Alt rock singer/songwriter Burridge. recently released her second EP, Here Are Your Words (read our review of ithere). We got to speak to her about it, alongside her plans for the future. Check it out down below!
How would you describe your sound?
I would say it’s just generic angry girl rock. I don’t know. I’ve always struggled with… you know when people are like ‘oh, my band is this genre’, I don’t really understand strict genres. A lot of the music I listen to crosses over so many genres. Or maybe I’ve just not got a very good ear for them! But yeah, I’d just say it’s generic angry girl rock.
The EP came out recently, it seems to have gone down well?
I think so! I’ve had some good feedback and some good streaming numbers which is apparently what it’s all about nowadays! So yeah, I think it’s gone down okay!
And is there a specific story running through it?
So there kind of is and isn’t. There wasn’t meant to be. But my first EP, if you listen to it from start to finish, is kind of a journey from me being early 20s, discovering the world and realising God, this is an experience. Then with this EP I’ve not released in order of when I wrote the songs, but the whole thing is me getting to grips with ‘okay, life is not always great, how are we going to work it out’. So, there is a story, but it isn’t linear, it’s kind of everywhere. But then so is life, so it’s fine!
And do you use session players, I assume?
So my producer, Sean Kennedy, plays everything. He’s a genius. I can’t ever thank him enough. I’ve worked with him since I was 22, so like nine years. I’ll go in and Ill hum a tune or I’ll take my guitar and I’ll play something really badly and sing along and he’ll be like ‘no, that’s great, we can make a song out of it’. He’d just pick up his guitar and he just gets me, he gets exactly what I want things to sound like.
But I do have a full live band now. We are a band so we’re gonna start writing together. Kieran, my guitar player, is an incredible songwriter so we’re gonna start. Maybe the next EP or album or whatever we’re going to do, we’ll do it together instead of just me. I’m excited to do that as I’ve never done any co-writing before.
Are you aiming for an album next or EP or more singles?
I don’t know. I never like to force writing. I’ve never sat down and been like ‘I need to write a song because I’m recording next week’. It’s always ‘I’ve written a song, lets get it recorded’. If we start writing stuff together and suddenly we come up with a huge album worth of songs that we feel is great and has out sound then lets do it.
But I’m quite happy to just keep dropping singles every now and then. That way it keeps you relevant. Unless you’re like, Fleetwood Mac where you can disappear for 10 years and then suddenly drop an album. Wehn you’re at my stage you’ve just got to keep as relevant as possible so singles might be the way forward. Maybe we’ll then compile them all onto an album. But we’ll see, you never know what can happen in this industry. It could all change overnight! It’s just about being reactive and proactive.
Do you have a general plan for the next 5 years? Any goals?
I have like realistic goals, and then I have huge goals. I would love to record with Dave Grohl, that’s my pinnacle. But I just want to go out and play as many shows as possible. Now that I have a band and I don’t have to just do acoustic shows, I just want to play everywhere, anywhere that will have me. What I want is to play all the really dirty, small venues that no one else wants to play. I thrive off it, I love it! Like wow this is gross, let’s do it! It’s that like nothing to lose attitude where I can try new things, I can throw myself on the floor I can climb things, whatever. That’s what I want to do anywhere, I don’t mind if it’s central London or a tiny village in North Wales, let’s go!
Did you enjoy our interview? Check out more of them from our Facebookhere.
Shinedown have been around for over two decades now. That makes me feel old. With seven albums now out, they have definitely experienced some highs and lows. They used to be my favourite band in my late teens, but their last two albums have certainly made them drop off from th
After a brief, electro-synth intro track that had my expectations worried immediately… we head into a punk/almost thrash track. ‘No Sleep Tonight’ definitely caught me off guard, but in the best way possible. It reminds me of a Volbeat track, that’s the closest comparison I can make. It’s not at all reminiscent of the last Shinedown album which is the best thing I can say, honestly. The chorus is catchy, the riffs are a heavy mix of punk and Metallica and it’s even got a surprisingly technical solo from Zach Myers. This easily makes the playlist, the best track the band has put out since Oblivion.
