The ever awesome Sons of Liberty played Rockin’ the Bowl festival the other week and safe to say, they went down a storm. We managed to have a brief chat with them afterwards about their set, their latest album an their plans for the future. Check it out down below!
“It was great! Absolutely awesome. We’ve managed to do a few gigs. We’ve done a couple of warm-up slots just a couple of days prior to this so that was good but yes this is the first big gig we’ve done for a long time for a long time probably since Planet Rock Stock nearly two years ago. Rockin The Bowl is a tremendous festival, there’s been a brilliant crowd, great reaction… we loved it! What else can we say?”
Have you played here before?
“It’s been our first time. It should have been last year. We’ve been looking forward to this – this was out first big ‘that’s where we’re going to be playing in a couple of months time’ and it was on the map. We’ve really enjoyed it and it’s better than I thought it would be to be quite honest with you, it’s been great.
“And I’ll tell you what’s nice, it’s great to see the other bands here because we’re always touring but we never get the chance to see other bands and we meet them as sort of ships in the night you know? So it was great to see them and see how they got through the times as well. It’s been good, it’s been really helpful.”
So you released an album this year. How did that go? I can imagine you went through the creative and writing process during the pandemic. How did that go?
“I think we used the time well. We probably took a lot more care over the writing and recording process. We worked with producers for the first time and that was a real experience and we took a long time over the writing the lyrics and everything. It’s been phenomenally well received so we’ve been really lucky. A couple of singles have been played on Planet Rock radio and that’s been fantastic for us. We’re very proud of it and proud of each other I think with everyone’s contribution to it. We’ll listen to it and every so often we’ll go ‘wow, that is us, isn’t it?’ No matter what age you are, when you hear yourself on the radio it’s quite a buzz. You get a buzz that you can’t explain to anyone. It’s there and it’s even better. It’s an incredible feeling.
“It’s quite interesting actually, when we had our first single out I was actually working at a gym and they had Planet Rock on and suddenly they started playing it. I got so excited, I was running around the gym going ‘this is me!’ It takes you to another world. We sat around in the seventies listening to some great bands thinking oh God wouldn’t that be great. And when you’re here on the radio, that’s it.”
“And the company that it’s played with – some of our heroes such as Zeppelin, Purple, Skynaryd. How does that work?”
What’s next for you?
“So we wrote the last album during lockdown but we’re already starting on some ideas, working on them quietly. You’ve got to get the timing right and we’ve still got another single to come out, we’ve got a vinyl release in October so there’s still a campaign going and the Aces & Eights tour for the album. We’re all over the place.”
“Early December we’re going to France so that’s another ticked box with a European gig. And we’ve got a couple of lines in the fire for a support slot with an American band who we hope are coming over.
“Hard Rock Hell is another. We have a lot going on so we need to sleep.”
Catch Sons Of Liberty at the main Hard Rock Hell weekend as well as the following ABC weekend, and a few more festivals scattered around the country too!
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One of the UK undergrounds most hard working and longest lasting bands, Bad Touch absolutely tore the place up at Rockin’ The Bowl festival a couple of weeks ago. After their set we got the chance to speak to them briefly about their show, their latest album and their future. Check it out below!
How was the Set? It was great from the crowd!
Stevie: It was good! Yeah it was very weird, cus its been quite some time.
Michael: It harder work now.
Stevie: It was kinda like…how does it go? What are we doing? I kept getting wound up in me singer lead, cus I was like, oh, how do I manage this? How do I do this? But yeah, it was all good.
Michael: I forgot how to plug stuff in, its been too long!
Is it the first gig back?
Stevie: No…no we don’t even have that excuse! What have we done? Three or four? Its not been many, not compared to normal.
Seeks: We’re just so used to playing all the time, but we’re now doing like one show every three or four weeks, so its weird.
Stevie: We’re not building our stamina back up if you know what I mean. You get it all for one show, then you can have three weeks off. But by the time tour comes, its gonna be… are we gonna have to do it again? But there you go, we’ll get there.
So, you guys put out an album last year wasn’t it?
Stevie: I can’t remember what year it was?!
During the pandemic?
Stevie: We’re in 2021. I think it was last year, wasn’t it?
Michael: Yeah, the beginning of last year. April? Yeah, something like that.
Seeks: We put an album out at some time.
Was it weird releasing it in lockdown?
Seeks: Yeah. Well the thing was we, it was one of those with management.
Stevie: June!
Seeks: Oh was it? It might be June.
Stevie: Cus it was the middle of, cus Corona, the whole thing happened it April, didn’t it. Any way, that’s not the important bit.
Seeks: We obviously had chats with the record company and the PR company. And it was like, we didn’t know how long it was gonna go. So it was like, do we postpone all the hard work and all the money we put into this? It was like, well we’ll go with it. And then, with hindsight makes you think, we don’t know if we should have waited or what. We though we’d still manage to tour by the end of the year, but it didn’t work…so. The was the weirdest thing. Just don’t have no idea how long it was gonna last. Even now people are still wary about what’s gonna happen still. People are scared to go out after this sort of thing.
But you put out a single recently, is that right?
Seeks: Yeah, second one we’ve done a few. Our record company have just built a new studio, so we’ve gone in and recorded a few songs, like…test the studio out, gives us some content to do. We did a few covers.
Stevie: Sort of a mutual back scratching situation. They kinda wanted to test their studio out, and we wanted to get back into kind of doing things and create some content.
Seeks: We had some fun with it, we did some different stuff. The single that came out yesterday is an Edwin Starr song, which is different.
Stevie:Old school classic.
Seeks: You know, we had fun with that, so.
Is this the start of a new album then, releasing new singles?
Seeks: No.
I’d like to be more mysterious about it, but nah. Its just to get stuff out there.
Stevie: Yeah, its been a long time. Right, and you know.
Seeks: We wanna stay current.
Stevie: Yeah, we wanna stay in people’s eyes. And everything’s on the line isn’t it. So, we just want to, you know, blow the dust out.
Seeks: Like we were saying earlier, you normally do like, and eighteen month to a year roll. You record an album, you tour it. Then you move on to start the whole process again. We did that, and then just as the album come out, we didn’t tour it. So, we’ve not managed to do anything. So, its kind of like a steppingstone between the two. So, we’ve got some stuff still coming out, makes people… gives them something to, sort of bite their teeth into. Then it gives us that bit of extra time to still tour the old album, and write new stuff for another album.
