Friday 31 October 2014

Dave Cormier Q&A

Your name:
Dave Cormier.

Where are you from?

Victoria, BC, Canada.

Who else is in your band?
My former guitarist Will Peters, Christian Stevenson bass, Darcy Phillips keyboards and Taylor Allum drums.


How would you describe yourselves and your music?
Straight up blues rock/rock band with a modern day sound.


Who are your main influences musically?
Just a mishmash of styles from Johnny Lee Hooker to The Faces, the Stones, the Clash, the Black Keys.


What do you hope to achieve in music?
I want to build a career of good quality listenable music. I'm more about the music less about the money or fame.


What has been the highlight of your career so far, and why?
Being played on FM Radio stations across Canada. Never really thought that would happen.


And what’s the moment you want to forget?
All the naysayers who said it would and could never happen! Took the fun out of it for a while.


If you had to pick just one of your songs to represent your music, what would it be and why?
What's My Name is the song being played on the radio here right now. Songs are stories of the things I've seen and heard. Sometimes good things sometimes bad I have no real attachment to any song except for the moment in time they capture.

Songs come to me in dreams sometimes in the middle of the night or while daydreaming. They come fast and surprisingly complete. It's like a never ending radio always playing in my head.

Where can we listen to it?
My website is 
www.davecormierband.com  where you can listen to sample tracks. The full tracks can be heard through my music page on Facebook at www.facebook.com/Davecormierband. Go to the music store at the top of the page and click on Artist playlist.



Where can we find out more about your music?
Website: 
www.Davecormiermusic.com
Facebook: www.facebook.com/DaveCormierBand
Twitter: twitter.com/DCormierBand
iTunes: https://itunes.apple.com/ca/artist/dave-cormier/id683482032

Monograms Q&A

Photo by Anna Tucker
Your name: 
Ian.

Where are you from? 
Brooklyn, NYC, USA.

Name of band: 
Monograms.

Who else is in your band?
Just me. Sometimes others, but mostly just me.

How would you describe yourself and your music? 
My music is "electro wave garage rock". I'm a man with who owns an electric guitar, drums, drum machines and some other stuff.

Who are your main influences musically?
Love, hate, travelling, drinking.

What do you hope to achieve in music?
Everything I can.

What has been the highlight of your career so far, and why?
Opening for the Wytches this past summer... and I have my very own Twitter account that I know how to use.

And what’s the moment you want to forget?
None.

If you had to pick just one of your songs to represent your music, what would it be and why?
Tidal Wave, cause it sounds the most like "electro wave garage rock".

Where can we listen to it?


  
Where can we find out more about your music?
(it's on itunes as well)

Thursday 30 October 2014

hackmonocut Q&A

Your name:
hack, I'm the singer.

Where are you from?

I'm from Linz, Austria.

Name of band:

hackmonocut.

Who else is in your band?

mar tin - guitars
woolph - guitars, strings
glenn - bass
phil - drums

How would you describe yourselves?

Alternative rock noir - some kind of dark alternative rock with a touch of goth-rock.

Who are your main influences musically?

The Doors, Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds, Einstürzende Neubauten, Nine Inch Nails.

What do you hope to achieve in music?

A three-month tour where we play every second night in front of at least 50 people.

What has been the highlight of your career so far, and why?

Strangers who wanna buy a hackmonocut album after a live show. After weeks or months
alone in the dark writing songs on my own without getting any feedback from outside, new fans telling you they loved your music is one of the coolest things in music.   

And what’s the moment you want to forget?

None.

If you had to pick just one of your songs to represent your music, what would it be and why?

virgin suicide bomber. It has everything in it, the dark soul of our music, melancholy, irony, love, death and social criticism.

Where can we listen to it?

https://soundcloud.com/hackmonocut/virgin-suicide-bomber
http://youtu.be/bs9xnYfKAQA?list=UUQhIvI_EGRW6z5VnDlC0szQ



Where can we find out more about your music?

http://www.hackmonocut.org/
https://reverbnation.com/hackmonocut
https://www.facebook.com/Hackmonocut
https://twitter.com/hackmonocut
https://soundcloud.com/hackmonocut

Hannah Q&A

Your name: 
Marcus Mayes.

Where are you from? 
Manchester/North Wales.

Name of band: 
HANNAH.

