Secret Admirer

ADAM GOLIGHTLY Interview

2012-02-04T10:05:00.000-08:00

Interview Date: 30/01/2012
Interview Location: On the train from Birmingham New Street to Perry Barr (Pezza B)

Forget one man and his dog.
It’s all about one man and his guitar.

Secret Admirer threw some questions at acoustic-enthusiast Adam Golightly on a train after looking around a nifty independent record store and taking some pictures. Adam was visiting Birmingham strictly on business. Later that night he performed live on the New Music show with Ant Lee and Jack Parker on Scratch Radio (www.scratchradio.co.uk).
Boomshackalacka.

Are you ready?

Yeah.

When did you start writing songs of your own?

I started playing guitar when I was about eleven or twelve. As soon as I started learning chords, I started to write. I was around about 15, 16 when I had my first band and started playing out live. I started working on it at home and did gigs, got some feedback and just kept going really. That was five or six years ago.

Dedication.

Yeah.

What’s your favourite song that you have written out of all of them?

Probably my new one, one of my new ones; which I am going to play tonight. It’s quite a slow one but it’s quite meaningful and it’s about someone else for once. A lot of my music is about me, basically. It’s good to write from another perspective. That’s probably why it’s my favourite as well.

Do you have a favourite song you like to cover?

I don’t really cover many songs really.

That’s a good thing.

I do a Johnny Cash cover though; ‘Folsom Prison Blues’. I’m a bit lazy though, I don’t really learn songs. I probably should, probably should start doing that actually.

If you have original stuff of your own, I think that’s much better than covering other people’s songs.

I feel more comfortable playing my own. And if I do a cover, I usually have my own meaning out of the song. I can’t really perform it otherwise, if that makes sense.

What influences your song writing?

I’ve been listening to a lot of Laura Marling, Damien Rice, Carl Barat’s solo album and The Libertines.

I haven’t heard his solo album, is it good?

It’s fantastic, yeah. Saw him last year actually. So he’s a big influence now, and Pete Doherty as well and then people like Bob Dylan and Neil Young. Back in the day, you know, old stuff, Johnny Cash.

What has been your favourite gig to play so far?

I enjoyed playing with my college band at The Roadmender in Northampton. That was fun because it was quite a big gig. Solo shows, I played a charity gig a few months ago which was for YMCA. Which is a good cause so it was really fun meeting new musicians and stuff. That was probably my favourite so far.

Would you ever consider switching to an electric guitar?

I first started to play electric before when I was in the band, funk stuff. So, I switched to acoustic and it’s always been there. I use it to back up my music when recording. But if I got a band going I think I would yeah. I’m comfortable playing electric guitar, bit of both.

Like Bob Dylan when he switched, but a lot of people hated him for it. Hopefully they wouldn’t hate you as well.

(Laughs) Tread carefully.

Are there any artists you’d like to collaborate with?

Probably the people I’ve mentioned but I guess it’s not possible. But I’d like to work with Carl Barat, I think that would be fantastic, Laura Marling definitely. I think…there’s probably loads but most of them are dead though to be honest. Like Kurt Cobain, I’d love to collaborate with him. Yeah, Laura Marling I think would be awesome.

What music of yours can people get hold of at the moment?

My first EP was released two years ago, it’s the ‘Toy Town’ EP. It’s on Itunes and stuff and all the websites and stuff so that’s available for download at the moment. I’m releasing a new one in a couple of months with a fresh sound, a developed sound. So that’ll be out in a couple of months.

What websites do you like using most to promote your music?

I’m on Soundcloud and MySpace. Actually I deleted my MySpace because no one uses it. But I’m on Facebook, pretty much everything, I’m on Twitter. The lot really, YouTube, I’m on most of them.

If you could soundtrack a film, which one would you choose?

That’s a good question.

Any film that you like that exists or is going to exist.

I watched a film called Welcome To The Rileys the other night that was really good. My music would probably fit to that sort of film. It’s a bit dark, so yeah.

Nice. Is there any song you wish you’d written?

Thousands! Probably a Nirvana song, ‘Come As You Are’ I think. Or some of their more obscure stuff. It’s an amazing tune, I wish I had the mind-set to write that.

Have you got any future plans for albums, EPs and gigs?

I’ve got a gig coming up in Northampton; it’s at The Bat And Wicket, small pub. And EPs, I got an EP coming out in a couple of months. Halfway through recording that, I’m really looking forward to getting that done and releasing it.

Awesome.

So yeah, that’s my next project.

Thanks man!

http://soundcloud.com/adam-golightly

Photography by Jack Parker

TUBELORD Interview

2012-02-02T05:07:00.000-08:00

Jo from Tubelord (left) with sweaty fanboy (right)

Interview Date: 26/01/2012
Interview Location: The Flapper, Birmingham

Like a cult film, Tubelord will be in the cultural canon of the underground for a long time. Like a cult film, Tubelord will be appreciated almost secretly by many but never publicly by the masses. Like a cult film, Tubelord are an acquired taste.

But unlike cult films, Tubelord are not a film, they are a most excellent band.

And they were nice enough to take some time to answer some questions from Secret Admirer that they have probably answered a hundred times over already.

Why did you choose the name Tubelord?

James: Dave.

Dave: Owweee. Tom!

Tom: I wasn’t even in the band then!

Dave: Precisely. Next question.

Ok. Why did you start the band?

Dave: Why? Because we were at college and we had music studio classes and Jo was like: oi dave, you play the drums and I was like yes I do. He said: come on, we’ve got the studio booked on Tuesday evening, do you want to come and play some drums and I was like: yeah. Then after a couple of weeks we were like: we should start a band, we’ve already got some songs and they are already recorded. So there you go, it’s pretty easy isn’t it?

Jo: It’s really easy.

How did your first gig go as a band?

Jo: The first gig?

Yeah, the first one you ever played.

Jo: Yeah, it was pretty easy. It was in Dave’s house.

Dave: Shit! So it was! We supported my other band.

Jo: I think the guitarist broke a string and then I went to get my guitar for him to play but he unplugged his guitar and plugged it into my guitar and told me to carry on playing. He went on the keyboard and then it pretty much turned into a two hour jam thing. Sean on drums, I don’t know.

Dave: It was wicked fun. Basically we had this idea, it was like sick man, we’ll do party at mine and we’ll have bands playing at it’ll be sweet. Everyone was like wicked, garden, stay out in the garden. Smoke, drink, oh there is a band playing, I can still hear you talking outside so we’ll stay outside. It was just basically a bad jam at 2am in the morning. It was great fun. Well good.

Jo: I think someone threw up on your carpet.

Dave: Yeah! I got him back. We had a fire extinguisher fight in his halls when he was at uni and he got a massive fine. So I had to pay for industrial carpet cleaner and he had to pay the fine so we are even now.

What was the first song you wrote together as a band?

Jo: The first proper recorded one was ‘Death Of A Digital Alarm Clock’ and I think there were two more before that.

Dave: And that real post-rock one.

Jo: That eighteen minute long…

Dave: That was so much fun. Basically we just completed post-rock and we moved on. We were a post-rock band for one song.

Tom: You completed the level.

Dave: Then we were like: this is fucking easy, we’ll leave it to drunk Scotsman.

Jo: Tall Ships never quite got over it.

What’s been your favourite place to play gigs so far?

Jo: Coventry. Awesome place.

Do you have a lot of fans there?

Jo: We have about 12 fans there.

Are they dedicated?

Jo: Yeah, yeah. They come from as far as Birmingham and things.

That’s cool. Do you have any creepy fans at all?

Jo: Dave’s had a few. Dave’s had a fair few. James has had the most though, in Europe.

Dave: They actually forced him to have sex with them, so…

James: They’re not creepy.

Dave: The one with the metal underwear was pretty fucking weird. There was this girl, she was well into Lord Of The Rings and was wearing Lord Of The Rings underwear.

Do you want to go further into that or…no?

Dave: Actually there was a dude the other night who wanted me to sign his Game Station card. I was like: if they actually bother to check, you won’t get any gamer points. I was like: you won’t get any gamer points then, why would you bother? And he seemed like the guy who probably would get a lot of gamer points. A lot more than I ever would, so it seemed really creepy, yeah.

That is pretty weird. Did he want you to sign it so it was your card or something?

Dave: Well yeah…but then it was for him. It wasn’t like he was giving me a gamer card with ridiculous amounts of points on it.

That’s weird, there’s no logic…

Dave: No. None. Absolutely none. I think he had ulterior motives to be honest but I’m not sure what they were.

James: I think he was trying to steal your identity.

Dave: Probably that. Or at least my Game Station identity.

James: He’s using your Dave Game Station account.

Dave: This is going on the Internet idiot! Everyone’s going to steal it!

James: They need to know.

What’s your favourite song to play live?

Jo: Propeller

James: Tears For Fears.

Dave: Oh yeah there’s this song by Tears For Fears, it’s called ‘Shout’. We play that.

Do you do a cover of it?

Dave: Yeah it’s the shortest cover ever, it’s also hidden within the songs.

James: Secret cover.

Dave: It’s a secret cover, that’s really fun to play. I’ve enjoyed playing ‘Tidy Diggs’. Is that the last track on the album?

Jo: Yes.

Dave: We’re playing that one live and that’s the last song of the album that we learnt to play so that’s the freshest so I think that’s the most fun. But that changes day to day.

"I’m not going to list the reasons why humans like music" - Jo

Do you prefer your first or second album? Do you have a favourite out of the two?

Dave: To play or to listen to?

Just generally as a completed work, do you have one you prefer?

Dave: I think we harbour some resentment towards our first album.

Really?

Dave: Yeah not because of the music just because of everything else around it which no one else is obviously aware of. So in that sense, probably the second album. Jo is nodding.

James: We weren’t even on the first album.

Dave: Yeah so they haven’t really got a choice.

Tom: It’s shit.

Dave: Yeah I think we are all pretty happy with the second album. It’s definitely more us right now. What you are getting in front of you, four guys watching Batman too much.

Do you have any plans for a third album?

Dave: Dunno.

Jo: Not as yet.

Do you intend to keep writing music?

Dave: Dunno.

Jo: Not as yet.

Dave: Not as yet. We’ll see. We’ll get to the end of this tour and see what happens.

Jo: Chance would be a fine thing.

Dave: Isn’t it change would be a fine thing? Or is it chance…

Jo: What else can we pull out as answers? What else is there?

James: Take it or leave it?

Dave: Yeah take it or leave it.

Jo: I’ll tell you something for free…that’s one as well.

Dave: It totally was not in the box. Definitely not a red card.

Are there any other bands you like playing shows with?

Jo: Oh you put that in there because you know we were gonna say Drool.

You could say Drool, you don’t have to.

Jo: (Laughs) Yeah Drool, they are pretty good.

Dave: (Laughs) Good choice, isn’t it?

Jo: All we talk about is Drool and their…

Dave: Olympians from Norwich are soundchecking downstairs. They are really fun to play shows with.

Jo: Not as fun as Drool though.

Dave: No probably not as fun. True.

James: There’s this band called Drool.

Dave: There’s this band that was called Blakfish that are now called &U&I, they’re pretty fun to play shows with. That’s probably it.

James: There’s this band called Foo Fighters. I reckon they’d be really fun to play shows with.

If you could soundtrack a film, which one would you choose?

Tom: Sound-check a film?

Dave: Soundtrack!

James: What?

Tom: Alien.

Dave: Which one? Just Alien?

Tom: All of them. The Alien quadrilogy.

Dave: The boxset. I’ve never seen them, I’ve only ever listened to them, so…

James: That makes you even more in a prime position to do the soundtrack.

Dave: I did notice that there is very little music.

Jo: In the second one there is loads, too much.

Dave: Yeah but not compared to something amazing like Jurassic Park. That’s basically a musical. And I’m not complaining about that, just for the record. John Williams did a fine, fine piece of work on that album. That film even…

James: I’d like to do a nu-metal soundtrack to Jurassic Park, like, replace the orchestral score…

Dave: Yes!

James: In kind of like the way that low budget action films always have fairly limp nu-metal soundtracks. It’d be ace to do one of them.

Dave: Yeah like that Mission Impossible, they used Metallica wasn’t it? That was lame! Yeah, something like that.

Something lame.

Dave: Yeah, something well lame.

What do you want people to get from listening to your music?

Jo: What do they get?

Is there anything you’d like them to get?

Jo: What we want people to get.

If there is anything at all.

Jo: Not sure. Why do people listen to our music?

Dave: Because they want to. Because they like it.

Jo: I’m not going to list the reasons why humans like music.

Dave: Peer pressure I think.

Jo: It’s going to fall under one of those taglines.