The album’s lead single ‘Planet Zero’ still doesn’t quite do it for me. There’s another fantastic riff or two from Zach and Eric Bass, but the vocal melody doesn’t hook me in. Brent Smith was my favourite vocalist for a long time, his lines on tracks like ‘Unity’ and ‘Fake’ are perfect. So comparing those to this, there is a clear lack of catchiness. Still though, it’s not a bad song, and it at least had me excited upon its release that Shinedown were to lean back into their rock side than the pop end.
Another short electrical interlude leads to the first slower track on the album, ‘Dysfunctional You’. Outside of the dreadful opening line, I enjoyed this song. It was still lead by the odd piano tone the band have used the last three albums or so, but there was enough guitar in there too to give it a rockier edge. Also, the lyrics were great, building on some of the best of Attention Attention. It doesn’t quite kick into that top gear I was expecting/hoping for, it stayed at a similar level throughout, but damn if the lyrics didn’t win me over big.
A heavy riff kicks off ‘Dead Don’t Die’ and Brent soon comes over the top with some of his rarely used these days attitude and swagger, giving a fantastically bouncy melody over the sludgy riff. It also explodes into a HUGE chorus that reminds me a lot of ‘Cut the Chord’ and ‘Devil’. I’m actually shocked this didn’t make the cut as a single as it’s the best track on the album so far. Zach channels his inner Tom Morello for his guitar solos, another huge, awesome highlight of the song. Playlisted.
Check out our review of Halestorm’s latest album here.
Interlude number three continues the strange, space themed concept of the album. I’m actually enjoying it. It’s tying the album together a lot better than most Shinedown albums are, and if they can keep this feeling throughout it’ll definitely be worth multiple back-to-back-listens. Plus, I’m curious to know where the story is going and what the meaning behind it is, so I’m not skipping a thing!
‘America Burning’ opens on some weird electronic-sounding banjo, if I’ve got that right. Between the effects on the instrument and on Brent’s voice, it’s definitely an odd intro. It EXPLODES into a huge pre and chorus, full of catchy vocals and backing jabs. I’m shocked, this album has been heavy so far and the album tracks have been the best part of it all. The solo is awesome, starting with an acoustic before the electric comes in over the top. The melody of it is infectious too; the noodling will be stuck in my head all night. Another fantastic song.
Another interlude leads to a second slower track ‘A Symptom of Being Human’. It’s so refreshing to hear a guitar led ballad by the band for a change instead of the constant leaning on electronic and backing sounds they have done since starting on Amaryllis. It makes them feel more like a rock band. And ALL of their biggest and best ballads have been guitar-based, in my opinion. It opens on just Zach’s acoustic and Brent’s vocals giving some more great deep-dive-into-depression lyrics. The piano comes in behind for the chorus but doesn’t overpower anything. Neither do the beautiful strings that come in after. The track builds perfectly throughout and is stunning, honestly. My favourite ballad since ‘I’ll Follow You’. Playlisted.
So we’re halfway through the album now and I just have to say… this is a really good album so ar. What the fuck, Shinedown? Where was all of this the last decade? They’re making a good case for jumping back up to being one of my favourite bands again.
Usually two slow tracks in a row would feel a bit meh on a rock album, but when it’s twenty tracks long I can let it go a bit. ‘Hope’ also feels like something ripped straight from Amaryllis in the best way. Heck, it sounds like the title track itself, which I love. It’s got that Bon Jovi/Nickelback (sorry for swearing) country-rock ballad feel to it and honestly it’s just a really good, uplifting song. 7/7 so far!
I’m sure you guessed it by now, but ‘Clueless and Dramatic’ is another very good track. A fun, bouncy riff opens it up and plays on and off throughout. The vocals aren’t quite as fun or catchy as some tracks on the album. I feel like it may be down to the lyrics trying to be slightly too complicated, taking away from the earworm-effect a little. Still, it’s a damn good rock song.
Arguably, in this writers humble opinion, the album should have finished.
