Zoom; Chloe Howard, Tippi Morgan and Leila Deeley, marshalled along by their ever-present buzz of notifications - an indicator of their mounting popularity. In tried and tested true-blue British fashion, conversation first turns to the weather, pining for the long-ago days of summer light and heat. Squeezed together on a bed, with a rail of brightly coloured clothes in the background and a packet of quinoa crisps perched next to the band, three faces smile at me, brightening up the dim little dorm room in Glasgow, where I sit at my desk, without a doubt procrastinating my reading work -
Lime Garden are much more fun.
Getting stuck in right away, they reveal how lockdown was an intense period of growth for the band. Leila (lead guitar) reminisces on their first gig back, and how “there was just this sort of mist in the air because it was so hot. It was underground, and the second band on, when they were playing, I just felt so euphoric - sort of felt like I was on drugs - We hadn’t seen live music in so long it was actually emotional.” She adds, “The mist was mostly sweat.” Chloe (vocals, synth) chirps up “we were emerging from the smog!” Sounds like the best special effects you could’ve asked for to me. Dubbing Bermondsey Social Club their favourite to have played, with interference from the trains running above messing with their feedback, the band have clearly played some incredibly atmospheric gigs.
For Lime Garden, the perfect gig means going in with no expectations and an open mind. “We put all this pressure on ourselves to do this crazy, big, amazing thing. And then, when we started out, nobody would be there. So, now that we’re playing shows where people are actually turning up, we have no expectations, and have fun” - And people certainly are now turning up to see the genre-bending quartet. Having been growing as a band for eight years, and finding their footing in Brighton, leading to their sudden growth in the past year. It must’ve been intense for these three young artists making their way in the industry. They, however, don’t feel like they have changed personally, Tippi (bass) says “I think in a way, we just.. value it a bit more. And we can see our progress more. Before, in lockdown, it was obviously all online. We never saw any of our growth physically.” The band were signed to So Young Records back in May, Leila continues “Yeah like we got signed in lockdown.” Finally, Tippi admits “We only met Sam and Josh for the first time a few months ago.” For Chloe, it “was quite anticlimactic. Obviously, in a way, signing our first record deal, it’s what we’ve dreamed about since we were very young, but it literally was, we all got an email, we signed it on our laptops. Everyone went round on the Zoom and we signed it, and the label man was just like; ‘well done, you signed a record deal!’ And that was it! And it was like ... what? Where’s the party ya know??” Leila laughs, “They did get us on deliveroo - they delivered it to our house, this champagne. And we all had a sip of champagne in the depths of our covid. And I just felt like I was in some sort of weird orb. And then we were signed and saying cheers and stuff.” “Very sweet of them. They gave us a lime too. It’s not a party without a lime.”
When speaking to Lime Garden, one cannot help but take notice of their looks. Even dressed casually, they all radiate such personality. Through the tiny phone screen, their style and presence speaks volumes. Tippi summarises them as “very extra” - Chloe expounding on how they’ve “always tried to be ourselves. If we’re all going out, we all know we’ll be extra so we won’t be underdressed, so we always push it”. The band regard clothes as using another form of being creative to them, “It comes naturally - clothes are just fun. So we’ve just taken that on in the band as well.” Although Chloe’s 70s- style glasses are incredibly chic, they wouldn’t travel back in time, given the chance. They regard themselves as futurists “I think we like technology and we like using that as a band, and I think that it’s an exciting thing to be a part of - having accessibility to things like Logic and stuff Leila finishes: “just making music that we love.”
“I feel like I’ve embodied Ed [Sheeran] recently. That’s who I’ve become ... he’s a special boy”
To be summed up in song, they agree that their missing bandmate Annabel would be Guns for Hire by Bruce Springsteen. Leila thinks she would be ‘Pumpkin Spice this pussy’ by Asnikko (Halloweenie II: Pumpkin Spice). Tippi would be FVN! By LVL1 (cat kitty-cat-cat indeed). And as for Chloe ... “What’s that one Ed Sheeran song that you guys like to hear?” It’s either I see Fire, or Castle on the Hill. “I feel like I’ve embodied Ed recently. That’s who I’ve become ... he’s a special boy”. After this, the conversation very slightly digresses, and I promise I’ll watch the bad habits music video - his purple suit and blue eyeshadow are so glam! According to Chloe, “that’s a bit of me. Watch it and you’ll get it”.
They dwell on starting young; “We think a lot of the music is very much reflecting us growing up and maturing as a band and as people, and I think you can hear that through the songs lyrically, as well as the quality of the music anyway. And I think that helps us to connect to a lot of the people that listen to our music, because they’re of sort of a similar age - coming into real life and figuring out their shit. And I think that’s a nice point of meeting, sort of growing with them.”