Tom: It makes them happy, let’s just say that.

Jo: A lot of people, especially on this tour, seem to always be really happy that we’ve arrived and we’re playing because they have seen us before or because the songs are quite happy. Like ‘Night Of The Pencils’, that’s quite a happy song.

Dave: Yeah, if music makes you happy then go and see it.

Jo: When you listen to Tubelord you don’t tend to sit back and reflect on much. It’s more of a band that you’d listen to, to get you up and going. A lot of people have said it’s quite good to run to.

Dave: It’s active instead of passive.

Jo: Yeah.

Do you like playing in Birmingham?

Jo: Yeah. Played The Rainbow last time which was fun. Always good in Birmingham.

Tom: We always have fun at Off The Cuff.

Dave: Yeah, that’s good. They are doing a stage at a festival this summer I think. Might be the truth, might not be a lie, that’d be good. What’s it? They are curating a stage at a festival. I think Y Not? Festival but I’m not sure. I think that would be amazing, because they are bang on it.

Thanks for your time guys.

Dave: Thank you.

Jo: No worries man.

http://asktubelord.com/

NEW CARNIVAL Interview

2012-01-28T05:48:00.000-08:00

NEW CARNIVAL
Max Radford – Singer / guitarist / lyricist
Billy Foster – Bassist / Synth player
Bertie Crawley – Drummer

Interview Date: 19/01/2012

New Carnival are standing up and getting noticed in amongst the carnival of the internet: music’s new home.

Secret Admirer met the New Carnival boys before their gig for This Is Tomorrow at the Hare and Hounds supporting Casio Kids in Birmingham. We had a nice chat in The Victoria pub. Secret Admirer hardly had to ask them anything, they were more than happy to talk. Torture simply wasn’t necessary.

Are you guys excited for your gig today?

Billy Foster: Yeah, definitely! We brought a crowd from University so that should go down well. It’s only an opening slot but it’s with Casiokids, who we are big fans of so…you guys looking forward to it?

Max Radford: Yeah, should be real good.

This Is Tomorrow are really good promoters.

Billy: They were very professional with us, I emailed them and they emailed back in literally two minutes.

Did you contact them then about the show?

Billy: I found them…I looked up Hare And Hounds on the internet and I looked at the promotion nights for them. This Is Tomorrow came up and they offered us another gig but it was too short notice. Then they said; we’ve got a slot with Casiokids, is that alright? And we jumped at it.

Max: Are you in a band?

Yeah, but we don’t have to talk about that.

The New Carnival boys share a laugh.

Max: What’s it called?

We are called Drool. We are like a punk band.

Billy: How did you hear about us?

It was through This Is Tomorrow putting you on tonight. Then I listened to you on your Soundcloud and I really liked it.

Billy: Soundcloud seems to have done really well.

Soundcloud is awesome, it’s my favourite!

Max: We’ve given up with MySpace.

MySpace is dead.

Bertie Crawley: So 2005… (laughs)

Max: It’s not got a good look either. Soundcloud is so much more immediate. And also I like the fact that you can see the waves. I was talking to a mate about it and we were like: you can tell if that’s going to be a good song from the waves.

Bertie: It’s building up, I can see it!

Max: You’re like, awww it’s going to…

You can see where it kicks in.

Max: Yeah!

Bertie: Also, the media player on MySpace is shit.

MySpace used to look good I thought, quite…alright then they re-did it and it didn’t look as good.

Billy: Yeah.

So when did your band start?

Billy: We started…erm…maybe two years ago? How did it happen, we were jamming…

Max: Me and Billy were sort of jamming. We were actually playing folk music, Billy was on double bass, I was playing a banjo. It was when folk was quite exciting. Then we were like: oh it would be nice to stop playing the same three chords all the time and start playing something a little more interesting. We gave Bertie a call and started actually playing jazz, sort of like, ambient, quite ambient jazz. I think Bertie got quite bored, sort of like…

Bertie laughs at the mention of previous musical experimentation.

Max: He wasn’t really sticking to a rhythm. So then we started putting more of these 4/4 beats over the top. And then sort of started taking some of the jazz-like guitar lines and making them into dance, more dance orientated riffs. And then just started to make real songs that sounded quite…

Billy: Started incorporating more electronic equipment in there as well, samplers and synths and triggering stuff off with effects pedals. Very different from when we started.

Max: It’s very funny and we are enjoying have some more electronic sounds in there. I just got the SPS, the drum pad and we’ve got a new track that we just made called ‘Let Me Shake’ and we’ve got all of this whole like…it’s like African drumming over the top. But with like an electro-y sounding bass and snare over the top of it. Then Bertie plays over the top of that.

Bertie: It’s a lot of drums. Always good.

Max: It’s really percussion-y.

Billy: We’ll play that tonight actually.

Why did you choose the name New Carnival? Is there a reason behind it?

Billy: We thought ‘carnival’ went well with the sound. And the ‘new’, well, we were listening to a bit of New Order at the time…and we played with a lot of different names at the time.

Max: The name is the killer thing to decide. Unless you’ve just got something, I guess it’s like getting a tattoo, like: that’s what I want then you just do it. We didn’t have that, we didn’t go: oh, we want to be called that. We started off as Pelican Brief.

Billy: I quite like that; it’s the name of a film.

Max: I thought that was quite fun but then I thought, actually, you’ve got to think of all your hits. It’s not as romantic as people like to think. You’ve got to think about hits on sites and what’s going to come up on searches and what’s not, as in on the internet. So we settled for New Carnival, which…

Billy: We were Callay for a bit and that didn’t work.

Max: We then found out that New Carnival is a Nintendo game.

Billy: It’s a Nintendo game seller.

Bertie: But fortunately we…they hadn’t built a website so we own the website rights so that’s quite cool.

Max: So yeah, that’s seemed to of stuck. It’s difficult with a name because when you say it, you can’t be embarrassed by it, you can’t be shy of it. New Carnival, we all agreed on it.

How did your first gig go as New Carnival?

Max: Our first gig, was like, unbelievable!

Bertie: Probably our best.

Max: Yeah, we were in Cheltenham, in a place called The Two Pigs. First gig that wasn’t in our living room or to some friends and it was unbelievable, there was a proper mosh pit going on and no one knew our songs or anything. In half an hour we just came off and we were like: what is going on?

Billy: There were these boys and they looked pretty normal and they just started moshing at the front. There must have been maximum forty, fifty people in the crowd.

Bertie: I was just scared to look up!

Billy: They just started chanting ‘drum solo!’ at you, didn’t they?

Bertie: They just came in as we started playing, started kicking off and started the crowd completely going. They all just went boom, off, and went mental. We were like: oh, this is how it works, this is a lot of fun.

Billy: Fond memories.

Max: It was a good starter. It was quite out of the blue.

Billy: And it was supporting Pegasus Bridge, who just recently broke up but they were doing really well.

“Shit, this is actually quite intense” – Max Radford

Max: Then it went down-hill a little bit from there but then we said we’ve got to play in London.

Bertie: The first London gig was good actually.

Max: We played two first gigs then we were like…well first and second gig. You can’t really have two first gigs. The second one was our first London gig. Which we just got a random email for, literally out the blue through MySpace.

It’s not that bad then.

Max: We forgave MySpace after that. Since then it’s never given us any joy so we’ve given up on it again but we got this email and it was like: do you want to headline a gig in Shoreditch? At a place called The Catch…

Billy: Catch 22.

Max: Yeah so we invited everyone under the sun and we were like: everyone’s gotta be there. It’s make or break! We were sort of naïve at the time that one gig in London…we’d make it from there. We’d be in NME next week and supporting Foals the following Wednesday. But that didn’t happen. But it was a really good turn out and after that we played loads of pretty shitty London gigs. Ten to twenty people there…

Billy: You had to promise to bring twenty people.

Max: The promoters weren’t even there at the door when you arrived.

Bertie: Since that we’ve been doing a lot of more spaced out gigs, making sure we pack them out and make sure they’re fun and getting the mood right. That’s sort of what we are focussing on more.

Max: Since we did a self-release of ‘You Can Call Me Thomas’ in October.

Billy: It was October 24^th because it’s my dad’s birthday so I always remember it.

Max: Since then things have really gone up. Like all our views and stuff, it’s all sky-rocketed. Then we got loads and loads of emails from America! Because we got onto this thing called The Hype Machine, on the chart. I was talking to some girl who was American and she didn’t know anything about us and she was like, because we were talking about music, I use The Hype Machine to find all the good music and it’s massive in America. I was like cool because it makes all the sense. We got to number fifteen on the download chart on Hype Machine. And we were like, this is literally the most exciting thing ever.

Billy: The catch comes that it wasn’t because people were downloading millions of our track because you are only on it for three days.

Max: No but we were still on loads of blogs and stuff.

Bertie: And we started getting emails like you said, from the U.S, asking us: do you have any representation? We had a brilliant email from a guy the other day who was describing that he was clearly quite a keen fan and he asked us if we wanted some representation.

Max: Yeah it turned out he wasn’t anything to do with anything. He just sent us an email and we were like thanks very much, no we don’t. And that was pretty much it.

Bertie: We are trying to get an EP out in a couple of months time…

Max: Yeah, in April. We are recording.

Bertie: The guy is coming tonight actually, the producer.

Who are you working with?

Max: Erm, his name…

Bertie: Andrew Halford. He’s just recorded an album for the band called Trophy Wife.

Max: Yeah he produces all the Trophy Wife tracks.

Billy: They might be coming tonight actually…

Bertie: No they have gone back to Oxford.

Max: Yeah we are really excited about that because we worked with…we are hoping to release a single before we do the EP. But we basically need some label backing. So we are sort of approaching the smaller labels or we are planning to. We got interest from this American guy and then I literally sent him an email yesterday and he hasn’t got back to me yet. So we don’t know about that but hopefully sometime in the next month or so we’ll get something out. All our previous recordings have all been done ourselves. We’ve produced them and recorded them. And so it would be really good to get out something that’s…because we were in the studio last summer recording a track called ‘We Make Circles’. That’ll be our single I think. And then bring out the EP and then hopefully we can get a stable standing block. That you could go from there, which would be cool. I guess we just gotta keep playing gigs and stuff and having a good time.

Do you feel like you are getting a fan base yet?

Bertie: We did a gig not long ago in Bristol and that was really good, that was really packed. And when we go up to London people turn up not because they have any affiliation to us but because they’ve heard good things about the music. When that happens it’s really exciting.

Billy: I think more than anything its fan loyalty and people are generally more interested than we realised. When we did a gig before Christmas in Bristol, I tried to work it out and I got about 150 but apparently there was 200 people there. And then we did Barfly in Camden on the 7^th January and there was a 100 people in there.

Max: We also try to make our sets more exciting, not exciting, more like fun. When we started we played quite dark…dark indie.

Bertie: It was quite intense.

Max: And then we were like: shit, this is actually quite intense. It was more of a sit down and listen job than like: aww, I’ll go out and see these guys, it’ll be fun. Then I really started getting into my dance music and stuff like that. I was like: actually this is what people go out to. Suddenly we were like that is so much more fun to play, everyone boogying and what not. And then we started doing that and people responded way better to it. Because they come again and you know because a lot of people say it’s a fun night out and that’s what we wanted when we started going in that direction. It’s good fun and also I think as far as fan bases go, it’s quite nice when someone brings other people. It’s just that expansion effect when someone brings someone and they bring another person. It just keeps filtering through. So this time, for this gig we’ve got one mate in Birmingham, we played his house party a couple of weeks ago. No, a month ago, ages ago wasn’t it?

Billy: Late November.

Bertie: That was awesome.

Max: That was really fun, it was packed in this tiny room and it was really cool, really fun.

Bertie: Everyone was going nuts.

Max: We think they will be there and it’s quite cool not to know your fans. You get your friends along and you always have a nice time but it’s pretty cool when you don’t know anyone and they are like: oh, I really like your stuff.

Billy: One guy I didn’t know that well text me and said can I have fifteen tickets for tonight. Well of course you can! That’s really really encouraging to hear that.

Do you play a lot of house shows then?

Max: We…last summer we played a lot of private parties. In the summer you play more outside but I like it when it’s inside and it’s like really sweaty. We’ve done a few of them though and they’ve been really fun.

Billy: Where people are literally in your grill.

Max: Yeah, falling.

Billy: One time I nearly hit someone with my guitar.

Max: Yeah and he got drinks everywhere.

Bertie: That’s really good.

Max: When it’s just wall to wall shouting.

Billy: Max’s pedals are dying a death because people keep dropping beers on them.

Max: It is a bit of a nightmare but it’s a lot of fun. Basically it’s just awesome when people are having a good time. It’s genuinely perfect.

