Scott Verrill and Oli Fox were working as musicians in East London, lending their talents to various projects, when the two started collaborating just for the joy of making music. It was that unfettered creativity that led to the release on TikTok of a segment of a song, “Home,” that took social media by storm.

The delight and frenzy surrounding “Home” has rocketed Verrill and Fox — now a band under the moniker Good Neighbours — to stratospheric heights, and the momentum hasn’t slowed. Despite their busy schedule, Verrill and Fox connected with The Current’s Jill Riley to talk about their trajectory thus far and about their North American tour. You can listen to the interview using the audio player above, and read a transcript below.

Interview Transcript

Jill Riley: You're listening to The Current, I'm Jill Riley, and I'm going to be talking to a couple of guys who have had quite a whirlwind in the year 2024. They are a new duo out of the U.K., they are called Good Neighbours, and I've got Scott and Oli with me this morning. Hello, you guys. Whirlwind it has been, but it's great to meet you.

Oli Fox: Yeah, good to meet you, too.

Jill Riley: So the name of the group is called Good Neighbours. And I understand that has a lot to do with how the two of you met. Perhaps some would consider it to be bad-neighbor behavior, but this, for both of you, was good-neighbor behavior as musicians. So I wonder, Scott and Oli, before we talk about the song "Home" and how big it's been this year, let's get some background and get to know you and how you met.

Scott Verrill: Yeah. I mean, we are — or we were, anyway — literal neighbors. We moved into a studio block in East London, and we were both kind of making music separately, doing our own thing. And we were both next door to each other. Kind of had some spare time, kind of came to a dead end with the stuff we were making over here, and then, just naturally, gravitated towards each other and started jamming and making stuff for the sake of making stuff that we love. Yeah, we just ended up here accidentally after we released some stuff in January.

Jill Riley: I'm curious who approached the other first. I mean, were you knocking on the wall? Were you maybe knocking twice, if you were like, "Yeah, that sounds like a pretty good riff you're working on." How did that piece of it work? Because it kind of sounds like the setup to a buddy comedy a little bit.

Oli Fox: Yeah, every time we explain the situation, it sounds like more of a sitcom than it was. It was probably me, to be fair, I used to join a lot of Scott's sessions as a writer for other people, because Scott comes from more like production background. I come from more of a writing background. And so we were always teaming up that way. And then one day when someone wasn't going to come till later in the day, and this was like the end of summer, so we were like, "Oh, well, me and you can just write something." And it was probably one of the only times where we'd not written to a brief or for a project in mind. And then, ironically, we ended up becoming the project that we were writing for.

Jill Riley: I'm talking with Oli and Scott, the Good Neighbours, a new duo out of the U.K. I want to talk about the song "Home," your first single, an instant hit on TikTok, a big hit on streaming. It debuted on the Billboard Hot 100 in February — like I said, this year has been just such a whirlwind. And when you said, “We were gonna write something together,” was that the something, was that the very first thing, that song, "Home"?

Scott Verrill: We actually had, like, six songs, I think, that we did last year. So all of them kind of had the aim of just writing for the sake of it, and they all kind of just fell into this sound that, yeah, we'd written before "Home," and then "Home" was just something around Christmas, just a chorus. We've probably got like 100 unfinished demos, so that was just one of them that we didn't think too much about.

Oli Fox: Yeah, I don't think we even loved it that much! When we had the chorus, it's so funny — when you have it in isolation, you're like, "Well, I know it's something," but it didn't really serve a purpose until we put it on TikTok, and then we saw the message that people had received from it, and that almost informed us, like, "Oh, you have got a really good song on your hands. Go and finish it." So we did it as quick as we could.

Jill Riley: Now, when you say, "Go finish it," that means that you did not put the finished product on TikTok right away, which, to me, it feels really vulnerable for an artist to do, but then it takes off, and I imagine that then there's the pressure that comes, like, "Hey, we gotta make sure — we gotta make this great!" I mean, did you feel like there was really pressure, or that it was more of inspiration to finish it?

