Waterpistol landed their first show supporting CVC in April 2023, just months after forming in late 2022. For a six-piece band blending 60s garage-psych with 90s shoegaze, that’s a quick turnaround. “Initially, there were three of us in the band who had played together for years prior,” vocalist and guitarist Aaron Tormey explains. “That somewhat gave us confidence, but the three of us that joined were automatically family and got the shtick. We had the tunes and an attitude of ‘the world is waiting for this, whether it knows it or not.’ It was either gonna be flying or falling in style.”
The South Wales band, Harry Watton on vocals and percussion, Rhea Padua on vocals, Aaron Tormey on guitar and vocals, Carwyn Whiteman on guitar and vocals, Emma Way on bass, and Efan Watkins on drums, have been compared to The Brian Jonestown Massacre, The La’s, and Shack. There’s even a Shack album called Waterpistol. The connection isn’t accidental. “The connection is total admiration, like naming a child after a person that means something to you,” Tormey says. “As for how it affects our output, we follow our taste and do what we love. To put it another way, if I enjoy bananas, I’ll eat bananas, and if I eat bananas, then you can be sure a banana’s gonna come out of my ass in some shape or form.”
The band’s new single Felin, arriving February 14, tackles the highs and lows of the creative process. The name itself carries weight. “I don’t know if you’ve seen Shrek. In Shrek, he declares he, like onions, has layers,” Tormey explains. “This theme is of the music being a persistent presence in those highs and lows. Felin as a name derives from the name Féilim, which we understand to mean ‘ever good’, ‘constant’ or ‘beauty’ in Gaeilge. Our understanding is that the name represents the outlook on submitting to the compulsion, an iteration on Dory’s ‘just keep swimming.'”
That blend of 60s garage-psych and 90s shoegaze didn’t happen by accident. The band’s sonic palette comes from deep roots. “That’s the music we’ve loved the longest,” Tormey says. “We’ve grown up with grandparents who indoctrinated us with the likes of the Beatles, Simon and Garfunkel, The Hollies, Deep Purple, Howling Wolf or Dr. Hook & The Medicine Show, to our parents being massive fans of the music they grew up with, to showing us the likes of Nirvana’s MTV Unplugged In New York, Alice in Chains or Blur, The Verve and the unavoidable epidemic called Oasis (1 in 2 people get cancer) and just falling in love with the rock ‘n’ roll glue that seemed to be in so much of what we gravitated towards.”
As for who pushes which direction, Tormey clarifies, “Initially, you’d presume it was Harry pushing for ’60s and me pushing for the ’90s, but it really doesn’t go like that. There’s a fascination with 3’s going on in this band. One of those 3’s is sex, drugs and rock ‘n’ roll. A holy trinity for any aspiring reprobate. For our process, we see it as a cycle of tradition, mutation and evolution.”
The band’s lyrics deal with darker themes, isolation, detachment, even psychosis, while the music sounds sunny and nostalgic. That contrast isn’t accidental. “Honestly, it’s both,” Tormey says. “We’re a species full of contradiction and hypocrisy. It’s impossible not to reflect that, as Blindboy Boatclub would say, fallible human beings.”
Listen to “FELIN” below:
One distinctive element of Waterpistol’s sound is their prominent use of bongos, courtesy of Harry Watton. It’s not a common choice for modern psych-rock bands, but Tormey pushes back on the label itself. “We’re not a modern psych-rock band. That label to us defines drones and adhering to a pre-existing template, escapist soundscapes in a time when art needs to be utilised as a tool that shapes life as something we don’t want to escape from. More than mere entertainment. Aesthetically following along with the tradition of it while void of any genuine pushing of the envelope just to watch it bend.”
As for the bongos themselves, “Completely Harry’s idea. Big into his Eric Burton & War to name just one influence on him. They typically come into play when the party kicks into swing or things slow down, and Harry needs to fidget.”
From that first CVC support slot, Waterpistol moved fast. Festival season followed in quick succession: Green Man, FOCUS Wales, and Sŵn Festival. The experience shaped the band in ways beyond just stage time. “During that festival run, particularly the May to August ’23, we had ample opportunity to better figure out our internal dynamics as a family band,” Tormey reflects. “Living in close quarters, it gets hard to hide a blemish. Outside of the family bonding, we got to shop our shtuff out to a wider range at a larger scale, which made for some interesting interpretations on what the hell we’re up to, some affirming feedback and our personal favourite ambition fuel, good ol’ harsh criticism. We love relieving ourselves onto consumer expectations.”
The Welsh connection runs deep for the band, even for members not born there. “We also find that while only half of our entity is Welsh by branding at birth, culturally we’re all soaked in it. Whether it’s English, Irish or Filipino, there’s no fighting that for Waterpistol, Wales is home.”
With six members and multiple vocalists, the writing process could easily become chaotic. “Is there an option to tick the box for ‘it’s complicated?'” Tormey asks. “I will try to bring finished songs to practice, some could be ready to go, others need hashing out. Not everything brought in will be used, some things will be altered while others can be rejected entirely. It is hard to pleasure five people when you only have two hands.”
The band recorded their previous single Où est ton âme? at Rockfield Studios, a legendary space that’s hosted everyone from The Stone Roses to Black Sabbath. The weight of that history didn’t change their approach. “Of course you feel some sense of standing in the footsteps of the likes of The Stone Roses, Black Sabbath, Iggy Pop, the Charlatans, Sepultura, Coldplay and Motorhead, who came before you,” Tormey says, “but that reverence doesn’t affect the approach to what we’re doing, it more so adds to the assurance and the understanding that those who came before did their thing and, come gutter or glory, we’re doing ours.”
Waterpistol recently received the BBC Horizons 2026 Launchpad Fund in partnership with BBC Cymru Wales and Arts Council Wales. The funding arrives at a pivotal moment for the band. “You’ll spend your life in a gag if you’re gagging for external validation,” Tormey says. “However, this fund was very validating and arrives during a progressive step in our life as a band. A period of improved action, where we have been working off stage in a bigger way than before to bring Waterpistol to you all. The BBC awarding us the Horizons Launchpad fund provided us the ability to improve our capacity for promotion and also displayed to us that someone who can put their hand into the stream and affect the current is watching, and has the faith that we can do that too.”
With Felin landing February 14 and more material already taking shape behind the scenes, Waterpistol are moving forward with the same confidence that got them on stage months after forming. Tradition, mutation, evolution. The cycle continues.
Photo Credit: Patrick Starsky Thomas
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