Have you got a tour coming up?
Seeks: Yeah.
Seeks: Yeah in November.
Stevie: Bailey, when’s the tour happening?
Michael: November to December.
Seeks: What are you doing here?
Michael: I dunno?
Stevie: Bailey thought we were having a beer! Yeah November, December. Better late than never tour. Um, was the kiss the sky tour, but we’ve renamed it for obvious reasons. Um, badtouchrocks.co.uk if people wanna grab tickets or whatever. But yeah, we wanna see as many people as we can. Just have a good time and try…not forget about the last eighteen months, but try move on from them.
So yeah, get to a show!
You did the Collab with Mollie Marriott, are there any more collabs you want to do, or are in the works?
Stevie: We’re pretty chill aren’t we. Like anyone who wants to work with us really!
Yeah, we work with, you know, no doubt Mollie is a fantastic artist and we are very grateful to have worked with her. But, we would literally work with anyone.
Seeks: As you can see, no many people want to work with us.
Stevie: One and Done!
On a serious note, we love all people.
Seeks: I mean we do work with other artists as such, I mean like with the album we have female backing vocals in. We have Bob on keys, you know, from people we’ve met through the industry. They might no be like featured artists on there, but we bring in people to yeah. Especially keys, you know that really helps our sound. We’ve just not got the stage to bring that in live yet you know, it’s a big deal. I mean, there were talks of us bringing it for the studio time we did, but we wanted to have another guitar player come in didn’t we. Its all timing, and again Covid it hit and miss, but we’re happy to work with it.
So, after the past eighteen months, pandemic, covid, everything. How do you think the music industry sits at the minute?
Seeks: It’s a sorry state.
Stevie: Yeah it’s not great. I feel like I, you know. I’m not a pessimist, but I am a realist. Like, I feel like we’re gonna feel this for a long time.
Seeks: We’ve been okay to an extent but I think its hit a lot of bands. You know, there’s a lot of bands that’ll struggle to come back from this, um, you know. Like we will to an extent with the album, you know, we put a lot of money and time into an album that went down well online, but it could have been so much more. I mean, we’re still touring it later this year, but it’s not the same as their first initial releases.
Stevie: It’s not as fresh.
Then there’s so many good venues that have gone, over the last eighteen months. Great venues that have shut down. Some have been saves, some haven’t you know. You can’t sit there with a big venue and not make any money from it. So, I think a lot of venues will disappear, which is like, sad for new bands. Everyone’s gotta start somewhere. The bigger venues can probably……being in the bigger eyes, they’ll bring in more money.
Stevie: But, the places that had us play when we were more shit than we are now, you know the places where we learnt what to do.
Joe: The Sitwell in Derby obviously unfortunately shut.
Stevie: Yeah! You know, it’s really, it sounds insincere, but it really does suck. It really sucks. Cus like you say, the next generation of musicians, well they’re not gonna not do it, but like you say, its getting harder and harder and harder.
Seeks: You can’t just put a band together and go play Rock City you know. It takes years to do it, but this is the bad reality. So it’ll be interesting to see how venues come back and how bands come back. And with, even with like Brexit, touring Europe, and the States, people coming in, you know. It’s all up in the air.
Stevie: B-B-B-Bad Touch on politics!
What’s next for Bad Touch?
Stevie: Ahhh, no no no, we’re splitting up now.
Joe: You got your money now!
HAHAHAHAHA
Stevie: We’re, all eyes are blinkered on the tour, like I said earlier, November-December. Get your tickets, get down there! But then looking at the future, obviously new music, like you know, keep pushing forward, thinking of better things. As long as we move to bigger and better things, that’s all we want.
And there you have it, our quick little interview with the awesome country-blues band, Bad Touch. To keep up to date on all of our interviews and other content, follow our Facebook here.
JOANovARC have had an up-and-down couple of years, be it through line-up changes or the state of the world that has caused so many issues in the music industry. However, the women came out to make a statement at Rockin’ The Bowl and that is exactly what they did. Heralding a new era for the band with the arrival of new frontwoman Hazel Jade Rogers, they proved they are ready for the big leagues.
We had the chance to speak to them after their set about their new line-up and what their plans are for the future, among other fun things too. Check it out down below!
How was the set?
Hazel: Wicked! It was really good. It was my first gig with JOANovARC and we are exclusively announcing to all of the interviewers today that I am officially the new singer!
How come you’re the new singer?
Hazel: The last singer moved to Greece and the previous singer got pregnant. So it’s one of those things! It really worked out. Originally I was only going to be temping for this gig and a gig we have tomorrow but we all click so well and it ended up working out that I ended up wanting to join and everyone wanted me to join so it just went well!
What about everyone else, have you been playing much lately or is this the first time you’ve played since COVID?
Shelly: Yeah, I guess it’s the first gig with Hazel since COVID but we do have a tour coming up in October.
Ellie: We gonna be joining VEGA on their UK tour alongside Revival Black so our first gig with them will be on the 9th of October at the Camden Underworld. We’re really looking forward to it and we’re with them for the whole tour as well so it’s going to be really fun!
Are you headed all over the UK then?
Hazel: Yep, and we’re driving everywhere!
Who’s the driver?
Hazel: We share it. I don’t drive, would you guys like me to try and drive on this tour and see what happens? I’ll end up crashing!
But no, it’s going to be cool to go on tour and we get to experience a bit of tour life with each other. But we all just click and I think that comes off on stage. A lot of people come to me and are like ‘wait, you’re a new member?’ I’m just the new funny thing in the band!
But yeah it’s going to be great! It’ll be super fun. It’s a star lineup with us and Revival Black and VEGA and it’s going to be feckin’ wicked.
Have you guys got a new album coming out or?
Shelly: Yeah we’ve got a new album but obviously it was the last singer so we’ve got an EP coming out with Hazel with some of the tracks from the new album so we’re really looking forward to that!
Hazel: Obviously everyone got a taster today of what JOANovARC’s new era is but we want them to have something to listen to so we’re going to create a little EP. It will be recorded and it will be released so it’s going to be really nice for the band to start their new journey.
