Returning with new music after a two-year wait due to obvious world situation the band have shared their thunderous new track – A Message. Backseat Mafia put our usual questions to the band to find out what they have been up to and who inspires their grungy sound.
Give us a potted history of the band
We started making music at the tail end of 2015 from a mutual love of Drenge and Dinosaur Pile-Up, but it’s now morphed into something much more complex with us taking influence from the likes of DIIV and Radiohead amongst a whole host of other weird and wonderful music. We’ve just released our first new single – A Message – in over two years. It’s taken us way too long to get here but we had a bit of an identity crisis making this new record which meant it’s taken us a while to find who we really are. We managed a play on 6Music and a packed show in our hometown (Hull) as well as a support slot with The Blinders off the back of our first record, which we’re extremely proud of, but this new material is so much more than that and we hope we can take it further than before.
Who inspired you to start making music
Pretty sure it was Jimi Hendrix. His guitar playing was something that I always aspired to, and I’ve been playing music ever since. Though, I distinctly remember a show that the three of us went to in 2017. We all saw Royal Blood in Leeds and whilst none of us are the biggest fans of their music anymore, their trajectory in their genre made us feel like we could achieve the same thing too.
And the one or maybe two records that inspired you artistically
The first time I heard In Rainbows by Radiohead was an insanely inspiring moment. That record is so beautiful and full of complex layers but simple at the same time. It has one hundred percent influenced the way a lot of our songs have turned out for sure.
If you’re trying to explain who you sound like to someone that’s never heard you, what do you say?
At the moment, it’s a really difficult description, haha. I think we’re going with Post-Modern Grunge for now. A lot of our stuff is still quite heavy but there is also a delicacy to it that incorporates shoegaze elements and then some weird electronic bits too and then also some acoustic bits. It’s an eclectic mix and it’s only going to get more so.
Tell us about your new track
A Message is a song about pushing people away because you’re so enclosed within your own
mind and consumed by your thoughts. It’s a difficult position to get out of and a reason why this
song exists, really. The basis of the chorus chords came from an idea we had around 3-4 years
ago and the rest of it just kind of fell into place after I listened profusely to Interpol for about a
year. We recorded at Eiger Studios in Leeds with Adam Bairstow and he kind of conceived our
vision for an Interpol infused single with a bit more grit to it. For the most part, it details being
so dizzy behind your eyes that you can’t seem to comprehend anyone else or anything else, so
the easiest option is to just push everything away.
Where can we get hold of it
It’s on all major streaming platforms and Bandcamp
Tell us how you write
We usually ping ideas back and forth until we know we like something or have a bunch of
sections and ideas that we like and then I channel everything into a Logic project and create a
full demo with guitars, vocals, drums, bass, and extras so we have an idea of what the song
sounds like. Then we take it into the rehearsal space and that’s where it starts to shift and
change. We don’t often get time to meet or jam so a lot of the ideas are thrown around for a
few months before anything becomes solid.
Tell us about your live show and how much have you been missing it recently
Our live show is what we pride ourselves on. We’ve been working on our live sound for years
and years, to the point now where we feel like we have something incredibly impressive, and
we’re only going to keep adding to it and making it more interesting. We missed it a lot because
it’s usually the time we get to see each other and hang out and actually enjoy the music we’ve
created together. It doesn’t feel like work at that point.
What can we expect from you in the near future
A lot, haha. We’ve been burrowed away for such a long time that we now have this huge
backlog of material, some of which is done, and some of which is yet to be finished or even
recorded. We have more songs to come out this year which is going to lead onto a bigger
project next year and then another big project the year after. Yeah, honestly, we have so much
to show people.
Tell us your favourite records that are rocking your headphones / tour bus / stereo
At the moment, I’m loving Bess Atwell’s last record and I’m really enjoying the latest singles
from Everything Everything and The Smile. All incredible artists making incredible music.
Find out more about the band via their Website or Facebook
The bands debut album is available here