”Sure is Fun’ is, well, it’s exactly that. Fun. However, it’s the closest thing to the Shinedown of the last two albums, and it’s really not my sort of thing. It’s the same with the following track and another single, ‘Daylight’. Both are good, very catchy tracks in their own right. But they are so very Imagine Dragons-esque pop ‘rock’ and just not the Shinedown I first fell in love with at all. It’s heavily indie inspired, between the simple instrumental, ridiculous, catchy vocal melodies and those wohs. As I said, neither track is bad and if you like it awesome, but this isn’t what I listen to Shinedown for.
At least we finally get some more heaviness for the final single, ‘Saints of Innuendo’. I LOVE this track until this chorus. The riff, verse and pre are all incredible (and heck, the chorus is great too). However, the chorus doesn’t fit the rest of the track at all. It sounds like two different songs pushed together. Still, it’s a damn good song and I feel like I’d love it live with that breakdown. It’s certainly better than the two tracks either side of it!
‘Army of the Unappreciated’ is okay and enjoyable. However, with Brent pulling an Ozzy Osborne and following the guitar melody with the vocals for the most part it screams album track. Then we reach the worst song on the album, the closer, ‘What you Wanted’. While yes, it does serve as a fitting end to the narrative after the interlude before, but I can hear this being on a mainstream pop radio station. It feels like a mixture between modern pop and a Broadway musical. It’s not a rock song at all, and a terrible way for a rock band to close a rock album. It’s well written don’t get me wrong, it’s catchy, the lyrics are good and it builds perfectly. However, this is the furthest Shinedown have gotten from sounding like their first album before, and it doesn’t do anything for me.
Overall: Definitely a tale of two parts. However, the first, better part was much longer than the bad parts, and there were even a couple of okay gems towards the end too. Tracks like ‘No Sleep Tonight’ and ‘A Symptom of Being Human’ will go down as some of the best songs Shinedown have ever written, while only two or three of the 13 official tracks aren’t really my sort of thing. I wouldn’t say they necessarily even dampened my enjoyment that much. They aren’t bad songs, just different. There is plenty of album to go around so if I don’t like them still after a few listens, I’ll happily just skip.
An absolutely HUGE week for New Music Mondays. 12 massive albums from some of the biggest names in rock and metal all out on the same day. I don’t know what it was about May 6th, but I’ve been waiting for it for a while. Without further ado, let’s get to it!
Halestorm: Back From the Dead
Back from the dead indeed. After four years the band returned with their follow-up to 2018’s Vicious. The two singles from the album were both fantastic, setting the scene for the rest of it perfectly. However, you are going to have to wait just a little longer for my review and score, as there is no way I’m NOT doing this in depth! It should be on the site and socials within a couple of days, so keep an eye out!
Three Days Grace: EXPLOSIONS
One of the leaders of the affectionately dubbed ‘butt-rock’ sub-genre, Three Days Grace have been around over two decades at this point and show no sign of slowing down. I have to admit, I haven’t really actively listened to this band since One-X all the way back in 2006. So, it was nice to find myself rather pleasantly surprised by this album!
All the elements of butt-rock are here, the basic, heavy guitar riffs, the electronic melodies to help build the track and the edgy lyrical content. However, it is clear it is being written by a band that know exactly what they are doing, and do it exceptionally well. While the opener and lead single was a little too edgy for me, tracks like ‘I Am The Weapon’ and ‘No Tomorrow’ are just as good as anything else they’ve put out. Even the slower tracks like ‘Lifetime’ and ‘Redemption’ are fantastic, even if they are pretty depressing lyrically. Still, the emotion is definitely there, in every track. It’s made me want to check out the albums from them I’ve missed and I’ll definitely be listening to this a lot in the coming weeks! 7/10
Simple Plan: Harder Than it Looks
The Canadian pop-punkers have done a lot more than just ‘What’s New Scooby Do?’. The band have had some amazing, huge tracks over their now six album career. Their latest looks to continue that trend, being packed with huge, catchy, arena-filling choruses and vocal lines… and not a great deal else. Don’t get me wrong, the instrumentation is fine, but there isn’t really any of it that I would consider memorable. It’s a usual issue with pop punk, but it’s more prevalent in more anthemic bands like these or Good Charlotte. Still, tracks like the opener and ‘Million Pictures of You’ are good fun and highlights of a fairly standard, samey album. 6.5/10
Fozzy: Boombox
Another album I have to do an in-depth review of I’m afraid, as I have been a Jericho fan for as long as I can remember. Still though, from what I’ve heard so far, it’s going to be pretty good, and certainly better than their last couple of albums!