Did you manage to get much done over the last 18 months then, were you working on the songs?
Keira: We did a lot of songwriting during the lockdowns. So I managed to write two songs and Ellie, as well as Shelly, have managed to come up with lyrics as well. So a lot of the material for the new album that we recorded, as well as the EP, has been during the time of the pandemic. I think it reflects the mood of what we were like during COVID and the lockdown and everything and we’ve just given a taste of what we’ve done, playing new songs.
Shelly: They started out as demos. We live in all parts of the country so what I was having to do is write demos on Logic Pro and send them to Keira to put her bass down, send them to Ellie to put her drums down and we had to create these demos and then when we could finally meet in the studio we really brought the songs to life. We had to do it that way; we had no other choice. But it was good, a different way of writing.
We’re not restricted completely. Two of our songs, ‘Isolation’ and ‘Invisible Enemy’ are about the whole COVID thing and being stuck indoors. We were literally writing about our situation at the time.
Hazel: I think one of the lyrics that stuck out to me particularly was ‘the pain of loosing someone from this life’. So many people have suffered from COVID and a lot of people have passed because of it so one thing with writing that’s so important to me is that you write lyrics that connect with others and have meaning. I think that is again something that is already in JOANovARC but is only going to get better with the new lineup!
Will you be putting your part forward for the lyrics, then?
Hazel: Oh yeah! I’ve already shown a couple of songs to the girls and they really like them so we’re gonna pursue that as well. Basically JOANovARC are not going to stop for the next while. We have so much going on with the tour and the photoshoots and the interviews and everything so we’re really thankful for that. This is what we do and this is what we love!
Does the EP have a different sound from an instrumental point of view too, as well as having a new singer?
Ellie: Yeah, it definitely sounds different to what we’ve done previously.
Keira: It’s heavier!
Shelly: I would say more intricate, too. We’ve got a track we played today today called ‘Silver Sun’ that’s very complex on the bass, playing lots of arpeggios and things like that. The fact of the matter is in this group there is an incredible singer now but also an incredible bassplayer and drummer too. They add a completely different dynamic and are very much into all sorts of styles.
Hazel: I was going to say, bands that have musicians who dip out and in of different genres are the best. You know, Queen was such a fantastic band because they did not allow the walls of genre to stop them! Keira’s amazing on the bass, she brings this funk element, and obviously Shelly brings the rock element and then I don’t know what you [Ellie] do but it sounds good! She does a good job on the drums and I think her nickname should be The Animal!
I just think the fact that we have different interests in music, as well as similar interests of course means that we’re all bringing something different. I don’t think you really listen to a rock band that has a funk bassist underneath, it’s cool!
Shelly: Hazel plays piano too, she’s a good pianist so there is another element there that can also come to the band later on. Every rock band has it’s great ballad and I can really see that happening with this band.
Hazel: Yeah, we’ll just roll a grand piano on for every gig… and I want a black sparkly one!
If you guys could collab with anyone, who would it be?
Hazel: I think we’d all be happy working with Halestorm. It’s really nice to see women in rock, especially really powerful musicians.
There are very few female acts on the lineup this weekend, how do you feel being one of the few?
Hazel: It’s… am I allowed to swear?
It’s a dickfest. A complete sausage party. And you know it gives me something to look at but I’d like a bit of everything. I think the fact that Doro is headlining tonight is amazing, that’s fantastic, what a thing! We could work with Doro!
I think it’d be great to work with another female act and the reason being that it pushes forth that we can do it just as well as men honey!
Keira: I also think as well because of the pandemic I think more bands are helping each other. We had an interview earlier where one band were promoting another band and vice versa. It was backwards and forwards, like you scratch my back I’ll scratch your back sort of thing. I think everyone’s released after the last 18 months that we al need to help each other. It’s not a rivalry at all.
Samantha, who was the original singer for JOANovARC, she’s just had a child but she’s now getting back into music. She’s asked me and Shelly to join her little side project so we’re helping her with that!
Shelly: I think where some bands go wrong is not helping others. It’s so important to help each other, you never know when you’re going to need someone’s help. My mum always said treat people how you want to be treated and you respect everyone, because you don’t know who they are.
Ellie: and it’s like if you [Shelly] said, if you come to a festival like this and you don’t know who that person is and you treat them like shit, that person could be a press person or a manager or a publisher, you just don’t have a clue.
Keira: We are very grateful for the support we’ve received these last couple of years, especially with the lineup changes but we’ve had really good reception from the crowd here today and that’s given us a new lease of life I think.
We do live in a generation now where we can give back to fans more than ever before. We’ve done Patreon and everything and we can give them something more exclusive and personal. Compared to previously where a band could come across as untouchable, you can watch them from a distance, with the internet it’s made it much easier for people who support the band to interact with them. I think we Patreon we can do that well, we can give something back. We’ve been recording and people can see that process and we give them goodies as well, it’s really great!
The image of the band: obviously you’re all wearing outlandish clothing, was that something you had done before, or is this something you have started now?
Shelly: We’re all individuals, we are what we are, and we just so happened to merge!
Hazel: We just merged into one ginormous blob! I think the point is that we dress like this every day. It’s not something we just switch on for our gigs, we enjoy dressing this way, we love doing it. I have the typical overblown closet and I’ve seen Keira’s and everything is in plastic wrap and it’s really neat and everything and I’m sitting there like ‘how the hell do you do it?’. But the point is that we all enjoy the style of the band and as Shelly said, we wear what we want to wear and it just so happens to look good!
I think we’re trying to go for more of an alternative look, the whole band has always had that sort of look, they’ve just been moulding it properly, perfecting it. As I said, new era of JOANovARC.
Have you got anything coming up apart from the tour that you’d like to plug?
Keira: Monster Fest in Inverness in November.
Shelly: And the Great British Rock Festival in January. We won a competition last year so we’re on the mains stage!
And there we have it, JOANovARC are ready to take over the UK rock scene, if not the world in general! We cannot wait to hear what they do next, be it the EP and their tour in November, we will be there for all of it!
Did you like our interview? Why don’t you check out our review of the festival as a whole here.
CANVAS are an experimental rock band from the US. We managed to talk to the band over the weekend to discuss the bands latest single, their sound in general and their hopeful plans for the future!