Who else is in your band? -
Hayley Faye - Vocals & Guitar
K DaSilva - Guitar & Effects
Josh Wilson - Bass

How would you describe yourselves and your music?
Sweeping major to minor chords, great bursting choruses like the sun cracking through the clouds and tunes that etch into your head on first hearing… but you wish it wasn’t always so blokey?

Who are your main influences musically?
James, U2, Slowdive, Beatles, Sigur Ros, Verve, RHCP, Low Roar, Fink.

What do you hope to achieve in music?
To have people enjoy the songs the songs we write and also record a album or ep that we feel proud of and also play some lovely venues around the UK.

What has been the highlight of your career so far, and why?
There are a couple, I guess supporting Liam Frost in Manchester also My Architects a number of times in Warrington and The Elected (Blake Sennet) at Club Academy in Manchester.
Also having Fallout on the first overplay CD that got sent out to all the labels, also Danny and Mary from Blue Cat Music for including Starstruck on the Out of The City.
And I guess most of all to the people who sent time coming to see Hannah over the years and making every gig enjoyable.

And what’s the moment you want to forget?
Not really we have had some funny moments playing gigs. I think if you asked Hayley it would most likely be the ZanziBar in Liverpool where she had to lay down on the floor for most of gig due to her guitar strap breaking.

If you had to pick just one of your songs to represent your music, what would it be and why?
Stalker and because I feel it was the package everything was big and sweeping and just right!

Where can we listen to it?


Where can we find out more about your music?
Anything else you’d like to say about your music that I forgot to ask?
We are playing a gig on 29th Jan 2015 at the Beirkeller in Manchester and it is free so come along.

Wednesday 29 October 2014

City Of Ashes Q&A

Your name: 
Orion Powell.

Where are you from? 
We live near Brighton.

Name of band: 
City Of Ashes.

Who else is in your band?
My brother James, Daniel Frederick and Dan Russell.

How would you describe yourselves? 
We get asked this all the time. I'd have to say a story-based rock band really. We don't like the idea of sub-categorising ourselves too much.

Who are your main influences musically? 
All sorts! We all grew up listening to everything from Eric Clapton and Fleetwood Mac to Slipknot, Eminem and everything in between. We've actually played a lot of '80s and '90s pop in the van during our last tour.

What do you hope to achieve in music? 
We have had such a blast so far this year promoting our current album. To see audiences really growing around the country has been incredible. This year also saw our first international show in Dublin and the first video that I produced, which broke through 10,000 views in two weeks (our fastest growing video ever). We have a couple more shows this year supporting some bands that we're very honoured to be involved with including the band Trapt who we all grew up listening to as teenagers. Then we start next year hard with an intense tour in February.
Add to that the fact we have just started writing again for a follow up record and I'd have to say we're really achieving what we want to in music. We just want to keep growing it onto a bigger scale.

What has been the highlight of your career so far, and why? 
We have had so many that it's hard to pick out just one. For all of us a show held in Eastbourne was quite special as it was our first sell out to just under 300 people. We always try to do something special with shows so we used a lot of pyrotechnics etc at that one which was great fun!
For me personally there are many too. Our show in Dublin earlier this year was the first one a very special family member was able to make so that meant a lot.

And what’s the moment you want to forget? 
Man! We've had a few of those too! Things you try that just don't go right on stage, that you beat yourself up for a thousand times afterwards. They happen. When they do it can be really tough to let go of as we always want to do well. It's all a learning curve though. We have undoubtedly gotten stronger from going through them.

If you had to pick just one of your songs to represent your music, what would it be and why? 
I really couldn't. To me that'd be like saying that the others are somehow worse, which I just don't think is fair or logical. Our album is actually a story so to take out a part of it and say it's better than the others would be dishonest to me. It'd be like pulling an abstract chapter from a book and expecting it to make sense.
As for a song that we really enjoy live however, we've been having a blast playing our song 'Waves' at shows of late.

Where can we listen to it? 


Where can we find out more about your music? 

Anything else you’d like to say about your band/music that I forgot to ask?
Our February 2015 tour is already selling really well and we'd love to see some of you there. Here's the ticket link :)

Nishi Q&A

Your name: 
West Addams.

Where are you from? 
We're from the Musical Mecca within the Midlands; more specifically Birmingham, UK.

Name of band: 
Nishi.