Billy: It’s exactly what we are aiming for.

Max: Yeah, basically, and if they like the music then that’s fantastic. As long as they are boogying and having a good time, that’s important. I like house parties a lot. At the moment we are first year university, next year when we’ve got houses and what not we’ll set up a few parties. I think it’ll be quite cool.

Come and play my house too.

Bertie: Yeah that would be really cool.

Billy: We’d love to.

Max: Yeah let’s do it. We’re in.

Nice one. Are there any other bands you like playing shows with?

Bertie: We’ve supported Trophy Wife before.

Max: Those guys are a lot of fun.

Billy: Yeah we love them. Who was it…? Love In The Asylum!

Max: Yeah they were fun. I don’t think they’d remember us though which is sad.

Billy: They were playing before us and I remember thinking: god, we can’t compete with that.

Max: A Genuine Freak Show we played with which was like watching Sigur Ros.

Bertie: They were technically perfect.

Max: They had strings and stuff on stage and we were like just three of us crammed in. The crowd watching us was their band, we were like: shit, big crowd tonight! And they all just went on stage, they were all in the band. (Laughs) But we often get put with a lot of bad bands.

Bertie: We got put on a night down near guild hall, for some bizarre reason they put us on with only heavy metal bands. We turned up playing, I don’t know, it was ridiculous. We were playing dance music and these guys just go on with like hair down to their knees and just screamed.

Billy: There was one band, they were a heavy metal hardcore band and they had a drummer, two acoustic guitars which they put pick-ups onto and they were thrashing out with loads of distortion and screaming. I just couldn’t understand it, two acoustic guitars, where’s that coming from?

Bertie: I think there is more heavy metal bands than any other band. It goes with the image, you have to be in a band. There are lots of them about. Recently we’ve done alright but when we used to do loads and loads of gigs, it felt very strange.

Billy: That’s why I’m so excited about tonight because we’ve really been matched well with the other bands. Couldn’t ask for more. There’s been a change because Swim Deep I think dropped out and it’s Silver Souvenirs now. I look at them and they are really quite close to our sound, it’s slightly guitar based dance music. It’s just really great to be put with them.

It’s This Is Tomorrow’s mission to put on gigs where the bands share a similar sound.

Max: Well it makes sense doesn’t it? To have a night with a complete mix of music just messes with your mind a little bit.

Bertie: What’s the venue like?

It looks like a normal pub then you go upstairs and it’s a huge gig room.

Max: We are pleased because I’d like to watch Casio Kids anyway. It was the same with Trophy Wife actually. We found out we were playing with them and we were like: that is fantastic because we are big big fans of Trophy Wife. So we get in free and play in the same place.

Billy: Get a dressing room next to them.

What gigs have you got coming up this year?

Max: We haven’t got that much actually, we need to organise another one in Bristol really. Which is important but we are trying to limit it to like once a term really because otherwise…because we’d prefer to do one massive gig than lots of little ones.

Billy: Unless it’s like a house party or a private gig. But in terms of public gigs we’d like to do one Bristol, one London, one Birmingham…

Max: Yeah but to be honest at the moment we’re looking to do recordings and videos. We’ll do live shows probably more for practice than anything gaining wise. Because we haven’t got anything to promote otherwise it’s sort of wasted gigs if you haven’t got CDs to sell. So we want to get some merchandise out there. We need t-shirts.

Every band needs a good t-shirt.

Max: We need some art-work and we need to get onto it. We have a way of writing New Carnival that we like. We need a picture that we are like: we like that a lot. Hopefully it will go well.

Thanks for your time guys.

Billy: Thanks for having us.

http://www.facebook.com/newcarnival

Photography by Jack Parker

CORELLI Interview

2011-12-02T05:53:00.000-08:00

Secret Admirer had the pleasure of interviewing Marcus Hutton and Tommy Greaves, the writing duo behind the band Corelli in Tommy’s car.

As well as finishing songs together, they are very good at finishing each other's sentences.

Secret Admirer took our good friend Nick Doyle (Flaming Fields) along for the ride.
Get it? Ride.

Before we got down to talking about the band however, an important discussion about car air fresheners was taking place. Tommy had to express his love for his dangling smiley car freshener before we could go any further.

Tommy Greaves: It’s the boy this is, the boy rides up front, always.

Shotgun, he calls shotgun.

Tommy: Yeah, he’s mid-ship. It’s the ultimate place.

Right, when did the band start?

Tommy: Originally, long long ago, it started with me, me and Harris and Smalley. But in the way we are now, we used to rehearse and I used to sing. And Marc joined…well we looked for a singer and Smiley used to play football with him. And well, you are probably best at saying this bit to be honest.

Marcus Hutton: Yeah, well, I met Luke, socially. And I was into music, obviously but I’d never like, literally contemplated being in a band. I just kind of got influences, I’d never sung before.

Really? Wow.

Marcus: Never even done like a karaoke appearance. Never even imagined myself doing that and we just…I know it sounds like a lad thing to say but we kind of just went to the pub one night. Just had a few drinks and walked back to my house and I was just like, singing merrily on the way home. And he was like ‘oh you should come and sing with our band’. I was like ‘nah, you’re alright, you’re alright’. He pestered me for a couple of days and I realised he was actually serious. Because he asked me when he was sober. I was like ‘errr, nah’. Then he was like ‘we’ve got a practice this Friday, come and see what you can do’. I remember I think it was like a nice summer’s evening and I thought no, I’m not going to go. Up until ten minutes before hand when I was like ‘nah, I’m gonna do it’. Just, you know, to see if I can. Then I went there and I kind of didn’t feel comfortable still.

Tommy: I remember when you first pulled up and I walked up and I was like…it’s that, kind of like them weird meetings. I was like ‘you alright, I’m Tom’ and he was like ‘I’m Mark’. And we just shook hands.

Marcus: I think the fact that I had a van as well.

Tommy: Yeah.

Marcus: That sealed the fact that I was going to be in the band.

Tommy: It’s weird like, after the first rehearsals at Neon, it still didn’t feel totally gelled. Do you know what I mean? It still didn’t feel like ‘oh that’s definitely happening’. And I phoned you up and I was like we need to see if we write well. I want to write, I want somebody who I can write with. Because I was doing all the writing at the time, we went up by The Chaser near us. If you know The Chaser, it’s a big massive forest near us.

Marcus: It’s a national park.

Tommy: It’s like a huge forest. We just drove towards Cannock in Stratford. We just parked there…

Marcus: It’s where all the doggers go. It’s like the dogging capital of Great Britain.

Tommy: (Laughs) Then we just walked, for probably about a mile until we found this tree. Just had an acoustic guitar, a pad and a pen. Sat there and just wrote like, three or four songs, just that was it then. We just knew.

Marcus: We hadn’t sealed the natural friendship by then either.

Tommy: I think that was it then.

Marcus: I think as soon as we did that, it was meant to be. It kinda sounds a bit cheesy but I think that’s how the best things probably happen though.

Tommy: The most long-winded ever response.

Marcus: Is it alright talking naturally about it all?

It’s fine. Do you go there a lot to write?

Tommy: We haven’t since. That’s the weird thing, like, you just…it was that one time.

Marcus: We landed our own rehearsal space; we kind of just locked ourselves away in there.

Tommy: That became our new one.

You could always put pictures of trees up.

Marcus: (Laughs) Yeah! That’s become like Corelli central now.

Tommy: We’ve wrote in some weird places.

Why did you choose the name Corelli for the band?

Marcus: We won’t talk about past incarnations of the band, purely since we’ve been Corelli…we were after a name. We were already together, we’d got our songs written and we kinda just wanted one word. We didn’t want ‘The…’. Sounds a bit capitalist but we kind of wanted a brand.

Well it’s more memorable isn’t it? One word.

Marcus: To be honest, I’m not going to try and say that it was really…what word sums us up? I just kind of…at the time I was reading Captain Corelli’s Mandolin. And the story kind of evoked a thing in me where I thought like, because where we are coming from, there is not a lot going on. And it’s kind of a bit bleak, people are a bit bleak. Not Birmingham, we are a Birmingham band but where we live…where we sleep basically. That’s what we class it as.

Tommy: But at the time, we wasn’t a Birmingham band, we was a Cannock band.

Marcus: No we weren’t, yeah.

Tommy: We gave ourselves that name because it was like we were in a stop gap. We were in an area where you just felt like nothing was happening. It kind of summed up the fact that, with the book it’s kind of like he’s going to war. I know that going to war and living in a shit hole aren’t really the same thing but it’s like he’s going to war…

Marcus: Despite everything going on around him…

Tommy: He’s still got music. We’ve had shitty jobs and rubbish social lives we still had like…

Marcus: It’s like an escape basically.

Tommy: It’s our music.

Marcus: We like escaping.

Tommy: Then we got into Birmingham and it kind of cemented us really.

Does it benefit you as a band being based in Birmingham?

Marcus: Definitely.

Tommy: Definitely yeah.

Marcus: Well I don’t think it’s even a conscious decision, we are, whether we like it or not.

Are there any other bands in Birmingham that you like playing gigs with?

Tommy: Loads yeah.

Marcus: Before we like the sound of a band or what they are doing, first and foremost we just make good friends.

Tommy: We’re just all friends, we all go on the same nights out. It’s like Troumaca and Swim Deep.

Marcus: Peace.

Tommy: Silver Souvenirs and Guile.

Marcus: The Arcadian Kicks, which is kind of…they are good friends first and foremost. And then you see your friends play on stage and you’re like ‘actually you’re really good’. There’s something kind of going on, even though we are not doing exactly the same thing. Which I think is brilliant, I think it’s better in terms of a scene because…

Tommy: Well Tom, you know Tom? He’s a good friend.

Yeah, he goes to our Uni.

Marcus: He goes to Uni?

Yeah, he's on our course.

I know he goes to Uni but he goes to Uni?

Occasionally.

Tommy: We’ve been working with Gavin…Gavin Monaghan. He’s done like, Kings Of Leon, Editors…whatever else. We got that through Simon Bailey and Tom came into the studio with us and was just chilling with us. It feels like people aren’t just your mates on nights out, they’re you’re friends. I know it’s saying the same thing that I’ve read a lot of other bands have said, but it’s like even though all the bands aren’t doing the same thing…there isn’t like a math rock scene, punk rock scene, there isn’t a grunge pop, there isn’t an indie…swag. (Laughs)

Marcus: I think that is quite indicative of Birmingham as well. Even if you look through the past, the multiculturalism, the diversity of people…I think it’s indicative of Birmingham really. I think that is something to be proud of.

With your songs do you feel like you have found your sound at the moment? Or are you still trying to find your sound?

Marcus: I think we’ve maybe…found it…maybe…

Tommy: We’ve got a batch of songs, we’ve got a sound, I wouldn’t say perfected but we’ve got to a point where we are like yeah that’s what we want to sound like. And then we write a whole other batch of songs and they are like a new thing we want to do.

Marcus: There is obviously elements in music and style that we are heavily into and then someone might bring an album out tomorrow that blows us away and we are like, you can’t help that coming through.

Tommy: And it always sounds like us.

Marcus: It’s like Arcade Fire, not comparing ourselves to Arcade Fire in any extent of the imagination but it kind of like…Arcade Fire do it and The Fall. They kind of take all these influences in and no matter what they do, it always sounds like them.

Marcus: Tom has got a very distinctive style…

Tommy: Of playing, and your singing obviously. I think it’s some of the most driving characteristics of the band. I’d say but I’m saying that as a guitarist. I don’t know…It’s more of the listener’s opinion I suppose.

Marcus: So I think whatever we do, it’s going to have that Corelli…

Tommy: Initially, we are the writers. We write everything and it’ll manifest itself into a song with all the rest of them. We always have an idea that we sort of want to go with. Else it wouldn’t happen to be honest.

Marcus: In terms of sound, although there is going to be lots of influences, the next song might sound completely different to the one before in terms of like, you know. Sometimes the guitars might be really drone-y, and then the next song they might be really bright. We want to keep people guessing I suppose. And not get stuck in a rut, move with…

Tommy: Move with the music.

Marcus: I think that is important to the longevity of a band, to not get caught up too much in a particular sound.

Tommy: I suppose that’s another thing that’s really important to us as a band now. We didn’t want a name where people go…you say your name, it’s like…The Monotones, oh ok they are like a Mod sort of band. Say like, oh we are The Rascals and it’s like an indie band. We wanted a name where it’s like, Corelli, ‘oh well what are they doing?’ Do you know what I mean? ‘I don’t actually know what that could possibly be.’ I don’t want to be a band where your name ties you down to something. Do you know what I mean? I’d hate that. Because Corelli, it’s an inventive name, it’s imaginative…there’s no borders, there’s no boundaries. That’s what I want really.