First, congrats on your single! How was it writing and recording it? Has it been received well?
Thanks! It was one of those songs that kind of fell to us in terms of the creative process. From inception to the final product, the song writing and recording components were quite seamless. Our fans haven’t heard this kind of a funk sound from us before, but we’re happy to say it’s being received very well.
Is it going to be part of a full album or rather just a stand-alone single?
Jealousy is a stand-alone single. We realize we live in a singles-driven industry currently; however, we are working on an album slated for a 2022 release.
For our readers who aren’t familiar with your music, how would you describe yourselves?
Experimental is always the word that comes to mind first. We also aim to bring a stadium-like sound to every record we make.
How has it been for you coping over the last year and a half of restrictions? Obviously it’s been a little different where you are!
It has certainly been tough. The silver lining here is that we had more time to create music and build up our library of records. The pandemicis a big reason for the upcoming album as it gave us the extra time to conceptualize a theme and create meaningful records.
What is your favourite thing about the music business?
The Music. Least favorite: The Business.
If there was one song that you wish you could have written, what would that be?
Bohemian Rhapsody.
Plans for the future?
We will be releasing our first album in 2022, which we are extremely excited about. The project will be a culmination of everything we have aspired to achieve with our sound as a band. Leading up to our album, we will be releasing singles and visuals on a consistent basis. Of course, we are also looking forward to playing live again!
You can check out the band also on their Instagram here to keep up to date with them and see when the album they mentioned gets a solid release date!
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Bastette have really gained a lot of momentum this year, but who could blame them after a year and a half of being stuck inside? They returned to Sheffield with a vengeance a couple of weeks ago, playing an incredible set to open up Rockin’ The Bowl festival. We got the chance to speak to Caroline, the frontwoman of the band, after their set to get a better feeling of where the band are heading and chat about their latest EP release.
It was fab! It was great to be on a big stage in front of a load of people. Rockin’ The Bowl is a great festival and what better way to come back to live music!
We haven’t played the festival before. We were just getting going and then COVID hit. We’re back to it now, we’re back rolling with gigs and this is the first festival we’ve actually done since COVID.
Are you on tour now?
We’re going on tour with Marisa and the Moths in November. Our next gig is with Massive Wagons in Liverpool and then we have gigs through October but I wouldn’t call it a tour, then we go on tour mid-November.
I don’t think we’re in Sheffield again but we are in Leeds next year! We are stopping in the likes of Reading, Nottingham, Bradford (which isn’t too far) and the dates just keep rolling then!
You’ve said you’ve had a couple of gigs back, how have they been? Have you struggled to get going again?
Not really! Straight out of the gate, lets go baby, lets go! I know that other people have been apprehensive and that is a perfectly fine reaction but from my point of view I was climbing the walls like ‘let me at it!’
How would you describe your sound? It sounds a fair bit different from a lot of the bands on the bill!
Well it’s pop-rock or rock-pop depending on the song you listen to. I have never tried to sound like another artist, I like to take influence from lots of different artists and mash them together. [An example would be] Lady Gaga and Halestorm. But also if you listen to the early Bastette stuff there’s a bit of country influence there. I wouldn’t say there is in the newer stuff but the first EP there was definitely some Shinia Twain! There is no point in trying to be what has already been, because what has already been is the best it’s going to be. Can you beat Aerosmith and Guns N’Roses? No, because they are the best. So you have to try and be yourself, which is what I’m trying to do with the music being created.
Unfortunately you are one of the few female artists during the weekend. How has it been?
I mean it is what it is and you’ve got to look at the audience and look at the amount of male bands vs the amount of female bands. If you look at the percentage of male bands in the rock world it’s maybe… let’s say it’s 70% vs the 30% female. But, at the end of the day, females are getting their voice still heard and they are getting out there but you just have to push. You have to be louder than everyone else and that is what I’m trying to do! You’ve gotta have something that people go ‘Damn, I wanna watch/listen to that!’ I think there is a stigma around all the male vs female stuff and there is sexism in the industry, there is, but we’ve fought it before and we’ll fight it now. I don’t see myself, as a woman, as being disadvantaged because I look at it and go ‘well have I not worked for it? Have I not tried just as hard as everyone else?’ So you’ve just got to keep on trying. If there are obstacles you move past them.
How was the recording the EP?
It was strange because half of it was recorded before lockdown and it had different songs and we were just ready to go with it but we couldn’t do the videos. It was like there wasn’t much point; if you can make the videos and you can have a good of it and you can have a plan, it’s better to have it planned out. I got involved with Rock People Management throughout lockdown and Terrie’s great, she’s really helped guide me through properly releasing and getting rolling. So the new videos are hopefully better than the last, the new songs are hopefully better than the last – you’ve just gotta keep progressing and keep rolling.
Is there a particular theme for this EP?
It’s called ‘Bastette: Exposed’, so I’m exposing my life to you, darling! It’s about confronting things that have happened in your life that have dragged your down, made you feel bad, and accepting it and moving on with it. I suppose it’s about being a bit more vulnerable and there are certain songs where you’re taking back the power from feeling crushed.
We really received some awesome, optimistic words from Caroline. You can order their latest EP from their website and check out their tour listing there too. The band are not to be missed, so I would seriously consider checking them out if they are playing nearby!
Did you enjoy our interview? Check out more of them here.
Blues/hard rock quartet Daxx and Roxane have been making waves in the UK music scene the last couple of years or so due to their classic sound, awesome hooks and fantastic musicianship. We got the chance to catch them at Rockin’ The Bowl and they were utterly fantastic (full review of the event here). We also had the privilege of chatting to the guys after their set and get a little bit of insight into who they are and what they aim to achieve in the years to come!
The set was amazing. We only played half an hour but it was really really good. It felt longer because it was intense from the start. The crowd was awesome today. We played quite early and when you play early you think are they going to be up for it, but the people were super cool and really into it so it was really nice. I think everyone is just so happy to be at a festival.
So you guys are originally from Switzerland, did you move over here for gigs?
We moved over about eight years ago. In Switzerland we were a band for around five years as a thrash/metal band and we moved over here because the gigging scene was really appealing to us and we always wanted to move to London. And when we got here, we got more into the rock vibe and we’ve been here ever since. We would love to go back to Switzerland to play and we’re talking to some venues to try and do something because it has been way too long. We’ll go back for sure.