“It’s a genre-less world we now live in. We don’t really have to sit in a slice…”
Lime Garden refuse to be put into a box - they don’t think they have to be. “It’s a genre-less world we now live in. We don’t really have to sit in a slice. When a label or a manager approaches you, they aren’t like, ‘well you don’t have to know what genre you are’. It’s kind of irrelevant now anyway. You can do what you wanna do .... You can do more, and have more fun with music, when you’re not trying to pinpoint a specific goal”. In their early days, they faced this very problem, with people trying to put them into a single genre. When people asked, they tried to come up with a name for it, Tippi explaining how people tried to ask them, “‘what genre?’ We were coming up with all these stupid names to try and figure out what we are”, but now recognise that “as soon as we let go of that, we instantly realised what kind of music we wanted to make. We spent so many years thinking, what band are we? What kind of thing do we want to do?” Chloe continues, “But as soon as we let go of that need to define it, we were like, Oh!” - Leila adds, “People connected with it a bit more anyway because it just seemed genuine; Chloe finishes “instead of us trying to do a portrayal of something, it’s just us making music.” Working as a sort of hive mind, they finish each other’s sentences with ease - these bandmates effortlessly interact, a sure sign of their comfort and closeness with one another.
This is something they’ve developed after two years in this final form of their band; Tippi muses on their growth together. “We only came into being, as this band, this year. Chloe agrees that “not only has the band grown, our friendships have grown, we’ve all kind of evolved together.” To me, they seem like a sort of small family - this is greeted with a resounding affirmative. In their view, this makes for a better performance on stage, when everything is much more comfortable - “cause you know that if you fuck up, nobody’s gonna look at you like, ‘what are you doing?’ And it makes rehearsing fun. It’s really hard to be in a band with people that you don’t like. It’s about writing personal music, and sharing that takes a lot. Sharing ideas with each other that are very new and very early on, you put yourself in quite a vulnerable position creatively. I wouldn’t feel comfortable doing that with anyone else other than these guys.”
Even the growth that Lime Garden has faced recently hasn’t affected their relationships. They rarely disagree, and remain on the same page, “exist(ing) in our own little joined world. And we all want the same things from the band as well. There’s no clash of interests.” To them, “if anything, it’s just made us proud of what we’ve done really. It hasn’t really changed anything at all.” Chloe speaks seriously “really, once we get our grammy, [and] on the front of OK! Magazine ideally, me and Annabel have some sort of serious fist fight”. Switching from earnest to hilarious seems to be a band speciality - Leila chiming in, “me and Tippi are holding them back!” Popularity growth has turned this firm group of friends into an even tighter unit - possibly out of necessity - when I ask about how it might have affected their relationships and interactions outside of the band, they grow contemplative again.
“it’s more new friends rather than old friends.”
“I think, in a nutshell, yes ... just because it gets more serious and a little bit more competitive, and there’s a slight element of people wanting to get in, I dunno, it’s more new friends rather than old friends.” Leila summarises that “sometimes it can just get a bit sort of overwhelming.” Chloe ruminates on how they deal with it, saying “that’s when we come in with each other and remember, y’know, this is a fun thing, that we do for fun, and when it gets too serious, or too statusy, we kind of take a step back from that.” To have a group to rely on so soundly, they recognise their luck. “We were saying, even earlier, ‘can you imagine if we had to do this on our own? It would be really hard to have anybody understand. It’s nice to have each other.” Again and again, I’m able to see a picture of a tight-knit clan, confident in their ability to lean on each other. This chemistry is the stuff band dreams are made of, surely creating compelling performances live.
The last question before we wrap the interview up is one last glimpse into their colourful world. Everyone collects things, like stores or ticket stubs, but I’m sure everyone’s always wanted to know what sort of things Lime Garden like collecting. They dissolve in a fit of laughter, “Oh the cork, the cork!” Seeing me lost, Chloe illuminates: “See, I have a weird affiliation with lucky items. I have a few different things - I mean I’ve lost most of these cos I’m trash, but, from moments in our band life, or our personal life where good stuff happened, I collected little things.” How absolutely charming. “An example of one is when we signed our first record deal, I kept the cork from the champagne, and we all touched the lucky cork before we went onstage! Things like that. I like collecting weird little memorabilia from fun moments.” As for the rest of the band.... “Other than that just tat. Like just shit. I’m a hoarder... we’re all maximalists.” The same could be said for their personality and spirit, proving to be a thoroughly enjoyable interview with an exuberant collective of people.
Who’d want to be a minimalist, when you could have Lime Garden?