What’s the best gig you have played so far, do you think? Or your favourite one you have played?

Tommy: Zombie Prom was really good, it’s first birthday. We love Zombie Prom anyway, so…

Do you play there a lot?

Marcus: We’ve played there twice.

Tommy: We DJ there regularly.

Marcus: We’ve kind of attached ourselves to that as not our club night but…the other bands as well. Like Swim Deep, Silver Souvenirs…

Tommy: Troumaca. Peace.

Marcus: Peace, obviously. You know they are gonna be there, you know they are going to be at the Adam and Eve after. You know they are going to be at Face. So I think we’ve all kind of attached ourselves to that as our kind of club night without it being a band’s club night. Which is another spontaneous thing which has kind of happened. I think that’s how the best things happen. Spontaneously.

Have you played any gigs outside of Birmingham? How did they go?

Tommy: Hit and miss.

Marcus: We’ve only been officially going with how we are now, for a year. Under a year really. 2011 has been our ‘here we are…’.

Tommy: Coventry we always get a good…

Marcus: Yeah we played Coventry a couple of months ago. And we always go down well down there. We go down better to a student crowd, when I say student crowd it kind of…like the younger student crowd. Without sounding like One Direction…

Tommy: Just people who like music. I don’t know…

Marcus: Again, like, we play a gig like tonight and I’d say it was a more mature demographic. And to be honest, I actually enjoyed that a lot more because I just felt like people were actually listening to what I was saying. Or what Tom was playing or the beat, it actually felt like people were…

Tommy: Interested and cared.

Marcus: Not being too judgemental.

Tommy: There was obvious mistakes but…they don’t judge too high.

Marcus: And I got a lot of satisfaction from that but we played in London on Saturday at 93 Feet East.

Tommy: We had a brilliant weekend but we didn’t have a brilliant gig. I think there was issues with our playing…I don’t know, we didn’t play too badly it’s just you feel like you are playing to a different crowd. Like in Birmingham you have more of a…

Marcus: I think we were just really eager to present ourselves the best we could.

Tommy: It kind of felt like because we were in London, it was like: ‘oh the man’s watching’. Do you know what I mean?

Marcus: I think now we’ve got that monkey off our back, next time we go, hopefully before the beginning of next year.

Tommy: It would be great to play some shows with some other bands round here. Sort of bring a bit of Birmingham…

Marcus: Take Birmingham round to London a little bit. I think people go to gigs more in London to be honest.

Tommy: In our phase of me and you playing together, we’ve had three gigs in London. One of our best ever gigs, one of our worst ever gigs and that one was sort of like…

Marcus: We supported Post War Years.

Tommy: And White Rose Movement.

Marcus: In Brixton.

Tommy: It was a White Lies DJ set.

Marcus: Yeah, and we played really well without patting yourself on the back too much. We were really happy with that.

Tommy: We took a lot of people down with us.

Marcus: We got a really good reception. So we’re not alien to it, we are just trying to get…

Tommy: This new thing going, Corelli.

That’s cool, have you got any gigs coming up in the future?

Tommy: We’re playing with The Arcadian Kicks on the 14^th, get the flyers out.

Their single launch isn’t it?

Marcus: Yeah you obviously know about it.

Tommy: I need to grab the flyer anyway.

Marcus: It’s on the 14^th. We’re playing there, it’s going to be downstairs in the basement. And I think it’s only like, a hundred capacity down there. And I think…

Tommy: Tom said if there isn’t people standing on the stairs, he’s hanging his guitar up.

Marcus: I think it’s going to be absolutely packed out. Hopefully we can be on top form for it. And make it a really good night because I’d like to play well for those guys as well because I heard their new single. That single, and I just think it’s absolutely immense. They deserve to do well really because they are a really hard working band. And it’s something that we could learn a lot from. Not that we don’t work hard but they’ve been around a while.

Tommy: We supported them in Walsall, like, years ago when we was in other bands and stuff. So we know how long they have been going, doing the same…not the same thing but doing the same line up and same sound. They are trying to get that same, they have perfected it haven’t they? Whereas we keep trying something different, trying something different. We are trying to find the winning formula. Because Tom is, I’d say the main writer …

Marcus: Maybe we should get two girls.

Tommy: Yeah, get two girls.

So, in terms of your songs and recordings, have you got any plans to release them?

Marcus: We are recording at…well we played two new songs tonight. “Shoulders” and…

Tommy: “It’s Ok To Cry”

Marcus: We are literally going to start recording those two songs this weekend, with the guy who did the Peace demos. And they are really good, have you heard them?

Yeah, I’ve heard them and I saw Peace at The Adam and Eve, they smashed it.

Marcus: Yeah, a lot of people have been impressed with those. We are going to go record with Dom. And he’s hopefully going to pick our sound up for those. I think once we’ve got those in the can, I think we’d like to get a single out early part of next year, maybe February. We’ve got a video planned as well. We just need some money first.

Tommy: The video is brilliant. Really good, like really good. (Laughs)

You’ve planned it out already?

Tommy: Yeah.

Marcus: We just need some money to fund it then it’s ready to go. It’s a budget video, obviously. But we still need that budget because we are all poor.

Have you sent your work to any at all labels yet?

Marcus: As we’ve said before, I think we are still a bit…we don’t want to throw anything out there that we think is not representative…although we feel like we’ve found a sound, we’re still crafting.

Tommy: I think we are getting there, the new stuff we are writing now is more representative, it’s more mature I suppose.

Marcus: It’s more of a mix of everything we’ve ever done.

Tommy: Rather than thinking of something and trying to replicate it. It’s easy to listen to a CD and go ‘love that, let’s replicate it a little bit’. You need to go ‘ok, what are we? What do we want to do?’. We like this, we like that, the other, let’s sort of pull it together.

Marcus: Yeah, I think those two songs are an incorporation of everything. Everything we’ve done really, so we may send those off.

Do you have any labels in mind at all?

Marcus: I think there is…you’ve always got dream labels that you want to sign with but I’m not really that…

Tommy: Arrogant to think they’d be interested. I suppose.

Marcus: I think as people as well, we are quite…

Tommy: We’re not blowing our own trumpets.

Marcus: We’re not shy obviously but we’re kind of…

Nick Doyle: Down to earth.

Marcus: Yeah. I think it would favour us more if we were more cock-sure. And made sure that people told other people we were the best band ever. Which most people do, but I don’t think that’s in our nature.

It’s my job to do that.

Tommy: Yeah. (Laughs)

Marcus: We kind of just let people make their own minds up.

Nick’s phone goes off with a buzz, which in turn signals the end of the interview.

Thanks for that guys, thanks for taking the time out.

Tommy: Thanks for coming.

http://www.facebook.com/likeusloads

Live photographs by Jack Parker

PANDAS AND PEOPLE Interview

2011-11-29T13:43:00.000-08:00

Secret Admirer found out just a tiny little bit more about Pandas And People after witnessing their soothing live show. More soothing than stroking a cat made entirely out of yoghurt.

Catching up with Alex Singh and Leighton Rees from the band on a picnic bench outside The Hare And Hounds post show was lot's of fun, if a little cold...

Let’s get it started then, why did you choose the name Pandas And People?

Leighton Rees: It was a controversial text book that I read whilst I was at university. We couldn’t really come up with a band name so I kinda just said it.

It just sounded cool?

Leighton: Yeah. It was originally Of Pandas And People, because that’s the name of the book. But we dropped the ‘Of’.

Alex Singh: If you read the book, we are not associated with that shit.

Leighton: It’s some hard core American religious stuff…

When did the band start and why did you start the band?

Alex: July 10^th 2010?

Leighton: July 10^th 2010

That exact date?

Leighton: That exact date. Alex and Tom had this like, solo…

Alex: We are all writing and recording tracks but we never thought about playing a gig. Then we thought about playing a gig and all the songs that we had accumulated over doing this…played a gig then just carried it on.

Was it a conscious decision to have everyone singing when you write songs?

Leighton: I can’t sing, so I just try but I don’t know because there is quite a lot of…

Leighton starts drumming on the table. Alex gets annoyed. The drumming stops.

Leighton: There is quite a lot of harmonies in the recordings so…so live you sort of have to…

Alex: It’s fun. It’s just fun doing it.

Do you have to practice the instrument swaps that you do on stage, when you are rehearsing?

Alex: We should, because we don’t.

How do you go about writing songs together?

Alex: We write ideas, then send it around and build on top of that.

Leighton: Yeah we don’t really do it live, we kind of record stuff and do it that way. Then we work it out live afterwards.

Alex: We’ve got a demo before we’ve got a song kind of thing. Just mess around recording. Doing shit like that.

"I can't sing" - Leighton Rees

What is the best gig you have played so far?

Alex: I reckon when we played with Gardens And Villa. I don’t think we were best…

Leighton: It depends what you mean by best gig.

Just your favourite one that you have played.

Alex: Joan Of Arc was exciting.

Leighton: Yeah we played Joan Of Arc here, in the summer. We also played with Johnny Foreigner, their third album launch. So yeah.

How did you start getting gigs in Birmingham?

Alex: We were in a band years before and we kind of knew Matthew Beck (This Is Tomorrow promotions). Our first gig, Gregg got us it. You know, Gregg Haynes. We played at The Sound Bar because…I don’t know. We played at the sound bar then Gregg saw us and said do you want to come and play? Then we played with Toro Y Moi and then sort of building up relationships from there.

Leighton: Like we’ve said, there’s nothing in Redditch, so it’s the obvious place to go really. Our home town for playing gigs is Birmingham.

Do you feel like you are a part of a certain music scene in Birmingham at all?

Alex: No, not at all.

That’s cool, are there any other bands you like playing with locally?

Leighton: There is a silence because we are trying to think, not because we don’t like playing with other people. We’re looking forward to playing with Victories At Sea at The Flapper on the 17^th December.

Alex: And Johnny Foreigner, they can be classed as a Birmingham band still, I guess.

What do you want people to get from your music?

Alex: Just enjoy it.

Leighton: Yeah, general enjoyment. We don’t really fit into any scenes or anything so I don’t know…

Do you consciously try and do something different then? Is that what you want to do with your music?

Leighton: When we write stuff we don’t really think well…

Alex: The thing is we just listen to so much music, different types of shit, it just kind of mushes. Are these shit answers?

It’s fine, they are honest answers.

Alex: We sound like the most boring band in the world. It’s not really an answer, I’ll just say a few words.

Do you create any other music apart from in this band? Any of you?

Alex: We do solo stuff when it happens…if I write something that isn’t suitable, then obviously I won’t use it. I won’t use it for anything, I’ll just do it.

Do you feel as though you have found your sound as a band yet?

Alex: I don’t really want to, I just want to keep doing shit differently every time.

Keep experimenting.

Leighton: Yeah…our songs are quite different to each other. It’s hard to define our sound.

Have you got any gigs coming up?

Leighton: One at The Flapper on the 17^th December, playing Sheffield 21^st December. Basically only two gigs that we got lined up.

What about songs and recordings, have you got any singles or any albums coming out?

Alex: Got an album, it’s not released…

It’s on Soundcloud?

Alex: Yeah.

Have you sent it to any record labels? Is that something you are interested in? Getting signed?

Alex: Yeah, I’d say so.

Leighton: Yeah that would be nice. We’ve sent it around radio stations and stuff like that.

Alex: Your bloody tapping! It’s going to come through like a kick drum on there!

Leighton: Backing music by Leighton!

Thanks for the quick interview guys.

http://soundcloud.com/pandas-and-people

Photos by Jack Parker

THE BOMBERGS Interview

2011-11-20T11:06:00.000-08:00

The Bombergs are the latest in a long line of black-clad bad boys.
But these guys are in a gang of their own.

Thankfully they didn't subject Secret Admirer to an initiations before the interview could take place.

Their songs are precise and catchy, unlike their answers.
Rifle through the ramblings however, these guys are funny.

Band Identification System

Rick Wellings – Lead Singer / Guitar
Chris Blaydes - Guitar
Mike Moloney – Bass

Rick Wellings: Do you have some questions for us? Do you have some things you would like to know about us?

When did the band start? And why did it start?

Rick: The band started at the beginning of this year. The idea was, I wanted it to be like a gang, like, I don’t know…like The Ramones or something. So I figured if I gave it a name like that, then maybe these “Bombergs” would gravitate towards it. And, it took a bit of time but then these two showed up. It was pretty obvious from the minute we all got into the room together that this could work. And why did it start? I think I was probably drinking too much at the time.

Mike Moloney: I definitely was.