What have you been up to post lockdown this year?
In December we are doing a two week tour all around the UK with another Swiss band who are also doing quite a lot of shows in the UK, called the Dirty Sound Magnet. We met them two years ago and just thought lets do a tour together so we really cannot wait to be on the road just for a proper tour. That’ll be the first tour after a year and a half.
Did the pandemic disrupt any of your plans? What have you been up to during lockdowns?
Our tour was cut short. We had a tour planned for our album launch back in 2020 and the tour was right when lockdowns happened so we did our last gig 3 days before the lockdown and then that was it. So we’ve not been gigging very much since the pandemic. We had one gig last year but now since August we’ve been back and it’s been awesome. We’ve been working a lot on our EP that we want to release next year. In the meantime, we’ve been working on some new material because obviously we don’t want to have only two albums.
What can we expect from your new music?
It’s a bit heavier. It’s the same style of music but just a bit heavier with the sound. We’ve been working a lot more on the actual sound of our instruments because we always wanted to find that really heavy sound that we like. We love our first album but we always thought that we sounded a bit heavier live and that’s what we’ve been trying to reproduce over the last year with the second album. And now we want to do it a bit louder!
So the next time you’re playing semi-locally is Nottingham in December!
Yes at Billy Bootleggers! It’s a bit more on the side, a bit more underground. It should be cool.
If you could play any festival next year, where would you play?
Ramblin’ Man would be one we would love to play at. There’s such a cool atmosphere over there. Everyone is super chill. We’ve been looking forward to play Heretic Fest. We were so excited when we first got booked on and then it got pushed back and pushed back. It’s finally happening, next year, but it’s finally happening and it’ll be just awesome. It’s a very good line-up. Three days of awesome bands. We’re very proud to be part of it. Sheffield is a great city for rock. Every time we’ve played in Sheffield, it’s always super cool and we always tend to get more drunk in Sheffield than any other cities.
The awesome Daxx and Roxane are gunning for Ramblin’ Man in 2022! But before then, you can see them in plenty of places up and down the country, be it back in Sheffield for Heretic Fest or on their tour at the end of the year.
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The UKs own Slow Mojo are aiming to ‘bring back the blues’. Having released numerous singles so far and gigged extensively in the London underground scene, it is hard to argue that they are doing a damn good job at working towards their goal so far. We had the chance to have a brief interview with the band to discuss various topics from their music to the industry as a whole!
The band wear their influences very much on their sleeves, as evidenced by their response when asked about their influences:
Brighty (lead vox): ‘For me personally as a frontman I used to watch people like Freddie Mercury and just think the world of them, how they held the crowd in the palm of their hands, everyone’s eyes just focused on them. I’m a bit of an attention seeker and ended up becoming an MC and rapper, performing on festival stages with a DJ. I’d always been a pretty good singer. After getting bored with doing endless karaoke, I found the other guys on Gumtree and the band just came together naturally. Rest is history, as they say’.
Tim (lead guitar): ‘As a kid there would always be music being played in my house – Led Zep, AC/DC, The Doors, you name it; If it had a good guitar riff it was being played on the stereo. I remember watching DVDs of AC/DC and Angus Young shredding on the guitar and doing the chicken walk, it was nothing I had ever seen before, it was magic! First time I heard the blues was on Back To The Future where Marty McFly plays at the school dance. I got my mum to write out the lyrics for me so I could sing along and re-enact all his moves. I was hooked from then on’.
While diving deeper into their own sound, Brighty tried his best to describe it:
‘We’re a modern blues band, basically. We’ve retained that blues-influenced sound and twisted it up with harder rock, punk, funk and hip hop. It’s good fun music, it slaps you hard and we all have a hell of an energy on stage. Some of our stuff sounds a bit Red Hot Chili Peppers, some a bit Black Keys, some veers into Rage Against the Machine, and we do more blues rock stuff not dissimilar to Alex Harvey’.
This last 18 months has been some of the toughest the music scene as a whole has ever had to deal with. When asked about how they had coped during the stream of lockdowns, they had this to say:
‘We had a gig booked literally on the week of the first lockdown. So we were left wanting with that annoying feeling of having no closure on our live music hiatus. Worse still our new drummer, Giorgio, had only joined the band a month or so prior so he was denied his first gig with us. But like all acts everywhere we just knuckled down and turned the whole experience into something more positive. We started recording more music from home – we actually recorded a fair chunk of our current output doing everything a bit DIY. Luckily we had the gear and the skills to create something pretty professional sounding. We recorded some home videos to keep up the social media conversations and then started live streaming, raising money and awareness for charities, which certainly filled some sort of void. Though the minute the lockdowns eased a little, we were all back into the studio in a heartbeat, desperate to get some semblance of what live playing felt like again’.
We wanted to make sure the boys were still enjoying themselves though, so wanted to know what their positives were of being in a band:
‘Honestly, it’s just knowing that we’re bringing people some joy. I think that’s been an especially poignant feeling in the shadow of the pandemic. Music is everything. The energy it brings us is the energy we give back to the crowd’.
Tim: ‘I love watching the crowd react to how we perform in front of them and see them reciprocate as they start to dance and headbang. We get such a buzz from playing live and on stage that it’s like a drug and the high lasts for a good few days after a show’.
‘However, we couldn’t address the positives without also discussing the negatives, of which there were unfortunately more:
‘About the current music industry, for obvious reasons, I think I’d like to see more of a return to more big bands playing live. Don’t get me wrong I love electronic dance music in pretty much all its forms, but the appetite for proper live band music feels like it’s been waning for some time now. There’s always a balance to be struck of course, but I feel like if we’re looking towards a future of purely electronic music at the elite level, then we’re all going to miss out on so much that is special and wonderful about live music’.
Ciba (bass): ‘We are witnessing a turning point on the music-making thing. See what Brighty just mentioned about the lack of live music and bands kind of fading away.
‘That’s related to how music is being made nowadays. When we started playing music 25 years ago we had to learn how to play an instrument, then endless practice and rehearsal, get some mates together, then more rehearsal, write songs, play together again, then get a gig and so on… Recording?! Forget about that! No computers or £50 audio interfaces. You had to sell your kidney to afford a recording studio (on a reel to reel tape recorder)!