Silverstein: Misery Made Me
The pop-punk/emo/post hardcore(?) band hit double digits on their discography last week. This sort of music was never really my thing as a kid, in fact I actively avoided most ’emo’ music aside the odd AFI song. So, because of that, I know the band by name only. However, I did enjoy this album. The band managed to put together some interesting different styles throughout. I didn’t think the opening track was that heavy at all and leant heavily into pop-punk so it had me wondering where the post hardcore was. Then the heavy second track came in and I understood a lot more.
Tracks like ‘Ultraviolet’, ‘It’s Over’ and ‘Slow Motion’ also perfectly blend these two styles. The tracks have some awesome catchiness blended with the heaviness too. I’m actually pissed at myself for not giving this band a chance sooner, I’ll definitely be checking them out more! It’s an effortless style of arena-heavy-rock that bands like Asking Alexandria and BVB have tried to varying degrees of success recently. Awesome stuff! 8.5/10
Ibaraki: Rashomon
Trivium frontman and all-round metal legend Matt Heafy finally put out his solo album last week. This is said album. Oh, and it’s death/black metal, so I have been even more excited! Opening on a seven-and-a-half minute death epic for an essentially debut album is a ballsy move, but Heafy pulls it off masterfully. Insane riffs and a harsher scream than I have heard him use in a while, as well as still some of his powerful cleans, start the album off strong.
Then there’s the all out assault of ‘Ibaraki-Doji’ and the darkly beautiful black metal slow build of ‘Jigoku Dayu’, both of which are massive highlights. Oh, and Behemoth’s own Nergal also makes an appearance on the awesome ‘Akumu’, another highlight. There is also guest appearances from the legendary Ihsahn of Emperor and even My Chemical Romance Frontman Gerard Way. Oh, and yes, you guessed it, both tracks are also awesome. Especially the latter, which sees the usually clean vocalist scream his fucking lungs out. I honestly didn’t think he had it in him, that was awesome. Heafy does a good job of managing to make it sound not too much like Trivium, but still have that recognisable edge to it. While I wouldn’t put it quite up there with Court of the Dragon, it is still an insanely strong album. 9/10
Otoboke Beaver: Super Champon
I don’t understand how these girls have over 100k monthly listeners. Then again, the punk scene is and always has been weird. I’m going to be honest with you, I didn’t make it through the whole album. I couldn’t. The vocals were barely in tune and the lyrics were SO VERY REPETITIVE. For a guy who complains about the Killers’s magnum opus ‘Mr Brightside’ being ‘lazy’ for having the same verse twice, this band make them look like J.R. Tolkien. I don’t get it, it sounds awful. If you like it please let me know on our socials what I’m missing, because this was not good. 2/10
Depressed Mode: Decade of Silence
The doom metallers returned after… well… a decade of silence (13 years, to be exact). I’ve already reviewed this very good album, so you can check out what I had to say, alongside my score, here.
Terror: Pain Into Power
This is the first ‘beatdown hardcore’ band I believe we have (at least knowingly) covered here at Overtone. While I feel like I have heard the term somewhere before, it doesn’t sound like my sort of thing so I suspect this will be a review of my first time listening to a whole new sub-genre today, rare these days.