Rick: It’s sort of like, a diversion from alcoholism…

Chris Blaydes: But unfortunately we picked a bad industry to be in because it kind of goes hand in hand with that I guess.

Rick: The band has definitely helped to sort of cast aside any depression but the alcoholism isn’t nearly as in check, so…yeah that sort of back fired.

Why did you choose the name The Bombergs?

Rick: I wanted something that was quite specific to Birmingham. I don’t know if you are familiar with David Bomberg…he actually kind of grew up in London but he was born here. It just seemed like a positive thing, so there isn’t sort of, any heavy meaning behind it.

Chris: I think ironically enough though, like, when you see the work he does, it seems to evoke some sort of feeling of what the band is you know. Like a movement, you know. It reflected in the art work as well as being in the music you know. It seemed to stem quite nicely from…

Rick: If I stopped and thought about it, it’s quite a bold use of colour…sort of…I understand what you are saying but we never really reflected. I never really stopped and thought about it but yeah I see what you mean. And I hope you can, maybe you can make sense of it.

Let’s hope so. What do you want people to get from your music? Or when they see you live, what do you want them to feel?

Chris: Personally I think it’s definitely a, we’re definitely a live band. We would definitely urge people to see us live you know. We’re a contemporary music act and this is where music stands at the moment. You can get the most out of music by being a good live band. We definitely think we are a good live band.

Rick: I like records. I like bands and singers with like, where there is a sort of human quality there. Increasingly, live acts are sort of like, they are very professional but there is maybe not that sort of spontaneity. I think what we hope when people come and see us, we’re like, there is a bit of life there. Because I think like, that’s what makes our…in the broadest sense, fantastic. The fact that there is that human quality. That spirit to it.

Chris: I think there is a spirit of Birmingham in us as well you know. If you listen to some of the lyrics, a lot of the themes...I mean we have discussed very briefly that we have all had very suburban up-bringings. Definitely those themes come across in the music. You get a sense of a Birmingham band, which is important.

Rick: We’ve only known each other for like a year maybe. But we were all born in the same hospital, we all grew up within a few miles of each other so…when we get together we kind of…

Mike: Not in the same bed, like popped out in our leather jacket.

Rick: We might of. But no, like there’s a weird sense of…we’ve got a lot of stuff in common. In terms of, like you say, raised in the same place, a lot of shared experiences.

Mike: The fact that we prefer Peter Green over Eric Clapton.

Rick: That’s a big thing for us. You’ve gotta know that Eric Clapton and Jeff Beck are lazy, like if you haven’t tweaked on to that, it’s not going to work is it? We have a shared sense of humour and we listen to a lot of the same records independantly. So that made the whole thing a lot easier. What was the question? I can’t even remember.

Chris: I can’t remember.

Rick: What are people getting from the band? Is that it? Yeah, it’s, I don’t think we would sound so optimistic if it wasn’t so fucking great here all the time. There is maybe some of that in there. I don’t know, it’s always like difficult when you play in a band to try and second guess what people are getting from it. You just hope that they are getting something. And they seem to be, so…

Do you feel like you are gaining a fan base at all yet?

Rick: Yeah, yeah! I think people like, I think people are definitely…people like the band. We haven’t really had to work at it, like have seen us play and we’ve only played like three shows now. Really like, since we’ve got it together and err…

Mike: Speaking to that girl last night, she came down, she didn’t know we were playing…

Rick: I bumped into a girl last night at the show. She missed us play and she was like: we saw you play at The Hare And Hounds, if we’d have known you were on we would of come here early, we just didn’t release. And a few people have stopped and spoke to us and said you know, after shows. I think if you ever question whether you are on the right lines, that kind of reassures you.

“Life can be pretty exciting if you make it that way” – Rick Wellings

What’s the best show you have played so far?

Rick: We played, I think at the moment…the show we did as part of the Oxjam event.

Chris: Yeah I was pleased with that, it was pretty, it’s always like…

Rick: It was busy. It was fucking hot man. Really fucking hot.

Chris: It was sweaty wasn’t it? Yeah.

Rick: If I’m honest, we’ll get to play a really great show, I know that sooner or later it’s going to happen. We’ve played some good shows but I know for a fact that we are going to get better. I’m looking forward to that one show where we take it to another level. I’m impressed that you’ve got all these questions off the top of your head, thought you’d have a list. I hope we are giving good answers.

They are good answers, yeah. What’s your favourite song that you have written?

Mike: “Please Don’t Stand Me Up”, that’s my favourite.

Rick: Yeah, probably because that’s what’s running through your mind every day. I always feel good when we play “Great Things”.

That’s a great song.

Chris: That was the thing that, that was the first number that I thought ‘this actually sounds great’. But I think that was the first song that we played together that was like: this is sounding really good you know. But also yeah, “Please Don’t Stand Me Up”. We’ve also had a good response to “Little Whispers”. That is one of my personal favourites to play. It’s got a good groove, rhythm section quite key to driving it, you know.

How do you go about writing your songs together?

Rick: Basically, the way it has worked so far, I have written songs and they have made them sound good. Like, here’s a song, can we do something with this? But there is no formula. It’s not like I’m playing guitar so I have to dictate what guitar does. Everybody shouts ideas and if someone has got a better suggestion then we do that. The only thing we agree on is that it sounds better when we all sing on it. There’s something joyous about all singing together.

Chris: It’s fairly instinctive the way we go about things.

Is there anything that inspires your song writing at all? Like music or otherwise?

Rick: If I’m being honest, I like extremes. Like really sort of rich, warm, positive stuff or quite cold and hard imagery. That could be like records like but it just as easily could be like films or photography. Or literature I guess.

Chris: Everything.

Rick: I don’t think I have the concentration, so books are always…tricky. In the same way that I love, say…PJ Harvey or Joy Division, I love like David Lynch or David LaChapelle. I think most of the time, there’s a real positivity that comes through in the songs. So like, if I sit and listen to stuff, which I don’t do all that often to be honest with you…The Clash, or The Smiths, at their brightest. There’s always this kind of like…a creepy cynicism. I thought “Great Things” was a really positive song when I wrote it but when I listen back to it, lyrically it’s kind of…It’s almost like saying…You know, the band is in a lot of ways us trying not to fuck our lives up. And to try and do something interesting and exciting in our lives. That song is that. I think we know that life can be pretty exciting if you make it that way. It can be pretty mundane as well. We got the band together because we wanted to avoid that.

To avoid being mundane?

Rick: Well I don’t think we are mundane as people. I mean Mike certainly isn’t. You don’t know the half of it. There’s a lot of…it can be kind of dull. You’ve gotta find ways to amuse yourself. Or you can just drink heavily.

What are your plans in terms of releasing your music?

Chris: I was thinking about this today.

Rick: He’s sharing this with you before any of us.

Chris: Exactly. I better watch my mouth man. It’s getting to be very spontaneous actually. We all kind of improvising really. I think we are always turning the wheel so to speak. We are contacting as many people as possible.

Rick: We think the band is good and we are making a lot of noise about it. You know, we want people to pay attention.

Chris: I think people are as well. I am generally under the impression that if you get people on your side, get fans on your side, it’s a lot easier to win over the big people.

Rick: Who are the big people?

Chris: You know, the big wigs man.

Rick: Basically we want a major label record deal and a private jet. Would that be a good answer? I like that, you can put that in your piece.

Mike: Does that exist anymore?

Rick: Probably not but they should bring it back.

Bring it back just for you guys.

Rick: Private island in the Bahamas. Sometimes these answers are so random…right, how are we going to release our music? I think we are going to put out a single at the beginning of next year. And then…

Is that going to be self-released?

Rick: I think we’d like to do something that is small. A small label, that is kind of the idea. Beyond that, I guess it depends on whether anybody likes us or not to sort of call for a record.

Do you think it is important to release music for free these days?

Rick: I think it’s inevitable. I think that records are…you can’t really make money from records. I’ve got this idea that if you produce work…consistently produce work that you believe in, then you need to be making money from it otherwise you are constantly going to be a slave to mundane, more day to day, yes we will allow this song to be on a deodorant advert because we are strapped for cash. Really you are going to make money from playing shows.

Chris: I think it is important to give music away for free. It’s unfortunate and maybe about five years ago you would be scolded for saying that. Because music is available to everybody for free, you have to embrace it. It’s thinking about ways to reach people where you can actually make a living from it as well. If musicians get to a certain level, if musicians get to a certain height in their career, they don’t have to give away music for free, people will pay for it. But to get heard, you have to give your music away for free.

Rick: You know what, I walked into HMV on the day that the new Coldplay album was released and that had a big hording in the door way.

Mike: Did you go in there to buy it?

Rick: I didn’t go in there to buy it.

Really?

Rick: Coldplay are alright though, I have no problem with Coldplay. They’re a good fucking pop band. But they’ve got a big hording in the door way as you walk in and they were selling their album, if you bought it on the first day of release it was some kind of discount price. And I thought, well, fuck it man. If the biggest rock band in the world are being told that their album is being marketed in a bargain bin on the day of release then we are all fucked really. I had visions of like, Chris Martin going along Camden High Street and going ‘oh no man, I spent ages on that! And they are selling it for fucking seven ninety nine! Rubbish, I almost don’t want to bother. But we are going to make shit loads of money at Wembley Stadium next year so it’s all good!’

Do you have any shows coming up?

Rick: Yeah, we are playing a show on the 17^th December in Muthers Bar in Digbeth.

Mike: And next week.

Rick: Yes. If you could put details of our shows at the end of this interview, maybe some of your plucky fan base will come along. That would be fucking great. Our fans are your fans…and vice versa. Yeah, we are doing two more shows this year then we’ll be looking at what we are doing next year. We’re are quite excited to be honest but we gotta get these shows out of the way first. The shows are getting better. I say that but we’ve played like three man so I can’t say that with any confidence. But we are definitely getting looser. And I’m looking forward to it. If we could play every night of the week to a different bunch of people then we would be ecstatic.

Do you feel like you are a part of a certain scene in Birmingham?

Rick: No, no. I don’t see any sort of…

Mike: That’s the clearest answer we’ve given you today.

Rick: I guess the interesting point is that we define ourselves in terms of what we are not instead of what we are. No, I think most of the bands in Birmingham, most bands in Birmingham sound like they don’t listen to black music. There is no groove. Our music is…song writing is important and definitely underpinned by a strong sense of groove. I don’t think we are at all like any other bands around. But to be honest we don’t really think in those terms. We’re not really interested in being like the best band in Birmingham or even like the best band in the country. We wanna be like one of the best bands in Western Europe. Western Europe and North America. So yeah, no. The short answer is no. When you are typing this out, just write no.

If you ever had the opportunity to soundtrack a film, which one would you choose?

Rick: What? Any existing film?

Yeah.

Rick: Erm…

Mike: That is a good question. Probably The Labyrinth. I think we could beat David Bowie.

Rick: I think we would do The Labyrinth if David would agree to collaborate with us. He can sing and we’ll just play the music. Erm…Lost In Translation has got a great soundtrack any way, Kevin Shields. Kevin Shields did most of the stuff on that I think. I remember The Labyrinth, that was an inspired choice Mike.

Great! Any last words at all?

Rick: Tuna.

Tuna?

Rick: Tuna. Or maybe samon? But no, I think you’ll go home and have a vague idea about what the band is about…

Mike: It’s early days.

Rick: But we’ve got the first round in. Yeah, if it’s a big night out then we’ve got the first round in. It’s a big night out and we’ve got the first round in, that’s the way to sum it up. It just took me a while to sum it up. It took about half an hour to sum up.

Chris: We do actually spend the majority of our time talking in analogies. The most creative ways of expressing what we are doing.

Rick: You should come see us play man.

Chris: Definitely.

Rick: Come to that show on the 17^th, it’s a free show. We do it like…we just want to do something nice before Christmas.

Awesome. Thanks guys!

Chris: Thank you, cheers.

Photography by Jack Parker

http://www.facebook.com/thebombergs?ref=ts

THE YOUNG FRIENDS Interview

2011-11-14T18:16:00.000-08:00

The Young Friends keep their music refreshingly simple and free of complication.
Much like their answers to Secret Admirer's questions.

The Young Friends exist in America, Secret Admirer exists in England.
Thanks to the power of email, we were able to find out more about the guitar twangin' twosome.

How and why did the band start?

My best friend, Brant, and I wanted to be cool in high school and we thought that being a in a band would be the best way to go about doing that.

Why did you choose the name The Young Friends?

Just thought the name fit the music we made.

What do you want people to get from listening to your music?

To feel care free.

What equipment do you use to create your songs?

We made the songs with a guitar and garageband.