‘Then here we are in 2021: Young people just don’t get excited enough to go through all this hassle again. Why bother ‘putting a band together’ if all it takes to make music is an app and a laptop? You write a song, upload, get viral and voilá!
‘This may wind down the bands IMO. There’s still some awesome musicians producing things on this new style no doubt about it, but I do miss the spontaneity of rock bands being born and raw talents popping out of the blue like before’.
Tim: ‘More often than not today’s popular/chart music feels too ungenuine. The beat sounds the same, the lyrics are pretty uninspiring and there’s a feeling of soulless, manufacturing of music that is there to appeal to the masses that blindly listen to it because it’s in the charts and it’s annoyingly catchy. It’s a money-spinner for companies. The very fabric of music is being torn and frayed for the reasons of profit all the while people with real talent, real understanding and feeling of music and song-writing are left in the gutter because they don’t have the right amount of followers, they don’t look the part or they’re not as marketable as someone who’s willing to get their clobber off and eye-fuck the camera’.
Giorgio (drums):
‘I think the music industry has followed the same globalization trend that we have seen in many other industries, prioritising high and safe returns over free thinking and innovation. This has made much more difficult for new emerging artists to achieve visibility and has overall impoverished the musical offer.
‘However, this process is not irreversible. I believe change can happen, starting with small steps, both from the top and from the bottom. From the top, with Record Labels and distributors (like Spotify) allowing for specific programmes to fairly promote emerging artists. This already happens in many other industries and can be highly rewarding for both parties. And from the bottom, with us musicians and listeners getting back in our old habits of looking for new bands, listening to new tunes and going to a local live concert, finding some time to step away from the mainstream distribution. If we think about it, it is much easier now than it was in the past, with everything just one click away. In a couple of years, we may find ourselves interested in a much bigger variety of music styles and with a music industry much more receptive of our interests’.
The band are thankfully already back to gigging, with them not long having played their return gig at Fiddler’s Elbow in Camden. We had to ask them about it, of course!
‘[it was] The best. I mean, we anticipated it would feel pretty amazing and it ended up being ten times better. We had our first gig in about 16 months in Camden Town and the atmosphere was just electric. You could sense that the crowd was up for it, that something had been missing and we were all in there ready to rock as one. We just went hell for leather. We sweated the sweat of a year and a half’s worth of missed gigs. Unbelievably, that was also Giorgio our drummer’s first live gig with us since joining in February 2020’!
As usual here at Overtone we like to ask the bands what song they wish they could have written, and I have to say that Slow Mojo did not disappoint in their response:
Brighty( lead vox): ‘So many to pick from! All things considered and given that we play this as our favourite cover song, I’d have to say Folsom Prison Blues by Johnny Cash’.
‘For me personally, I think it would be Money for Nothing by Dire Straits. That song is just everything to me: one of the finest guitar riffs ever written; wonderfully wry social commentary in the lyrics; and road trips with my dad’.
Tim: ‘Lenny by Stevie Ray Vaughan. The man wrote the song for his wife and you can actually hear the love and emotion he has in the way he plays and attacks certain notes, it’s absolutely awe-inspiring’.
Giorgio: ‘oh, difficult one… Money by Pink Floyd maybe…’
We also ask the band what was next for them:
‘We are in fact right in the middle of recording our last few tunes for what is planned as an EP release this year. We do have a few more gigs lined up, to be confirmed, so we’ll keep everyone posted about that on our social media and we’re going full-on with festival season next year’.
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Manchester’s own hard rock band, We Three Kings, had the wonderful opportunity to be on stage for one of England’s first festivals of the (hopefully) post-Covid era, Rock & Blues. The band were playing in support of their latest single, ‘Walk’, the eighth release by the band across their 5+ years of existence.
‘Walk’ comes at a pivotal time not just for the band, but for the music industry in general. As the UK slowly comes out of its latest lockdown and festivals and venues are all open for business once more, the band are primed and ready to seize the rest of the year and make it their own.
So firstly, how was Rock & Blues?
‘Yeah it was great! First gig back in 18 months for us so that was a big event in itself. And then obviously any time you do a festival it’s a pretty cool experience, just to be surrounded by people that are up for seeing live music. Particularly that crowd, they were very much into the sort of music that we do so it went down really well. The weather was absolutely terrible so that was the only downside really! But then it wouldn’t be a British festival without it raining, would it?
‘But no it was good. A great experience, really good people, saw some other good bands, had a good time… just pleased to be back at it, really, doing gigs again more than anything.’
I imagine the crowd were pretty high energy too with it being most people’s first gig back?
‘Yeah absolutely, everyone seemed really up for it. It was a bit surreal being in a crowded place with lots of other people after all this time but you had to provide all your COVID information and everything when you got there so they’d done all the right things. Everybody was as safe as they could be in that respect.
‘We got some really good feedback on the day and a lot of good messages and stuff since the gig as well. It’s good, those sorts of opportunities are really good for getting yourself in front of the right audience and on a good platform. We enjoyed it and it’s given us a taste of getting back to gigging now so we want to get back at it!’
Do you have a plan from here? Do you have a goal in mind for the next 12 months?
‘Just getting up to speed really. We’re based in Manchester and we’ve got a few local promoters that we tend to work with quite regularly so we’re just starting to put some more dates in the diary over the next few months.
‘But, as a general trajectory, we want to try and get more of those sorts of opportunities. Often promoters can struggle to place us on the right bills with like-minded bands; they sometimes put us on with more indie crowds and sometimes with really heavy rock bands while we’re probably somewhere in between. So we want to work hard to get the right sorts of opportunities and get back to gigging.’
It did feel for a while that that sort of middle ground rock sound was beginning to fade, with bands either being indie or massively heavy, but it does feel like it is starting to see a resurgence.
‘Yeah, I don’t think the audience for it ever went away, it’s just like everything in that it comes in waves. For whatever reason guitar bands generally were out of fashion for a while [but] there seems to be a resurgence coming back now. People are starting to land in either that indie, Liam Gallagher kind of scene or they’re opting to go for the more classic rock revival or the more heavy stuff as well. The audiences are there, it’s just finding the right opportunities and the right channels to reach them.’
