South Wales’ own Ortario returned with a vengence at the start of this year with their brand new single, and a last-minute, awesome set at Planet Rock’s Winters End festival. After that, we knew we just had to sit down and chat with them!
How would you describe your sound?
Yeah, I’d definitely say pop-punky with a bit of kinda emo dashed. A bit of alternative rock as well. All mixed together to get that Ortario sound.
Welsh rock music!
You were quite a late addition to Winters End, right? How did that come about?
Yeah so that’s the thing, Pyrogaric had to drop out because the guitarist broke his arm! So we got approached by Planet Rock then asking if we could fill in. And I’m really glad we did, it was an amazing show, a good crowd. And we sold a load of merchandise which is another bonus! We’re really grateful!
I think we were definitely a different sounding band to some of the other ones!
It’s kinda weird in Wales. It doesn’t feel like there’s been much of a scene for a couple of years but it does seem like it’s coming back. It’s definitely bouncing back! In the early to mid 2000s it was a huge thing back then, it was thriving. But I think it did see a drop after that for a while. But I’ve noticed over the last coming decade there are so many bands emerging from South Wales, and they’re all great. There’s always a really good opportunity to find a band to play along with and get back on the scene. It’s great!
Yeah, it’s great to see! There’s quite a few festivals down there at the minute too, right?
Yeah, there’s always something going on around here! We’re always surprised what’s going on ourselves to be honest!
There’s a massive festival going on in the summer called In It Together. I think it’s going to be Wales’ biggest festival. So hopefully one year we can get onto that one, that’d be a good opportunity for us. Another one is Steelhouse festival, another massive festival. They only do that a couple of miles up the road from where we live! It’s a nice weekend-long festival and they have some great bands, especially some grassroots bands from around the area as well. It’s a great atmosphere… if the weather’s good!
So you put out the first single off the EP last month, right?
Yeah, so that’s ‘Scream With Me’. We released that with a video. It’s a bit of a new release schedule for us. In the past we’ve always released albums or full EPs. We’re trying the single thing, which seems to be more common now. Drip feed a couple of singles out instead. But I think once all the singles are out from this line, we’re gonna release that as an EP at the end. Release some videos with the singles as well. We want to keep the content running as much as possible!
You mentioned that the next single is coming pretty soon, right?
Yeah! It’s ready to go. It’s back from the studio and mastered and ready for release. It’s just a case of… ‘Scream With Me’ I think has a couple of weeks left on the circuit and then we’ll release the new one then. It’s called ‘Open Eyes’, and it’ll be out in the coming months. We’ll get a video out for it as well, so keep an eye on our social media! We’ll have some promotional material going out for it soon!
Have you struggled to focus more on singles over bigger releases, then?
Yeah… I think the thing about it is that you need to have a schedule. Normally you go into studio and record some stuff you’ve been testing for a year and you get it as one big project. Whereas now we have to kinda sit on our hands with some of the stuff we’ve been working on and then stick to a schedule, which is a bit different for us. Be a bit more structured in the release. We were ready to start with the next track before we’d even released the other one! Doing a release you have to be ready for the next release; it’s just a perpetual cycle.
It’s kinda weird; we’ve just released ‘Scream with Me’ so for a lot of people it’s a new track, but we’ve actually played it for a year! It does seem to be the way that everyone’s going these days though and it does seem to work, with streaming and social media and stuff. You need stuff that’s instantly accessible really. Everyone sees that single and you can just focus on that one thing. People have got short attention spans! There’s so much content these days, we’ve just gotta keep up with that!
In one sense though it does mean we put a lot more time into that one track, rather than having eight tracks coming out and four of them are great. We’re not just rushing things then!
Is another album on the cards down the line?
Yeah, I think we’ve got a tonne of material that we’re working on at the moment. It’s just a case of putting it all together and testing it. The place where we recorded all of our previous EPs are closing down in April, so we’re looking to start producing our own stuff anyway. We’re just getting all the gear for that at the moment. It gives us a nice challenge then, as well! It gives us more freedom, and the chance to be more self-sufficient. Now we can record every little idea we have and play with it for a couple of months… then re-record it again!
We’re gonna start doing things our own way and spending more time on the finer details of the recording process. A couple of us are producers on the side anyway so it’s good that we can use that knowledge on our own music!
Have you guys got a pretty busy rest of the year planned?
March is pretty quiet for us now as we’re getting some new content ready. Then we’re back in April and May. Got the Station 18 festival in May which we’re really looking forward to in Swansea. It’s a cracking line-up all weekend so if you have the time head to Swansea and take a look! Should be a good one! Apart from that we’re always looking and open to playing shows anywhere and everywhere! Try and get out of Wales a bit more. So any opportunity for us then we’re gonna snap it up!