What inspires your song writing?

Whenever we feel strongly about something, good or bad, writing songs is a release.

Do you feel like you are rebelling against anything with your music?

I sure hope not, we're not trying to be trendsetters or associate ourselves with anything cool.

What has been the best show you have played so far?

We got to play on the main stage at Webster Hall in New York City, it was an unforgettable experience. We felt like such bad-asses.

Will you ever come and play some shows in the UK?

We were supposed to do a European tour this winter, however our school schedules conflicted with the dates we wanted to do. We're planning on doing it this summer instead.

Do you think it's important to release music for free these days?

Yes, I couldn't care less if someone bought our music or took it off of a torrent. It's unfortunate that people are not willing to pay for music anymore, sort of taking it for granted, but that's the way things are.

Do you feel as though you are a part of a scene or musical movement?

I'm not sure.

What bands are you currently digging at the moment?

I'm obsessed with this band called Cut Your Hair, they're from England I think. Also, King Krule is amazing. I love that so many young people are making such impressive music these days.

Final words?

Peace and blessings, love The Young Friends.

Photo taken from The Young Friends Facebook page.

http://www.facebook.com/pages/THE-YOUNG-FRIENDS/197622408742

SILVER SOUVENIRS Interview

2011-11-11T13:18:00.000-08:00

When Secret Admirer met Silver Souvenirs.
Fresh from being on tour with The Twang, these guys are ready for more.
The dance-ability factor of their music being the main priority.

Band Identification System
Stephen Hutton - Lead Vocals
Gary Geerlings - Rhythm Guitar
Samuel Hart - Lead Guitar
Karl Faulkner - Bass
Jeremy Hatton – Drums

When and why did the band start?

Samuel Hart: Erm, when did we start? Well, me and Gaz, we started learning guitar together. And then I guess as soon as we could play, we just started writing as well. Didn’t we? That was like when we were sixteen. But then Silver Souvenirs didn’t come into fruition until like, what?

Hart’s band mates question his use of the word ‘fruition’.

Hart: Into fruition, that’s a good word isn’t it? Good, well until like three years ago, something? But again, we wouldn’t call it, we wouldn’t say that’s when it started either because it was just like we met Karl, and he was learning the bass. So we started writing songs but we didn’t really settle on drummers.
Stephen Hutton: How long were you going before I appeared? It’s learning for me too, you asking these questions.
Hart: Don’t know actually.
Jeremy Hatton: About six or seven weeks wasn’t it?
Hart: Yeah, about that. We were just writing little crappy songs and recording it on, like a dictaphone. But, this line up has only been together for bang on a year.
Hatton: Almost to the day I reckon.
Hart: Alright, ok. Happy anniversary.
Gary Geerlings: So, to shorten that answer, one year.

Why did you choose the name Silver Souvenirs, was there a reason behind it?

Geerlings: Quite a nice story behind it.
Hart: Yeah, it’s quite nice. Yeah, it’s an alright reason. Basically, my grandma wrote a book of poetry, called Souvenirs. And I keep it, like it’s always in my room somewhere. And me and Gaz were just trying to think of band names at one point. Then we looked over and I think one of us said souvenirs. And then I don’t think we wanted to just be called Souvenirs. Did we? For some reason.
Karl Faulkner: Wasn’t there another band called Souvenirs?
Hart: Yeah, there might have been another band called Souvenirs. So we whacked Silver in front of it.
Geerlings: We don’t know why actually. We put it in brackets as well.
Hatton: It was at the risk of it being shortened to The S.S.
Geerlings: Yeah yeah, that’s why. It couldn’t be Silver Souvenirs without it being shortened to the S.S.
Faulkner: Which people still do.
Hutton: People message us going: how’s the S.S going?

I’ll make sure I don’t do that.

Hart: Yeah, that’s good! (Laughs)
Hatton: The S.S, Birmingham faction!

Is there a specific style of music you aim to make when you write music?

Geerlings: When we write, it’s really important just to write something we think people can dance to.
Hatton: Yeah that’s definitely been…the last year has been us thinking of what we would like to dance to and trying to write stuff, musically, that people would respond to in that way.
Geerlings: We write songs to play live.
Hart: Yeah, it’s all about the gigs.
Hatton: It’s about making it a show and getting that response. As a band that has to try and get an audience, you know, get the attention of an audience. When we write songs, we do it to try and get them involved. And so, a lot of our stuff is, you know. It grabs an audience in. Yeah, we are really pleased with that’s the way it’s gone.

What’s the best song to play live? Which one goes down best?

Hart: That’s hard, but for some reason we get a really good response to ‘Shapes’. Haven’t we? Recently, which is like, it’s a fairly old song now, compared to the rest of our set.
Hatton: It’s also our slowest song. It’s the biggest song but it’s by no means the dance-iest song.
Hart: Definitely not, we put it in the middle of the set, because we thought it would be the down time.
Hatton: People starting asking us to play it at the end.
Hart: People seem to be like, nodding along, bobbing along to it more. I think all our songs get a really good response.
Hatton: ‘Divide’ has been going down really well. The sort of, audience participation part is really good.
Hart: Songs like ‘Divide’ haven’t been recorded yet, so no one’s heard of them.
Hatton: Soon to be recorded.

What are your upcoming plans in terms of recording?

Hutton: It’s an expensive process, that’s the problem. I’ve got my own home studio set up, just looking into doing the drums at the moment. It’s the hardest, most expensive part. So hopefully when we can sort that out, we can get recording in the next month. Like, really get going with that.
Hart: We are wanting to like, do it all ourselves. Because like Steve is all set up and he’s getting to know what we do.
Hatton: Trying to get something out for like, Christmas. Around that time, another EP. Because it’s been seven months since the last one and we don’t want to wait a year before doing another few tracks. That’s the plan.

I’m sure it’ll be on a lot of people’s Christmas lists.

Hart: Yeah, I hope so. We are going to do a launch party as well, around that kind of time. So hopefully we are just going to have a massive party, invite all our mates and just get somewhere for the whole night and then we’ll have DJs and that, just make a proper night of it.
Hutton: I’m thinking The Hare And Hounds. It’s really good around Christmas, really good atmosphere there as well. Get a massive night down there.

Do you feel as though you are building a fan base locally?

Hart: Well, yeah we seem to be now, don’t we?

Faulkner: Especially in the last few weeks because of like touring and stuff. Just, a lot of people seem to like…they are coming up and talking to us after gigs. It’s good man.
Hutton: It’s weird that our first gigs outside of Birmingham, were on this tour. All the different cities, they do have like, literally, different crowds. Different reactions. Each city is different to the next. It’s weird seeing it from that angle as well now.
Hatton: It’s interesting as well, we’ve done these gigs now, out of Birmingham and we are starting to see the response on our Facebook page. And the downloads we’ve had. It’s great that we are getting people from other places that are coming up to us and saying: what have you got coming out, whens the next thing coming, whens the next gig? And seeing familiar faces that aren’t just our friends, coming to different gigs. And you kind of, that’s really positive for us. People are coming and we’re looking around and seeing people posting our stuff saying: come to this gig. It’s really positive.
Hutton: It’s weird because we are getting to the point where Karl is getting stalkers now.
Hart: You’ve got the worst, what are you on about?

Who has got the creepy fans then?

Hart: Not going to mention any names.
Faulkner: Probably shouldn’t mention it on here…
Geerlings: They are probably going to read it!

Silver Souvenirs proceed to burst into laughter before explaining the story behind their not so secret admirers.

Hart: But, but off the record, there’s a woman that comments on every one of Steve’s Facebook statuses. Where is she from? Leeds? Or Sheffield?
Hutton: I’m not going to say her name, just in case. But I changed my settings on Facebook, on custom profile, then went to ‘hide everything from this person’. Because literally, like I’ll put a music video or something up, saying oh I like this song. Then she’ll be like: this is great, I’ve seen these live so many times. Then she’ll message me saying: ‘admiration on your music taste’. It’s like, leave me alone! (Laughs)
Hart: It was like, pissing it down the other day, and you put ‘rain’ and she commented going ‘sunny in Barnsley’.

The band erupt once again into laughter.

Hutton: Ten seconds after I posted it.

Is she always at your gigs then?

Hart: No, no. It’s not like Flight Of The Conchords yet.
Faulkner: Saying that, it is good that people are taking an interest in what we are doing in our personal life as well.
Hutton: With the band pages on Facebook, you can see how many people have shared your stuff, talking about it and stuff, so…Soundcloud as well, with graphs and stuff.

Soundcloud is great.

Hart: Yeah, just seeing the percentages of how much your downloads have gone up in the week, stuff like that.

Do you feel like you are a part of a music scene in Birmingham at all?

Hart: Mmmm….
Hutton: I’d say from when we started, about two years ago, it has changed a lot. With bands coming up, like there’s a, different generation coming through. Like in The Rainbow, around that area, there is different bands coming through. Like last week, at Zom B Prom, there was a band playing and I just had no idea who they were.
Hart: They were from London. The Dirty Projects…Projectors?

A debate begins over their name, the band eventually settle on The Dirty Secrets.

Hutton: It’s definitely changed though, again, going back to when we started, at The Adam And Eve round the corner. You go play a gig there and there’d be three people there, and that would be the bar staff basically. You’d be playing to an empty room, whereas now, it’s just completely changed. There are packed out nights, you can’t move in there. It’s definitely changing, like, it’s an interesting time.
Geerlings: There is a bit of a buzz about Birmingham music at the moment.

Do you feel like you have made a difference to the scene, as a band?

Hart: I don’t know, I’d like to think so. I’ve never really thought about that. I dunno.
Hutton: It’s strange like, thinking where we fit in as well. Over the past two years, we’ve had a change of drummers and things like that and we are just trying to find our sound. And where we fit into the scene has kind of changed over time as well. Hopefully, you know, we don’t want to be pigeon-holed and stuff like that. It’s a good thing I think.
Hart: I don’t know if we like, have much of an impact though. Do we? I don’t know, because I look at Troumaca and they are like, a bit influential on what we try and do. You think? I don’t know. I think so. Watching them live and stuff like that, it’s like…
Hutton: It’s because they’ve been doing it the longest I think. They were Scarlet Harlets and now they have sort of, taken that extra step. Gone up another level I think.
Faulkner: I think people look up to them because they have been doing it the longest.

Do you think you will ever experiment with different styles of music?

Hart: I think we like what we are doing now and there is still room for us to progress.
Hatton: It’s always progressing, because if you think about what we wrote a year ago, when I first joined, it’s very different to what we are doing now. It’s still identifiably us, but I think there is a greater maturity to what we are doing now. We are thinking about, not just what we like the sound of in the studio, but a bigger picture. Like how would it sound on record, how would it sound to a group of people listening to it? Would they respond to it? Are we going to respond to that? So I think, especially in the last three or four months particularly, especially coming up to this tour, a lot more thought has gone into how we put stuff together.
Geerlings: We’re not just a band who can go with it. We are very…we have a thought process.
Hatton: We are almost too critical of ourselves. We are perfectionists and we don’t want it to be anything other than 100%.

It’s good to have some quality control in place.

Hatton: Yeah, we have to tell each other to reign it in. Me usually, because I play the loudest instrument.
Hutton: Before we went on the tour, the gig before that, we had someone record it on video for us. And Jeremy, with the adrenaline and him getting into the music, some of our songs ended up like punk songs.
Hart: So fast!
Hatton: I think you just stitched me up there, but that’s fine.

So what’s the best gig you have played so far?

Another band debate takes place until a mutual agreement on Sheffield settles it.