For people who aren’t so familiar with your music, what sort of genre would you describe yourself as?
‘I would say heavy blues or blues rock. Black Keys, White Stripes, Wolfmother, Royal Blood, that kind of thing. A very riff laden, buzzed up, beefy guitar sound, high energy, big vocals; that’s generally the sort of bands that tend to get referenced to us. Rival Sons is another big one that we get. Even Led Zeppelin, people tell us that they can pick up a bit of Zeppelin in what we do. Lots of good, positive references! You get those sort of names passed to you think ‘yep, that’s good, we’re obviously doing something right because they’re all great bands!’’
Outside of the bands you are compared to, are there any others that you would say are an influence to you guys?
‘There’s a couple of bands coming out of the States that we’ve seen that aren’t a million miles away from what we do. There’s a duo from Canada called The Blue Stones that are quite similar. There’s another band called Cleopatric that might again be from Canada actually. So there are smaller bands doing a similar sort of thing which gives us some encouragement that this is an audience for it and people out there want to hear it. Typically they tend to be in the States so maybe in the UK we’re a bit behind in terms of catching up to that sound but hopefully we’re heading in the right direction!’
So we unfortunately have to address the pandemic in the room. How’s it been for you guys over the last 18 months?
‘It’s been tough because obviously live music just ground to a halt so you don’t have those anchor points in the diary that you’re working towards. So all of a sudden you’re rudderless as a band because you’ve not got anything to work towards. That’s been a weird thing to get your head around. And just generally it’s been very stop start with the restrictions that have been in place in terms of getting together and rehearsing. In lockdown One (March-July) we shut down completely for two or three months like pretty much everybody did, didn’t even rehearse at all. We got back into writing through the summer and got a couple of tracks written, including ‘walk’ (find it here) so we did have a period of productivity there. Then we reached the winter months and we went back into another shutdown for a number of months. It’s only been since maybe April that we’ve been back at it and gradually things are opening up and getting back to some sort of normality. It’s been a really tough up and down 18 months.
‘We did manage to get into the studio in April and do a couple of recordings. We’ve just released one and we’ve got another in the can that we’re going to bring out towards the end of the year, most likely. It feels like we’ve got something to aim for now, we’re feeling good, but it was definitely hard. We’ve particularly felt for the small independent venues, a few of them that we’ve lost but a lot of them seem to have scraped through as well. Hopefully people will have more of an appetite for live music, having been away from them for so long.’
How was it trying to keep the ball rolling in terms of social media through it all?
‘To be honest with you that’s the biggest drag of being in a band, really, is having to keep your content flowing constantly. Sometimes you do feel like you’re just scratching around for things to talk about. We did a couple of little acoustic videos from home where we recorded all of our parts individually and patched them together, which was good fun. Just keeping up with a few photos and updates about what is going on too, really. When you’re in shutdown there’s only so much you can talk about, so it has been tricky. But back to normal now, and we have no shortage of things to pester people about now!’
Trying to up the positivity a little, what is your favourite part of the music industry?
There are two things really; playing live is what every band exists to do really so that’s the biggest buzz and payoff you get is when you’re on stage and you’re getting a really good reception. But also the creative process of starting with nothing and ending up with an original piece of music, a video and everything that surrounds that. And then to release that to the world and get a positive reception and you just think ‘we’re doing something right’. And when you’re old and grey you can look back at it and be proud that you made it. Even just getting together with your mates and making noise is enjoyable, as much hard work as it is!’
If there is one thing you could change about the music industry, what would it be?
‘The key one is that it can sometimes feel like a very closed shop for smaller bands and ones trying to break through; that no matter how hard you try, there is always this sense of no matter how hard you try it’s more a case of who you know or how much you can pay to get on the show or how many mates can you bring to a gig. Your music could be crap but if you can bring 100 mates it’s listed as successful. There’s a lot of disparity in terms of the music not being the key ingredient to being successful. It’s frustrating for us, there are so many outside factors working for or against a band instead of just their music being the core component of the product.’
You’ve said you’ve got a single just released, any plans for a full album?
‘We’re just going from single to single at the moment. We find for a band in our position is the best way to keep regular momentum up. We do have a decent enough back catalogue which we could put together as an album but for now we’re just focusing on singles. Three a year would be our typical cadence of releases. We’ve just put out ‘Walk’ and it’s been received really well so we’re riding that out at the moment. We have another to release by the end of the year and will hopefully get back to writing and recording soon so that by 2022 we’ll be back all guns blazing.’
Do you prefer the more staggered releases of singles over dropping an album every few years or so, then?
‘It all comes down to resources at the end of the day. How much time and money have you got to be in a band and what is going to give you the best return on the investment you are making. For us, we find that the single to single approach is best for us right now. If we put an album together, whilst it would be a great thing to have and to have achieved, I don’t think we’d get the same return as our singles. Maybe one day it is something we’d like to do, but it isn’t right for us at the moment.’
Time for the million dollar question: If you could have written one song from history, what would it be?
‘It’s not necessarily our sound, but ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ is a completely unique, one-off track. How someone even sits down and writes that is beyond me, so I’d say that.
‘If it’s something closer to what we do then you could probably pick one of a dozen Led Zepplin songs that are absolutely epic and we could relate to in terms of playing. But there are a LOT of good songs out there, so I’d say ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ if I had to put my name on one!’
With the new single, is it much different to your previous work in terms of direction and sound?
‘With this release we’ve worked with a new producer, Joe Sage of Nevis Audio, and it’s the first time we’ve worked with him so if you compare the track back to our previous stuff there is a bit of a difference in terms of production style. We’ve also just gone all guns blazing with this track, since it’s been so long away with COVID, we wanted something that would hit you straight between the eyes and be upfront and in your face. Our other recording is a little less in your face but we’re still excited about that as well. Typically our songs fit into quite a clear genre so it’s not a massive departure from the stuff we’ve done previously but you’re always trying to evolve as a songwriter and make it better than the last one, and we think we’ve done that here.’
Have you got any gigs in the pipeline?
We’ve not got anything until October now but that’ll be a local gig in Manchester on the 22nd. We keep our socials up to date in terms of new dates in the diary though so anyone who’s interested keep an eye on those!
Follow the band through all the usual channels under We Three Kings, and keep up to date on our other interviews here.