It’s alright. Better than I expected it to be, given the name of the subgenre. It wasn’t anything special but there were a few good riffs, like the one at the end of ‘Boundless Contempt’. And it didn’t overstay its welcome either, being just 18-minutes spread across ten songs. Even the lyrics weren’t terrible. It’s not the best thing I’ve ever listened to but I’ll happily listen to it again. 6/10
Puppy: Pure Evil
This was somehow a more doom version of Smashing Pumpkins. The intro track made me think the album was going to be pretty slow and heavy, but then ‘The Kiss’ flipped it all on its head. It’s an interesting blend of styles: doom/stoner, metal, grunge and even some desert rock. I enjoyed it a fair bit, with ‘Spellbound’ being my particular album highlight. 6/10
I Am The Night: While the Gods Are Sleeping
It’s black metal. That alone should tell you exactly what to expect. I’ve really tried, guys. I’ve been doing NMM for over seven months now and have since listened to a fair amount of black metal. It’s the only sub-genre that does absolutely nothing for me. The musicians in this band are clearly very good at what they do, and the vocalist has one hell of a scream on him, but the actual songs kinda bore me. This is what people think of when they use phrases like ‘all metal just sounds the same’ and ‘you can’t tell what they’re saying’ and you know what, they’re absolutely right. I am the Night are a solid band and probably a great black metal band, bit it isn’t for me. 3/10
Stand Atlantic: f.e.a.r.
I nearly didn’t cover this. Then I remembered I covered Avril Lavigne in one of these and realised I kind of had to. It is still guitar based, even if it is more pop than rock. It reminds me very much of the likes of Olivia Rodrigo or Gayle in its melody, just with slightly more guitars. It isn’t a bad thing and is certainly catchy. It’s simply very basic catchiness and the lyrics are not really my sort of thing. It’s clearly inspired by modern female pop and punk (like AS IT IS) alongside the likes of Avril and P!no. It simply doesn’t quite live up to those influences. Tracks like ‘Deathwish’ and ‘Don’t Talk’ are pretty decent though and definite highlights. 5.5/10
Eight more rock and metal albums graced the scene this week, from all over the world. A lot of it is from some amazing newer bands too, while a few of the older ones still holding down the fort. It’s an exciting week for new music, so let’s get right to it!
The German hard rock/heavy metal group are the oldest band on this list by a fair stretch, and with the release of this double album it takes them up to a whopping 19. It’s long, over an hour spread across 16 tracks, but it proves the band very much still have it. The opening track, ‘Gas in the Tank’ outlines my sentiments perfectly. The album is full of highlights but standout tracks include ‘Peacemaker’, ‘Seventh Sun’ and ‘Call of the Wild’. 8/10
Bad Omens: THE DEATH OF PEACE OF MIND
Another band to hop on the capitalise the album title trend are American metalcore band Bad Omens. The bands third album, much like their previous two, is on the lighter end of the metalcore spectrum, clearly inspired by Sempiternal-era BMTH. It’s not necessarily a bad thing, but it does leave the album with a feel of ‘this has been done before’. Not every album needs to be ground-breaking, but I was hoping to get something a little heavier when I read ‘metalcore’. What a diverse, wide-spread sub-genre it is these days. Still, tracks like the opener and ‘Like a Villain’ are definite highlights. 6.5/10
Avril Lavigne: Love Sux
While primarily pop music, Avril‘s first album or two were definitely pop-punk, and with a promise of going back to that style with this album (alongside a fairly promising lead single), I thought it was at least worth checking out. I can confirm it is at least pop-punk. Whether it’s good or not… I’m not sure. It definitely has the same energy and feel as Let Go, but the issue I have, much like some of the other older pop-punk bands’ most recent albums is exactly that. She’s going on 40 now, and writing music like you are still 18, alongside spelling things like ‘bois’ and ‘Sux’, feels cringy. Plus, both MGK and Blackbear ruin their respective tracks. But Mark Hoppus kills it on ‘All I Wanted’, it being the best track he’s done since before Blink-182’s reunion over a decade ago. Plus, after his recent health issues, it’s really heart-warming to hear him back in music again.