Hatton: In Sheffield, we got the best response and we weren’t expecting it.
Faulkner: It was a really big, wide room as well.
Geerlings: Yeah, we played to like, about six hundred people.
Hatton: And six hundred people watched. It wasn’t just, like, on the tour we would get hit and miss responses. Because The Twang are a little bit older, there a bit older than us aren’t they? And the people would sort of be there to see them, and Sheffield…we recorded that one as well. We looked out and it was just packed, and we watched the video and it was mind blowing. Felt like, for us…
Hart: It was scary!
Hatton: And especially like, on the stage, struggling to see, with stage lights, who is there and stuff like that. We had a few people come to watch, so we recognised them. We looked at the video, and it was just right to the back, wall to wall. And like…
Hart: They were dancing. I can remember looking out and I could see people looking at your mouth and trying to sing back at you.
Hatton: The whole tour was good. There were some nights when we didn’t enjoy playing as much because we didn’t enjoy our own performances. But we recorded most of the performances and even on some of the ones where it wasn’t as packed like the Sheffield one or the Manchester one, people are still really going for it. That was what was really positive. Because we came out thinking: aww, that wasn’t the best, you know, we haven’t had a great night doing that, I’ve messed up or he’s messed up. But still, there is that good response. Which is really good and really positive for us.
Hutton: Playing to a room of people who aren’t there for you, at all. You never go to a gig thinking: ooh, I wonder what the support is.
Hart: It could’ve been a lot worse. I’ve seen support bands go down…
Geerlings: We thought of it as our own show, not supporting The Twang. We say, right, this is our show, we are going to do it.
Hatton: Yeah, it stood us in good stead. We said: we are going to do our thing, regardless. You know, we are supporting The Twang, really grateful to be here but we are not going to go into, like, not play our show. Not be who we are. I think that came across, like a lot of personality comes through in our shows.
Hutton: We like to look like we are enjoying it as well. Instead of taking it that seriously. We don’t want people just looking at us playing our instruments.
Hart: That’s why supporting Tribes was so good. I think we were all, well I was fucked. Were you fucked?
Hatton: Yeah, we just didn’t give a shit.
Hart: We just were like, we’ve done all these dates around the country, back in Birmingham, we were just like we’re going Snobs later, let’s just have a good night.
Hatton: I think we were more relaxed there than at any other point. It’s really odd because it didn’t dawn on me until we played that gig that we probably were quite a bit nervous each night on the Twang tour. Obviously that went away.
Hutton: Just looking out into the crowd, there is obviously those people just looking at you. And a few weeks ago, that really would of put us off but we just get into the habit off…
Hatton: Oi you, start dancing!
Hutton: You know, they should put their pint down and start smiling.
Hatton: Sam got really cocky, he was like: I’ve seen you dance, now I wanna see you sing. He pointed and just went: I wanna see you dance. That was really good, and they did!
Hutton: I was gonna say that to the guy down at the bar but he would probably just punch me. But luckily I had the barrier of about 40 people and some metal beams.

I think it’s good that you are writing music for people, not just yourselves. But is there any aspect of the band that you are doing just for yourselves? Is it therapeutic in any way?

Hutton: The song writing thing, definitely.
Hatton: The actual playing of it. The doing it is the…
Hart: It’s just like, it’s a break isn’t it? You know, you get home from work and you think I’m going to go hang out with my mates now and play some music. Yeah. It’s definitely like, it’s down time. And also, the things that we write about and that are in our lyrics are all pretty…like we aren’t just talking about going out and getting pissed or whatever. We are talking about, well, we hope more meaningful stuff. So it is, like you say, kind of therapeutic to express it in that way. And that definitely helps.

How do you go about writing songs together?

Hart: It’s kind of changed recently actually. Before, it used to be a lot of me, Gaz and Karl getting together and just…
Faulkner: Three chords and a verse sort of thing.
Hart: Yeah, then we’d show Steve and Steve would put some lyrics or whatever to it. Now it’s like, it’s more a group process. Everyone is just involved now.
Faulkner: Mainly because of the lock up now, isn’t it? We have our own lock up now, so we can meet whenever, for as long as we want. It just makes sense for just all of us to be there while we are writing.
Hatton: It’s more of a democratic process, we can do it now instead of like, let’s wait to see what he thinks. Like, he’s not here tonight so we gotta wait to see what lyrics he’s going to do. But at the same time, you will sit and play at home. You’ll think of something and bring it to the table.
Faulkner: Before Jeremy came along, it was like, us four and a drummer. We would kind of go, we’ve written this, now play to that. But we had problems getting the chemistry right. But now, with Jezz, because Jezz is like a good singer as well.
Geerlings: A creative mind.
Faulkner: We are all on the same page.
Hatton: We are all looking to try and do the same thing. And because we are all friends, we can say what we like. And although we can’t sort of, swap instruments, we’ll say: what about trying this? So guitar will often help out bass. And they’ll say Jezz, what about trying this on drums? Or lyrics, or harmonies, that sort of thing. It’s really open in that way. And that’s good because no one takes it personally. Like, not anymore.

Do you ever have any disagreements?

Geerlings: Definitely.
Hutton: All the time. But that’s really healthy.
Faulkner: I don’t think any band is like…
Hatton: If a band is painting a picture that they don’t, they are lying.
Hart: Well…I think some bands don’t argue. I reckon they just…
Hutton: Well some bands it’s not democratic, it’s like: I’ve written this song. You have one person that does all the writing behind it.
Hart: There is a lot of like, strong personalities in this...sitting here right now. So like, they can conflict sometimes. Can’t they? But it’s all good, it’s all healthy.

Have any of you been in bands before Silver Souvenirs?

Hart: Come on Karl!
Faulkner: What man?
Hart: Come on, tell us about your band. What was it called?
Faulkner: The first band I was in was like a metal, screamo band. Which I was the singer of.

Sam Hart can’t contain his amusement over this fact, and starts laughing.

Faulkner: And then I was in like a, sort of pop punk band.
Geerlings: What were they called again?
Faulkner: Which one?
Hart: Both of them.
Faulkner: The first band was called Hope Fails.
Hart: Ahh, that’s very negative.
Faulkner: Second band was called…I have no idea. Dunno, can’t remember.

Are you glad to be in Silver Souvenirs now?

Faulkner: Definitely. In the second band I was with, that was when I started to play bass. And then I met Gaz and Sam. And since, like, as soon as I met them, my ability to play just went like loads loads better. Just because I was playing more and they were just helping me. Sort of. Because I never really had any lessons or anything. Just meeting Gaz and Sam who had been playing guitar for a couple of years just helped me progress loads. And now, I’m doing pretty well man.
Hart: You’re alright now, aint yah?
Faulkner: I wasn’t that good before.

Do any of you make music on your own at all? Are there any side projects going on?

Hutton: I’ve just been messing around with the production side of things. I really like the sort of future garage, stuff like bass music, Jamie XX and the like. That’s something I really like getting into on the side. But it’s really time consuming as well, trying to be, like, doing that and being a lyricist whilst trying to learn how to record stuff. It can be time consuming just trying to fit all that in. And talking about past bands, I was in a little blues band. That’s how I started out. I was the bass player. When I met Gaz, he was like: I need a singer. I was like: I can kind of sing. It was really weird, that first gig. I always had the guitar in front of me but it went from that to a mic stand. Which on the first gig we played as Silver Souvenirs, just as the intro was ending, I kicked something and all four mic stands just went down. That’s the problem with first impressions, you only get one.
Geerlings: It was about fifteen seconds into our first song. And he just kicked everything over.
Hutton: I’m always some how kicking Gaz or unplugging a guitar.
Hart: It’s hard to fit five people on some stages. He kicked a monitor off the stage one time. It just went clunk.
Hutton: I was trying to do that thing where you know, the singer goes and puts his foot up on the thing.
Hatton: A good one actually was when we had a gig at the O2, in April I think, maybe later. And Steve plays the drums in one of the tracks. He plays a tom in one of the songs. And we watched the video, like: oh we’ll check the performance out. It was like bang bang, drum stick gone.
Hutton: I dropped both sticks. I was just trying to enjoy it and I wasn’t thinking about it. That was the first gig where I probably could of cried but I just couldn’t help but laugh at myself. I was drumming away in this song, like, trying to get all into it. Then I dropped one drum stick, and I was like, it’s fine, I’ve got another one. Then that’s gone as well.
Hatton: It looks good on video. It’s comedic.

Have you got any gigs coming up?

Hart: Well yeah, we got the EP in Christmas.
Hatton: In Christmas?
Hart: In Christmas. We’re supporting Dutch Uncles on the 23^rd November at The Hare And Hounds. Yeah, can’t wait for that. And Corelli as well. Who are sound, and really good as well. There’s that but then after that we’ve got a couple of things in December but nothing has been finalized. We can’t really say about that. There’s at least one or two things that are pretty big man! We can’t wait but…
Hatton: It’s all paper work.
Hart: Yeah, we’ve gotta sign something. But yeah, December will be really good if those two things go off.
Hatton: They will coincide nicely with an EP release.
Hart: Then I think in January, we are playing with Troumaca actually. Does anyone know that?

Is that going to be a Troumaca And Friends show?

Hart: Yeah, we were going to do it last month but we were away over Summer so we wouldn’t have been ready.
Hutton: We ended up doing our first DJ thing there though.

Is that something you’ll carry on doing?

Hutton: Yeah, but again it’s an expensive thing to get your own CDJs. I use a laptop.
Hatton: It keeps the name out there as well, don’t it?
Hart: Yeah it seems like most bands now are doing DJ sets. It’s a good way to be involved with the gig even if you aren’t playing it.
Hutton: Instead of playing your music to people, you are saying this is the kind of music I like and that inspires me. And we can share that with people.

You can cheekily drop your own track in.

Faulkner: Got played in Snobs the other day.
Hutton: You know you’ve made it when you’ve been played in Snobs.

PHOTOGRAPHY BY JACK PARKER

http://www.silversouvenirs.co.uk/

CHILDHOOD Interview

2011-11-10T04:23:00.000-08:00

Childhood's music is pretty exciting stuff, much like everything is when you are a child.

Secret Admirer was smitten from the first listen, our eyes grew wide and we wanted to put their songs in our mouth.
But we decided to be adult about it, and sent them a formal email with some questions about the ideas behind the band.

When and why did the band start?

Childhood started in the summer of 2010 when I met Ben in my first year of university. We shared similar musical tastes and as we were both guitarists we decided to start messing around with ideas. We got gig offers very early on based on demos we had released on Myspace, so realised we needed to get a band together, which materialised by Christmas.

Why did you choose the name Childhood?

I think we chose the name Childhood before we even wrote any music, it was a heavy night out and Ben said "I want to be in a band called childhood". The rest is history. I think it's fitting as a lot of the lyrics in our songs are about nostalgia. It also looks good on paper.

Is there a specific style you aim to create when you write music?

We never feel restricted to trying to create songs in a certain vein. But we do like making catchy songs and our focus is very much on melody.

What do you want people to get from your music?

We hope that people will enjoy our music as much as we do, both in the live setting and in listening to our songs. Generally we feel that there is a much more muted crowd response to live music these days, so a positive crowd reaction is greatly appreciated.

What inspires your lyrics? What do they tend to be about?

Ben: I never have an agenda with my lyrics, it's normally based on the feeling I get from the chords or melody Leo or myself have written. A lot of our songs seem to be based on past experiences and retrospective thoughts on them.

Is there anything other than music that inspires you creatively?

National parks. Babes. Depressing urban landscapes. Hypnic jerks. Sleep paralysis and serious tekkers.

Have you found a sound that you are comfortable with, or do you intend to experiment further with your sound?

We are happy with our sound but we don't intend to limit ourselves to just one style. All our songs will always be distinctly Childhood, but we are very much looking to better and progress our sound.

What has been the best gig you have played so far?

In terms of enjoyment it would have to be when we supported The Maccabees because it was amazing playing to such a large and young crowd. But equally we have had a lot of fun around various sweatboxes in London.

Do you feel as though you fit into any particular music scene?

At this stage we don't feel integrated into one scene, but we have found ourselves playing with bands that are on the same live circuit, but who are all doing things in their own unique way. We like to play with bands that we enjoy listening to.

If you could soundtrack a film, which one would you choose?

Ben says that he would like to soundtrack 'Enter The Dragon'. I would like to soundtrack a zombie movie, I really love zombies.

What are your plans in terms of releasing music and playing gigs?

We just released a new demo accompanied by a video for 'Just Floating' and are hoping to get our single out early in the new year. We have been working with XL's in-house producer Rodaidh McDonald and re-recorded 'Blue Velvet' and 'Semester', so we are hyped for that release. We have a gig with Girls this weekend in Nottingham, and then are playing a festival with Howler and some other great bands in Sheffield the week after. We might take a small break from gigging after that, and concentrate on writing some new club bangers.

http://www.facebook.com/#!/pages/Childhood/248233878538718

Photo provided by Childhood

AUSTIN WILLIAMS (Swim Deep) Interview

2011-11-07T14:10:00.000-08:00

Austin Williams and his band of best mates Swim Deep want to escape the midlands.
You will too, after emercing yourself in their music.
Secret Admirer met up with Williams to hear his plans of action.

When and why did you start the band with the other guys?