Unknown Refuge are a hard rock/metal band from Bolton, England. Having been on the scene for a few years now, the guys have gained growing support and notoriety across the UK and played notable shows such as Manchester’s Band on the Wall and even the inaugural Stonedeaf festival. The band do not try to pigeonhole themselves into one particular sound and take inspiration from a range of influencers from ‘Iron maiden and Metallica to Volbeat, Alter bridge and Slash.’ We got the chance to sit down with the frontman of the band, Alex, and ask him a few questions about where the band is headed, the music world in general, and their newest album, ‘Into the Light.’
Alex shows a lot of love for the latter band of their influences, stating that it is Slash’s solo project with Myles Kennedy that got him into wanting to perform in the first place:
“I went to my first gig to see Slash, Myles Kennedy and the Conspirators with my mum and I remember just thinking wow that would be amazing. Ever since then I had been interested in being in bands and writing and performing my music. They’ve both been my influences ever since.”
‘Into the Light’ was released back in March last year to massive acclaim. Heck, I reviewed it very positively at my old place and it still remains up there with some of my favourite albums of the year so far. They even managed to work on the majority of it over the last year or so of lockdowns.
“Well luckily for us we had the album to promote and get in order so we were all still busy with it. Along with writing some new material and getting ourselves ready to release a new album, we’ve had plenty to do so I do feel for the bands though that haven’t quite had our luck and just been left for over a year.”
When speaking about the success of their debut and the potential follow-up, Alex said:
“Well we’re already writing new material, whether or not that gets properly recorded soon or if we’ll wait to release a new album we are not quite so sure. The support we’ve had with the first album has been incredible and hopefully our second album will be even stronger.”
Having been a part of the music scene for a few years now, they have a pretty good understanding of how it all works. We asked them what their favourite and least favourite parts of it were:
“I’d say personally I love performing songs which we have written ourselves, songs we have put our thoughts, emotions, feelings and skills into creating. But what makes this possible is the people at shows and fans and to see people enjoying it is what makes me love continuing to do so.
“I’d say places like Spotify where people listen to music, however the artist receives a ridiculously small amount of money from this. I hope this changes because for small bands having that bit extra cash to help the band grow can mean the world.
“I miss being able to interact with people of the same mind and all the fans that we would usually go and have a pint with, that’s the part I’ve missed the most. Probably just because it means I’ve got to spend time with the other band members instead.”
It wouldn’t be an Overtone interview either if we didn’t ask about what song he would have wanted to have written, right?
“It would probably have to be something like Master Of Puppets or The Trooper – just 2 of the best metal anthems ever written in my opinion.”
Finally, we tried to get an inside scoop into anything they have coming up in the immediate future:
“Well when venues open it will just be to do as many gigs as possible. We’ve missed being on the stage and amongst writing some new material I would love to just get out and gig again. Hopefully we’ll see gigs come back and with the lack of them over the last year they’ll come back better than before.”
Check out the up and coming hard rock band on their Instagram too from here.
The pilot of the brand-new music show ‘Amped’ is set to be filmed in November this year at the Waterloo Music Bar in Blackpool, hosted by journalist Anne Estella and frontman Brad Marr.
Completely unscripted, the programme is designed to capture the energy and the atmosphere of a live rock show as well as put emerging young talent on centre stage. Amped is all about supporting and broadcasting up-and-coming UK rock, covering different branches of the genre.
“It’s all about the new talent”
The programme will feature three new wave rock bands in every episode. Filmed as a live gig with behind-the-scenes interviews, the show’s loose structure will allow viewers to get a down-to-earth perspective of bands and artists before, during and after their performance.
Anne Estella said: “Rock TV shows have been going since back in the day. We all grew up with one, anyone from my generation and older, but the current generation doesn’t have one. I want to see new rock bands on TV and so I made it my mission – that’s what I was going to do.”
“I’m hoping for a couple of surprises and something a little bit different than your average gig.”
With an extensive history in the music scene, Anne Estella described Brad Marr as the ideal partner to host with due to his interest and knowledge of the UK rock community.
Brad Marr has some background in radio and TV when he lived in Australia, but Amped is set to bring on a new and exciting dynamic for the singer.
Talking about the inspiration and the driving force behind Amped, Brad Marr said: “There’s social media, there’s YouTube. But what’s better than just having to search for it? Having a central location where you can click on and watch a TV show and find something new without having to search for it. We bring it to the people so that’s the reason.”
When asked why is now the right time for a rock show like Amped, Anne Estella said: “I feel there’s been a real evolution, especially in the UK, with a new wave of classic rock. It started in 2017 and it’s become a genre in itself which is incredible, and so many people are really backing it up. We’re seeing it now but it’s still a very small community compared to other genres, for example. Writing is something I’ve done for a long time and I’ve got my YouTube channel and Brad’s got his podcast.
“I always felt there must be something more and now is the time to do it. We’ve got the most amazing talented bands over here. If not now, when are we going to do it? Now’s the time.”
“Every time you go there it feels like home”
The first episode of Amped will be filmed at the Waterloo Music Bar in Blackpool which is promoted as “a venue for musicians ran by musicians.”
Brad Marr said: “I think the Waterloo is perfect for what we’re doing because it’s a musicians bar run by musicians for musicians. Their entire set up is for musicians. They could make a lot more money if they spent more money on food or whatever they wanted to, but they want to be a band venue and that’s exactly what this TV show is about – supporting the bands. It’s a match made in heaven.
“I’ve made a lot of drunken bad decisions in the Waterloo many times and even though it’s a long way from home for me, every time you go there it feels like home because it’s a musician’s place. It’s exactly what musicians need when they’re on the road. It’s this cool home-like pub that you know supports musicians so it’s perfect for us.”
Want to get involved with Amped? You can.
In the future, there might even be an application process in place for bands, artists and their biggest fans worldwide to put new talent forward to be included in the programme.
Anne Estella said: “I don’t have any specific bands in mind. If they’re good they’re good, right? It can be a tiny band that nobody’s heard of or it can be bigger bands. I don’t want anyone too big because that’s not the point of the show. We want to be supportive of the up and coming talent. Each time for each episode I want it to be a nice selection of different styles within the rock genre which we definitely have for the pilot.”
