Can you give us the background to the record
We formed late 2019 and built this buzz and played around Europe as well as running a successful monthly at the troubadour in London, that was attended by various celebs, we got in the studio December 2019 then a few months later lockdown came and we didn’t really know what to do.
I had also just moved into a live work space that I built a studio in that I was intending to launch as a business, I ended up using the 2 years of lockdown to work on things we’d recorded as well as write lots of new material and record when we had the opportunity. Therefore lockdown was integral to the development of this record hence the title ‘ Get Through This & Live’.
We had a little bit of money left from touring and then we ran a successful crowd funding campaign. I’ve got a bunch of analogue equipment so whatever we hadn’t recorded we laid down in the basement. We were listening to a lot of Thin Lizzy, Motörhead, The Clash as well as a bunch of old hip hop we’d discovered in lockdown. Instagram and social media pretty much became the only medium of communicating with the audience.
At The studio I had a lovely DW kit , an Ampeg a bunch of Marshall’s, a Gretsch, Fender and Philppe Dubreuille custom guitar that was given to me he had made guitars for all the greats like Oasis, Iggy Pop, ZZ Top.
Track By Track
Tear The Walls Down is about any type of barriers that people create, having grown up in a small town I couldn’t wait to leave.
Black Beatles on The Radio was written about the often overlooked originators of rock’n’roll like Sister Rosetta Tharpe, Memphis Mini, Willie Dixon etc.
Bluesbreaker is about not playing the same old blues and expanding on a genre.
I Hate Rock’n’roll is for those that have embraced the rock’n’roll lifestyle and incessarily lost their lives .
Call on me was a cry for help and a offer of help during lockdown with all that isolation.
Wylde Ones was an older song I’d worked in with my musical mentor David Roback ( Mazzy Star, Opal, The Rain Parade I polished it up and got Joe Anderton to play that lovely lap steel on it.
Set me Free was us trying to right an early Beatles song or Roy Orbison tune.
Crash and Burn was an attempt at an isolation anthem with some of our Celtic roots coming out.
Clean ‘the most recent track’ mourns toxic friendships you’ve sometimes got to leave behind in order to progress artistically, monkeys on backs and unwritten futures play on the light and dark themes of any self destructive patterns.
Shadows is a live favourite like our take on The Stones stripped back r&b rock’n’roll as well addressing my times playing with players that far out classed me that I was hungry to learn from.
Check out the album opener Tear The Walls Down, below:
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Read our interview with the band here