Oli Fox: I would say when we put the clip up, we were, like, three hours away from London. We were writing in the countryside, and the clip sort of went viral as we were deciding to come back to London. So now we're locked in the confines of a car that's stuck in traffic, and people were just like, “When is it out on Spotify?” “When's it going to be released?” And to two boys that weren't going to do a project, this was like a gold-dust reaction. Then we called our manager and it was like, "Is there any chance we can put a song out in three days?" And he was like, "Have I heard it?" We were like, "You haven't heard it." So within the car, we finished the verses, just off the top of our heads, and then we were pulling up in gas stations recording guitars, and then by the time we got to London, we had a rough demo that we then mixed that night and we put it out three days later. So we did the most we could do to get it out quickly. And I'm really glad we did.

Jill Riley: Yeah, it's just been a huge success. I think that it really resonates with just about anybody with just the idea of home. Oli, Scott, for the two of you, what does that idea of home mean to you?

Scott Verrill: I mean, I guess we never really talked about it when we were writing, it just felt like this universal message that — I mean, there's 100 songs called "Home," isn't there? So we were worried about that at first. But I guess, like when Oli would sing the lyrics and stuff, I kind of related it to some personal stuff. And yeah, it just felt right.

Oli Fox: Yeah, I'd been going through just quite a weird time at home, and for once, had found that comfort and feeling of home in a person that I was seeing in London at the time. And that was quite an epiphany.

Jill Riley: You are listening to The Current, I'm talking with a new duo out of the U.K. called Good Neighbours, Oli and Scott joining me. We've been talking about the song "Home." You know, the single that was a big hit. And really, kind of the big jumping-off point for the year that has been 2024. Now, you guys are going to be touring in the U.S. Talk about that a little bit. I mean, are you excited to come to America to play some shows?

Oli Fox: Yeah, we're very excited. It's been a long time coming. I think it was kind of crazy for us when the song did blow up — it actually blew up mostly in America. And we're very, very excited. We've heard American audiences are very excitable and very passionate, so it's only going to make the show better.

Jill Riley: Well, I understand on your tour, you've got an opener that we are very familiar with here in Minnesota and on The Current: I just saw recently an Instagram post from Minnesota singer-songwriter Ber saying, "I'm hitting the road with some of my favorite Brits, Good Neighbours, across North America." I thought, “What a small world. That's incredible.” You guys! You know Ber, she knows you! Can you talk a little bit about that connection? Because that that was a very pleasant surprise to see.

Oli Fox: Yes. So I've known her for like, two to three years. London is just so small, and in our old studios, where we had the two rooms, we would always share with our friends. One of our best mates, Jamie [Clarke], who goes by Sfven as an artist, he produced a bunch of Ber's stuff with her, and we just sort of started hanging out in similar circles, went to the pub a lot, sort of confided in each other as artists, and she's been really cool to watch; she had a similar experience to us, of blowing up online. And I think she's absolutely smashed life since and has just been putting out more and more great music. So it's real cool to sort of return the favor of all her knowledge and bring her on the road with us.

Jill Riley: And clearly she's very excited about hitting the road with you. And you are hitting the road, it'll be throughout September, coming to the U.S. [and Canada]. And I just wish you the best of luck on tour, and just congratulations on this huge year. I mean, have you really had time to let this sink in at all?

Oli Fox: Not really, it's been like pretty crazy with playing shows back to back. We don't want to say no to any show that we get offered at the moment, so we're just trying to do the most we can, to spread the Neighbourhood as far and wide as we can. So it's been a bit of a whirlwind, but hopefully it never sinks in.

Jill Riley: What has it felt like to play to a small crowd and then suddenly you're coming back around and you've got a huge audience with people singing your song back to you? What does that feel like? 

Scott Verrill: Yeah, I mean, I feel like we can't really describe it. It just feels out of body. But yeah, it was only a few months ago that we were doing, like Oli said, local pubs around here that were, like, to 100 people, and most of them were our mates. So yeah, to jump to like, 5,000 in a park in a few months, it's just nuts.

Oli Fox: It's crazy, yeah.

Good Neighbours in concert

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Jill Riley: Well, that's incredible. Oli and Scott of Good Neighbours, it's been great to talk to you. Thank you for taking the time to check in with us here on The Current. We again wish you the best of luck in the U.S. Say hello to Ber from us, and just have a great time on the road. 

Oli Fox: Thank you very much.

Jill Riley: All right, well, let's take a listen to Good Neighbours with "Home" and it's on The Current.

Credits

Guests – Good Neighbours
Host – Jill Riley
Producers – Nilufer Arsala, Derrick Stevens
Digital Producer – Luke Taylor

External Link

Good Neighbours – Instagram