Who else is in your band? 
Ben Horsley - Guitars
James Warren - Bass
Andy Price - Drums
Bruce Oakley - Guitars

How would you describe yourselves and your music? 
Our sound is best described as neoclassical punk zydeco rockabilly, with a soupcon of grunge-rock pursuant.

Who are your main influences musically? 
The mainstay would be the classical insights of musical layering as exhibited by The Doors and Soundgarden, bedecked with the edge of reason and insight afforded by bands such as Guns N' Roses and Nirvana, tempered by the direct extemporizing of societal raconteurs like The Ramones and the Sex Pistols. 

What do you hope to achieve in music? 
As a group our aim is to be as singular in rhythmic resonators as we are individuals within the genre, connecting with our fans on a very real level and creating an experience that builds on the incredible response our Droog Addict EP has already garnered.

What has been the highlight of your career so far, and why? 
Aside from Ben's endorsement from the goodly folk of Steve Clayton Inc (www.steveclayton.com - @SteveClaytonInc) and being invited to perform at Rock Against Multiple Sclerosis charity event - (Rock Against MSUK - https://www.facebook.com/rockagainstmsuk https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=ASUlssJvj70-  the honor of being awarded Wolfman Radio's Unsigned Artists of The Month (http://tinyurl.com/p2xjhp2 - @LeeMadge) makes our shirt buttons strain at the swelling of pride.

And what’s the moment you want to forget? 
Thanks to the all powerful erasing powers of alcohol currently there are none.

If you had to pick just one of your songs to represent your music, what would it be and why? 
With its timeless intro riff, groove laden melodies, and number of downloads public consensus I feel F.I.N.E. is best suited for bringing ears to our sound and eyes to our presence.

Where can we listen to it? 
On our very own Soundcloud page here - https://soundcloud.com/nishi_lives/sets/droog-addict


Where can we find out more about your music?
Aside from stopping us in the street and back stage after gigs the best places to keep track of us is through the world of the web and our social media -
Twitter - @Nishi_Lives

Anything else you’d like to say about your music that I forgot to ask? 
Aside from a huge thank you to all the Dames & Droogs who have downloaded our EP and helped take us from a rehearsal room to the worlds stage and out across the global radio airwaves. I'd like to quote Joe Perry of Aerosmith and say 'Let the music do the talking'.

Tuesday 28 October 2014

The Hartford Pussies Q&A

Name of band:
The Hartford Pussies.


Where are you from? 
Washington, DC (not Hartford, oddly enough).

How would you describe yourselves? 
Sardonic early-90's college rock.

Who are your main influences musically? 
The Breeders, Dinosaur Jr., Beat Happening, Pavement, Pixies.

What do you hope to achieve in music? 
Notoriety? Adulation? Really just the validation of our peers.

What has been the highlight of your career so far, and why? 
Being told that we grow on the audience like a fungus, and that maybe we will one day blossom into a delectable mushroom. Because who says that, really?

And what’s the moment you want to forget? 
That one time Jordan was singing our song Orange Polo Shirt, which more or less denigrates adults who wear orange polo shirts, and there was a fellow at the bar wearing an orange polo shirt who looked genuinely hurt.

If you had to pick just one of your songs to represent your music, what would it be and why? 
Tammy, which highlights Jordan's fantastic voice and the effective soft-loud-soft-loud generic boilerplate that makes our songs work.

Where can we listen to it?
https://hartfordpussies.bandcamp.com/track/tammy


Where can we find out more about your music? 
facebook.com/hartfordpusses (yes, it's slightly misspelled because facebook is weirdly prudish about url names)
hartfordpussies.bandcamp.com
twitter.com/HartfordPussies
hartfordpussies.com
youtube.com/hartfordpussies

Anything else you’d like to say that I forgot to ask? 
New full-length album coming out soon! Also, our drummer moved to California, so if you know anyone who's interested...

The Gravity Guild Q&A

Your name:
Colin Simson, lead vocalist.

Name of band:
The Gravity Guild.

Who else is in your band?
Jay Way – Guitars/Backing Vocals
Colin Simson – Lead Vocals/Rhythm Guitars/Percussion
Abel Vallejo – Drums/Percussion

Where are you from?
Guitarist Jay Way moved out to Los Angeles from Michigan in 2000 to pursue music and studio engineering. He met a drummer who helped hone the sound that would later become The Gravity Guild. Way found Boston native Colin Simson through an online ad and the two started playing and writing songs, quickly realizing that they had the same taste in music and had a great creative connection.
Shortly thereafter, Way and Simson met Abel Vallejo, drummer extraordinaire, who embodied everything that the band stood for and wanted in terms of heavy hitting and intelligent musical reactions to the riff-based sound.