However, despite all of the negativity, I cannot help but enjoy the album. Avril has definitely retained the ability to write one hell of a pop-punk chorus, and I’m going to again have3 ‘Bite Me’ stuck in my head for days now. An up and down album, but I think I can settle on a solid 7.5/10
Blues/NWOCR forerunner Elles Bailey released her third album on Friday, and it’s really good. It’s a Dorothy, American pop-rock sound but with enough blues and country edginess and twang to add some grit and darkness to it. Heck, opening track ‘Cheats and Liars’ perfectly encapsulates the sound, I would say, and is a damn good intro to her as an artist. Honestly though, if you are into the slower blues style, this whole album is one big highlight. It’s steady, chilled and full of great vocals and lyrics. Oh, and the guitars are enough for me to geek out over so they must be good! I would happily and highly recommend this album to anyone. Give it a list, you won’t be disappointed! 9/10
Corpsegrinder: Self-Titled
The Cannibal Corpse frontman finally released his much anticipated debut album over the weekend. To put it simply, it’s about exactly what you’d expect. I have become a rather medium fan of George Fisher due to the sheer amount of awesome guest slots he’s done on awesome tracks by other bands over the last couple of years. However, this didn’t quite measure up to ‘Take Your Pick’ or ‘Parpaing’. That’s not to say it’s bad by any stretch, though. It’s death metal through and through, and damn good death metal at that. Tracks like ‘On Wings of Carnage’ and ‘Crimson Proof’ were definite highlights for me, having me headbanging along from start to finish. And, I have to add, what an album cover! 7.5/10
Black Lakes: For All We’ve Left Behind
An awesome Welsh alt metal band, we had the pleasure of reviewing this album last week before it was released. It was good. How good? Read our reviewof it to find out for yourself!
Blood Incarnation: Timewave Zero
What the fuck was that? Am I being pranked here? I was expecting some death metal, not 40 minutes of ambient sounds. This is Devin Townsend’s wet dream and not my sort of thing at all. 1/10, I’m sorry.
Another band we reviewed ahead of time (we are on FIRE this week) is the debut from NWOCR’s newest band, Just a Ride. It’s good, and if you want to find out the score, you’ll have to check out the review for yourself here.
Another fantastic week, with the smaller bands really bring it this time round! Black Lakes and Elles Bailey in particular put out fantastic albums that are up there in the running for top of the year so far. The British music scene is really thriving right now! As always stay tuned for next week’s NMM and for the big one… Stereophonics!
Dohny Jep are a self pop-rock band who have recently hit the UK underground scene with force. Having released a whopping 4 EPs throughout this year, the band have been working hard. (We reviewed their latest one, by the way, which you can check outhere). From the sounds of things they will continue to work hard next year too! We got the chance to sit down with them after their final EP for a quick interview. Check it out below!
So obviously your latest EP has just come out, how’s that gone down?
Yeah, it’s gone very well. We’re very happy with peoples responses to it! Much like the previous three we’ve put out this year we’ve slowly built a following and they seem to really dig most of the stuff we’ve put out. This one’s a little heavier than the last ones we’ve done. A lot of people have commented on that in a nice way. They’ve seen the progression throughout the year of how we’ve developed. And we did that deliberately, we chose for this one to be heavier than the other three. Sort of ease people into it.
With all four EPs coming out in one year, did you guys write it all beforehand?
We wrote a chunk all at the same time really. It was probably late last year.
It was sort of ongoing over a long period of time.
Yeah, late last year I reckon is when I remember we’d demoed an absolute bunch.
And then we kinda played around with orders and stuff. We were still re-writing stuff. So like the first EP was coming out and while we had the fourth EP technically written we were tweaking it as we were going. The main chunk of it was already done, we were just doing the details as we went along. Working to deadlines and stuff. The last one – we weren’t anywhere close to missing the deadline, but we had definitely done a lot more tweaks to some songs. ‘Floor Like Lava’ is two songs that we stuck together so we were still working all the details out.
I assume you planned it all out release-wise before it all, then?
Sort of. We had a kind of idea. I think we were originally put out a bunch of singles. Then the idea became to do them as EPs instead of standalone singles. Then the whole kinda floral thing that tied into each other and then our album, which is out on January 29th, has all four of those flowers in the same vase and we have all the 16 tracks as one collective release. That sort of idea kinda came in halfway through the year, something like that. But yeah, at the beginning of the year we were thinking let’s just release a shit load of singles and be in people’s faces the entire time so they get sick of us or love us, maybe both! But yeah, the full EP thing was decided just before we kicked it off really.