Yeah, we started, erm…it was me and J Wolfgang in college and we were just always listening to music and thinking oh yeah I’d love to do that. We used to listen to The Libertines loads and stuff like that. But we were like ok then, why don’t we do it. But he couldn’t play anything and I was alright but…so it started just me and him. And then I met Tom, Higgy, through Morrissons. I was like, do you want to play bass? And he’s not a bassist but I kind of like persuaded him to be so he was like, yeah ok.
We went through a number of drummers but we basically started it because we wanted to do the same thing as like, the bands we were listening to and stuff like that. Like, you know, do it all. But yeah, then we started. We were in loads of different bands before Swim Deep, before this, like Galahads, Jungle Blood…various names that we all just changed all the time. It was all a load of bullshit but we got down to it properly in the end. Yeah, we were kind of like, more punk-y back then. We just wanted to go on stage, get fucked, just like do whatever. We didn’t use any effects or anything like that. And at the time, we thought that was like, yeah, wicked. It was fun but wasn’t great, so yeah we knuckled down to it when it came to Swim Deep. That’s what we are doing now.

Why did you choose the name Swim Deep?

Well we had a song, in our old band that had the lyrics swim deep in, we called it ‘Swim Deep’. When we changed our name, we thought of loads of stuff, but Swim Deep just stuck, it meant something to us. As you say it, I don’t know, it kind of gives you a good picture in your head. Like blue and nice colours and shit like that. So that’s why.

Do you feel as though the band fits into a certain scene in Birmingham?

Yeah I don’t know if there is a scene yet. But I think we are, I don’t know, accidently we’re creating a scene, we’re not doing it intentionally. I think us, Peace, Troumaca, Corelli are all like making a scene that…we’re not the same kind of music. Like Blessing Force in Oxford where it’s all math-rock and stuff like that. We’re not intentionally doing that, I mean we’re not going to get Birmingham tattooed to our head or stuff like that. We’re all just doing it together, like when we do shows we are all good mates. So it kind of like, seems a scene, we are all doing it together and making good music. But us, Peace, Troumaca and Corelli are all completely different. I think that’s what is good as well. Like, it shows the diversity.

Definitely, so, how do you go about writing songs together?

Ok, well, recently we’ve been doing it more together. But in the early days, it used to be like, me or…well actually any of us would come up with a riff, but it was mainly, it was mainly kind of like me and Higgy who were doing it. We’d come up with a riff, play it at practice then see where it went from there, like whether they liked it or not, stuff like that. So, yeah it was mainly that. But then we all come together, so we all do it on our own and come together and put it together. It works much better like that. We don’t go into a practice room with nothing in mind. Because as much as we’d like it to come out like: go into a practice room, you’re not doing anything, nothing in mind, then you all jam and something comes out. It’s happened before but it’s always turned into a large, kind of like prog-rock song that we are not going to use. It’s fun but it’s not what we are going for.

Are there any bands or anything that inspire your sound?

Yeah, there’s a lot of bands that inspire our sound. Well, what inspires our sound is not being in Birmingham, not being in the Midlands, not being in England. We want to be somewhere sunny and hot and on a beach with women that don’t wear bikinis. Stuff like that, but we don’t want to be in rainy Birmingham and that’s what inspires us. We’re making it to do that, so we can like eventually like, do that.
Some bands like Beach Fossils, Girls…summery bands that come from America. And obviously we have influences like The Strokes but just like, bands that we don’t sound anything like but we take influences from. I’m not sure how it comes about but yeah.

So it’s like a means of escape for you, through your music.

Yeah, definitely man. When we play the music it doesn’t feel like we’re in Birmingham and it’s kinda nice to just be able to do that through our music.

Do you want people to get a similar thing from your music?

Yeah. We want people, when they hear it…to have it as like, driving down the road music. Like, you’ve got a song on in your car and erm, you can just drive to it. You can walk to it, and it automatically makes you feel happier.
I’ll be in the rain and I’ll listen to reggae on my headphones and I won’t think I’m in the rain. It’s kind of like that, I want people to hear that in our music.

What are your plans in terms of releasing your music?

Well basically, erm, we’ve recently got a manager, he’s a good guy. So we’re doing no shows until January now. So we have two London shows at the moment in January. But we’ll be recording with the producer of the recent TEETH album actually. Just over the winter. We are going to get a few songs done, release a single, we aren’t sure what the single is going to be yet but yeah. We’ll decide that as we do it. So the single will be January or February. And then yeah, we’ll do some shows from then on. Hopefully tour in the summer, yeah.

Nice! What music are you into at the moment?

I listen to a variety of stuff, but at the moment…I don’t know, the only album I can listen to at the moment is actually Aloe Blacc. His new album, I think it’s just amazing. Love that kind of music. I don’t listen to a lot of albums, so when I do listen to an album…yeah. But also, Higgy has got me into a lot more grunge stuff now. Rock’n’roll. Because I didn’t used to get it but now I completely get it. Yeah, I’ve been listening to that.
But the other guys, I don’t know, Higgy sticks to his grunge and stuff like that. Zach has been listening to a lot of, what album has he had? He loves like, erm, Crystal Castles, stuff like that, The Drums. But then Wolfgang, god knows what he listens to. He’ll listen to anything from Dianna Ross to…but yeah, he’s very diverse.

Is there a record label that you are going to release your music on?

We haven’t been approached by any record labels yet. But obviously, hopefully when we do the single, January is the time for them to pick it up. We’ll see how we do with the single and hopefully from then on…give us some cash! Basically.

Cheers, thanks for that.

No worries man.

http://soundcloud.com/swimdeep

PHOTOGRAPHY BY JACK PARKER

FRANK LINDSAY Interview

2011-11-06T10:06:00.000-08:00

Secret Admirer caught up with Frank Lindsay to talk about the important things in life: beats.

What’s the concept behind your alter-ego Sigmund Frued?

Nothing much really, just something I could release beats under. Sort of, do some MCing as well. Yeah it just came about because I was making beats and I wanted just a clichéd name. And then I heard it in a song, never really knew who he was before but read up on him and saw that he was a pretty famous psychologist.

He had some really weird ideas.

(Laughs) Yeah yeah!

What made you want to go into beat making and production?

Just growing up on hip hop really, just listening to Wu-Tang then sort of listening to MadLib and that. After I started listening to that, I just wanted to get a sampler really bad. I got one for Christmas, started just finding breaks and stuff. That’s how it started.

Do you make beats for any certain rappers or singers?

There’s not many out there in Birmingham. There’s probably plenty on YouTube I could hook up with, it’s just getting the time to do it. I just do it with my friends now really. I want to get a little crew going as well. Just some people to spit over tracks.

Why did you start the club night Fantastic Damage?

I met this guy Ray, and we found out that we both liked Cannibal Ox and El-P. And there was no nights putting on that sort of music. There was a lot of mainstream hip-hop stuff going on. So we just thought we would get together and put a night on. Somewhere like Moseley, which is a sort of hub for like good stuff. We just thought we’d put it on basically.

Do you think the world needs to be a bit more educated on left field hip hop?

Yeah, yeah! Definitely man. There is so many good rappers out there that people don’t know about. Because they only stick to stuff that gets fed to them.

What kind of stuff do you play in your DJ sets?

My sets, I like sort of mixing Wu-Tang era stuff with Def Jux records style but also mixing it in with Stones Throw records. The whole Californian beat scene as well, a bit of everything. I don’t stick to one genre.

Do you feel like you are making an impact on the local scene at all?

I hope so. I just hope people listen to my beats or come to Fantastic Damage.

Is there a reason behind the name Fantastic Damage?

It’s El-P’s album cover, I mean album name. I thought it sounded pretty good for a hip hop night. I thought it would be a good idea to take it from the album of one of the main guys in the genre. That’s where it came from anyway.

Did you want to do something different went Savant stopped making music?

I was sort of doing beats anyway when I was in Savant. There was a gap when we didn’t have band practice or anything. So it became really easy to just go home, go upstairs and just sit on your PC or whatever and make beats on it. Instead of like channelling your free into playing Xbox, you channel it into making beats.

Are there any producers that you want to collaborate with?

I do stuff with my friend Kaben, he’s like in my group of friends that I hang about with a lot. He makes chillstep, that ambient sort of dubstep. He’s pretty well respected on the internet, he gets put on this channels dedicated to stuff like that. He got over 20,000 views in under two days. He’s a good guy to have, to like do collaborations with. I did a track with him where I MC’d over it. And it sounded really good. I’ve also been talking to this guy called Tim, he’s an MC and he wanted to do some stuff with me as well. But I don’t really know that many producers out there that make the kind of beats that I do. Or spit dry.

Do you ever intend to do any live shows with Sigmund Frued?

Yeah. I want to get round to making the set. That’ll be it, that’ll be when I want to do it. I’ve never got round to actually figuring out a set. Except for when I did my mix tape. I wouldn’t want it to be just me standing there on my own pressing buttons. I’d want to have some sort of MC with me. Just got to find the right people to do it with. I want to start doing live stuff. It’s just finding when to do it.

Are Savant ever going to do anything again?

Erm…probably not. We might just do the odd show just for the hell of it. We probably could write some good stuff now but I don’t really want to do it once we have already stopped it. That would be like trying to do something that has already been done.

It was more reflective of a certain time.

Yeah, about a year ago in 2010 we were doing loads of stuff, we just couldn’t write any more. Writer’s block just hit us. It was just like, oh no, can’t do it. But I’ve got another band started up now.

Your new band Cock Roach?

Cock Roach, yeah man!

What do you intend to do with that?

Just write music, put stuff out. Get loads of gigs man.

Is it a return to the Savant style?

Not really, it’s something different. Just something you wouldn’t expect to hear. Just throw loads of different stuff in, loads of different influences. Try and create something new.

Have you got any plans for Sigmund Frued? Anything you are going to release in the future?

Get signed. I really want to get signed.

You have put some of your stuff out through Speech Thewapy.

Yeah, they are good guys. But it’s probably due to my laziness that more stuff doesn’t get put out. Stuff always breaks and I can’t…like, my computer is broken now so I can’t send anything over. So it’s probably my fault that we don’t release more stuff on there.

Have you sent your work to any other labels at all yet?

Nah, I’ll probably want to get some more tapes out. Maybe get an MC mix tape out as well rather than just beats. I’ll send that out and see what they say. Then see what I can do to make it better.

Cheers, thanks for the little interview.

It’s cool.

http://soundcloud.com/new-zealand

THOMAS HOLLOWAY (THE ARCADIAN KICKS) Interview

2011-11-01T13:14:00.000-07:00

Secret Admirer hooked up with Thomas Holloway, the guitarist in Birmingham bad boys (and girls) The Arcadian Kicks over Facebook. The Arcadian Kicks are keeping music alive and kicking!
We stole the pictures used in this post from Facebook, they rightfully belong to whom ever took them.

When and why did you form the band together?

We originally formed at school just so we could have a bit of a laugh, not have to do as much music theory work. Harry joined the band in like 2008 or something that's when we decided hey, we're alright at this and started venturing a bit more.

Where does the name The Arcadian Kicks come from?

Well, we wanted to be called The Kicks but there was already a band called that. Then we liked The Libertines lyric: ‘arcadian dreams all fallen through from good old days’. So we put them together. It's better than the initial name suggested by B.P: Ironic Yellow. Haha.

What do you want people to get from your music?

Erm, sexually charged in mind body and soul.

Has being based in Birmingham benefited you as a band?

Erm, not really to be honest... I mean the social scene is good and the nights are good but I wouldn't say there's that much of a live music scene here. There are some great bands though! So yeah creatively yeah.

Do you feel like you are a part of a scene in Birmingham?

Erm the social scene definitely but I think we're like the awkward outsiders that are doing something different to the rest and that could be a good thing.

What has been the best gig you have played so far?

Erm... I'm not really sure about best gig... Probably one of our club night. We had some great bands play it and it was carnage. The one where we had The Ruling Class play was pretty good. They've changed their name to Sulk now.

What is your favourite song to play live?

That's pretty difficult cus I think we've probably only played one of the songs from this new set live before. We do a pretty good late night/early morning Zeppelin/Nirvana jam in my house with our mates though.

What has been the best moment for you as a band so far?

I'd say taking this time off and writing these new songs. I've never been so excited and hell bent on something. They really do sound good.

Do you have any creepy fans yet?

We've got a few crazy mental ones but in a nice way they're all great. One of the guys that come’s to see us a lot: Stuart is a top top guy and he's recently had a daughter and called her Rebekah Louise which are the two girls in our bands first and middle names. That's quite a head fuck.

What are the future plans for the band?

Well, WE HAVE A FREE DOWNLOAD OUT ON OUR FACEBOOK NOVEMBER 8TH WE HAVE A FREE DOWNLOAD OUT ON OUR FACEBOOK NOVEMBER 8TH WE HAVE A FREE DOWNLOAD OUT ON OUR FACEBOOK NOVEMBER 8TH WE HAVE A FREE DOWNLOAD OUT ON OUR FACEBOOK NOVEMBER 8TH...that's all I'm saying for now.

http://www.facebook.com/thearcadiankicks