The Airballoon is an independent record label from south London. Actively looking to promote and release Alternative, Folk, Roots and generally amazing music. 

YETI LOVE …….an introduction
And so here at Whodoo’s Café at the back of Scream Studios, South Croydon, that we’re greeted by the criminally seductive stench of fresh coffee and fried bacon that leads us past the rumbling rooms of raucous local rock to a central door opening into the middle of a stylish modern café and to Peter Hamilton, the owner and self confessed Yeti lover. To the right beyond a serving hatch is the kitchen and at the other end via the customer tables lie freshly strung guitars, scattered picks, a ukulele, exotic looking pieces of percussion, pages of unfinished lyrics and a fancy microphone with the stand-by light flashing, set for record. This is no Starbucks! I seem to catch Pete in the middle of a vigorous strum. Perhaps I should have knocked. He puts away his instrument and makes for the coffee machine. 
I’m here to learn about YETI LOVE. I’ve been asked to write the biog and I pretended to be good enough. We begin a NME style interview and time begins to take flight. We talk of inspiration. We talk of the greats, a whisper of Lead Belly a murmur of Ben Harper. We talk of folk being the new punk and punk being a type of folk. We speak of Black Flag and of Minor Threat. We talk of honesty, integrity and passion. We shoot the musical shit like rock n’ roll Rambos, taking no prisoners, showing no remorse. 
Q: SO, WHY THE NAME YETI LOVE?
A: “WHEN I WAS A KID I SAW THE PATTERSON BIG FOOT FOOTAGE ON TV. I WAS SCARED SHITLESS. I’VE BEEN OBSESSED EVER SINCE”

The Story so far………
After many years of drumming in established rock bands, touring around Europe and getting disheartened with the overly contrived and mechanistic entrapments of the rock music industry, Pete found himself returning to the drawing board. He opened a café in the confines of Scream Studios. Happier to be his own boss amongst an environment of creativity, he found that the quiet spare moments at the café were ideal for writing new material.
Pete recalls taking the guitar seriously for the first time, “I’d just bought my brothers Martin and Co acoustic guitar, even though I could only play ‘Teen Spirit’ but I just couldn’t let him sell it to anyone else. I started to write songs in my café in the quite time between customers. Eventually I found that I was building a short set.” 
Being half Spanish and proudly hailing from Galicia, Pete speaks of his affinity with the Celtic folk music of the region, “I have always loved the hypnotic rhythms of Galician folk music. Maybe it’s the drummer in me but I feel drawn to that rhythmic approach to strumming the guitar. Those are angry rhythms and it goes to show you don’t need to be loud to sound angry. This is also how I feel about Bruce Springsteen’s ‘Ghost of Tom Joad’ it’s both angry and beautifully sincere.”
It was not long until he realised he needed some more oomph to the overall sound if he was to take it to the stage. “I wanted to try playing the tunes live and really fancied getting in a guitarist with a great touch and foresight to add a possible new dimension to the sound.”





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