Also, it wasn’t not our decision but it was someone else’s suggestion to us. We’ve been getting advise from a bunch people and he’s sort of unofficially managing us at this point. Not that we don’t have anything to manage but we’re doing everything ourselves so far so he’s more of an advisory roll. He was like ‘well if you’re going to put out 12 singles at one a month, you could put it out as four EPs throughout the year and make a big deal out of it’. I think it was us who decided to jump it up from 12 to 16 because we had so many songs.
Yeah, we just couldn’t really decide which ones we wanted to put out. We’re a big fan of our own stuff! Which is probably a good thing, to love your material instead of thinking ‘eh, it’s alright’. So you kinda need to be your biggest fan! So we thought fuck it, let’s up 16 out and make it as unrealistic as possible to achieve!
So would you consider the same format of EPs leading up to an album again?
We don’t really know yet. It’s been a very expensive year!
Yeah, the next one definitely won’t be like that!
We’re still in talks about exactly how we’re going to do next year, but I think the main plan for us is just to tour a lot on this years material. Because we weren’t able to tour from the get go we’ve lost out on a lot of things like festivals and whatnot. I think once the album is out in January it’ll just be gig gig gig and just get in peoples faces physically rather than digitally this time.
Have you guys got much of a tour booked?
The only thing we’ve got is our release show in January. We’re looking at the moment to lock down a booking agent and then… . Again the advice we got was to look to tour just before summer. Then, avoid summer because it’s the festival season. Unfortunately, because most of the festivals at the minute are re-bookings from the previous two years it’s unlikely that we’ll get a slot on those. Then, after the festival season, get out and do some more stuff.
But it’s all a bit up in the air at the minute. We’re just driving towards this album show and then we’re going to work out what we’re going to do once we’ve got that under our belt.
Generally, how would you describe your sound?
Every time I’m asked this I never really know what to say! I usually go for alt-rock or pop-rock, but more recently I’ve ben saying it’s ‘heavy pop music with riffs’. It’s guitar driven rock music, obviously, but vocally it’s quite hooky with catchy parts.
It’s sort of like a bit of everything for everyone. Especially with our earlier material. It’s got a lot of lighter elements and then this new EP is heavier so it sort of touches on a bit of everything.
Each EP has its own sound, really. You can still tell it’s us, from the first to the fourth EP, but there is a variation in influences. ‘Fade’ for example, which was on Shallow Is the Water. It’s a sort of similar sound to The 1975, which is obviously pretty light and poppy. But then you’ve got other tracks like ‘Control’ that are like early Don Broco. So it’s yeah, variations of influences throughout really.
Will you stick with the wide range of sound going forward?
I think some of the newer stuff we’ve been working on and getting produced has gone a little bit lighter than the last EP. We’ve kinda gone heavy, then we’re going to go light again for a bit, but we’re still in the writing process for that. We’ve got one song produced for the next thing but with no sight of when that is out we’re just being proactive and writing so we have something.
Get ahead of the game!
Exactly! So I might watch this back in six months and we’ve written a really heavy song and then this doesn’t make sense. But at the minute it’s gone a bit lighter, a little funky in places but ultimately it’s still pop-rock with riffs!
Even though you haven’t gigged too much, what would you say the state of the music industry is like right now?
I think digitally, because that’s the best way we can really talk about stuff, it’s skyrocketed. It’s done great things for music. Things like TikTok for example, which we are still very new to but are trying to understand and be one with the young people who know how to use these fucking apps. I think it’s been a great thing for music. For example Papa Roach, who are a super old-school nu-metal band, have been brought back into the modern people’s sights from going viral on there with a very old single of theirs. There’s probably loads of other artists that have either been discovered or rediscovered from TikTok.
So as far as social platforms and things it’s been amazing. I know there’ll be a lot of people out there saying that ‘that’s rubbish’ and ‘you still need to be able to buy CDs’ and people miss going to miss going to buy physical copies of stuff but the reality is that that time has gone and you have to go along with what is happening or you will get left behind.
So yeah, the music’s been great from a digital standpoint. As far as the live stuff, when we’ve played stuff it’s been busy and it’s been great and everyone’s been enjoying themselves, but we just need to do more of them!
Did you enjoy our interview? Check out more of them from our YouTube page here.