How would you describe yourselves and your music?
The Gravity Guild blends a mixture of classic progressive rock styles with modern progressive metal all wrapped up with a thick cocoon of 90's grunge. Progressive grunge? Perhaps, but it’s more refined than that… Think Led Zeppelin, Dream Theater and Rush meet Alice in Chains, Tool and Soundgarden.

Who are your main influences musically?
We are constantly inspired by classic rock and the grange era - music that we grew up listening to as well as the newer bands who’ve come out recently that clearly share our taste for heavy-hitting rock and alt metal.

What do you hope to achieve in music?
We want to take this project as far as it can go. The Gravity Guild is currently laying down tracks for our third studio release tentatively titled, "III" ... It promises to be our hardest hitting album yet.
Our first release, “I” is a crushing album that breaks the typical boundaries of hard rock while paying tribute to 70's rock, 90’s grunge, and modern rock. “I” swaggers with innovative guitar sounds and powerful riffs melded with heavy hitting drums and monster bass lines that carve out canyon-sized grooves over odd-meters. Melodic hooks laced with tight harmonies and evocative lyrics bring all of these elements together in this impressive full-length album.
Our sophomore release, “The Great Divide” expands on our experimental sound-scape while offering listeners a moody and introspective experience. The tracks for “The Great Divide” and “I” were recorded simultaneously giving the band an opportunity to have a follow up release less than a year after the release of “I”.  These contrasting styles inspired the band to re-imagine a couple tunes from “I” using their new acoustic approach. Ominous tracks “The Game” and “Time & Again” were stripped down and restructured, giving the audience a fresh perspective.

What has been the highlight of your career so far, and why?
The highlight of our career continues to be meeting new fans. Our fans are everything to us! Without fans we’d be playing these songs in our studio for ourselves. But because of support from loyal music enthusiasts, we’ve been able to play the best venues all over Southern California and even make a little money for doing what we love. It doesn’t get any better than that!

And what’s the moment you want to forget?
Being in a band is very much like being in a relationship. We’d never speak ill of the musicians who’ve come and gone during the early stages of forming The Gravity Guild, but the most frustrating parts of being a professional musician, and the things I think we’d all like to forget, have to be those moments when you realize that someone in your band isn’t working out. 
Break-ups are never easy but often necessary in order to keep moving forward creatively.

If you had to pick just one of your songs to represent your music, what would it be and why?
SLO is the perfect track for audiences to get to know The Gravity Guild because it is both heavy and upbeat. Plus, SLO showcases the band’s versatility through Jay Way’s killer guitar lines featuring his effects-heavy sound, Simson’s soaring vocal lines with tight harmonies, and an array of African percussion including congas and djembe that augment Vallejo’s massive drum grooves.

Where can we listen to it?



Where can we find out more about your music?
twitter.com/TheGravityGuild (@TheGravityGuild)

Anything else you’d like to say about your music that I forgot to ask?
The Gravity Guild is not yet signed, and though we welcome the right deal, we are proud to say that everything we've released has been written, produced, recorded and mixed in-house in our home: Inside Studios.

Monday 27 October 2014

William Stead Q&A

Your name:
William Stead.

Where are you from?
Bradford (currently in London).

How would you describe yourself and your music?
I'm a massive folk fan, but I'm also obsessed with atmospheric reverb and big epic guitars. I tried to incorporate this as much as possible into my new record without losing my original sound from my first EP.

Who are your main influences musically?
Bob Dylan is a massive influence and also Bon Iver. To me, Bon Iver are the best thing around at the moment. Unbelievable stuff. I'm also a massive fan of James Vincent McMorrow, James Blake and Alt-J.

What do you hope to achieve in music?
For me, music has always been a massive part of my life. As long as I can make people feel happy from listening to my music then I feel I have done a good job. I just want people to enjoy listening to the tunes I write and if anything else comes from that then its amazing!

What has been the highlight of your career so far, and why?
Me and my old backing band played the Brudenell Social Club in Leeds supporting MMX and that was unbelievable. To be able to play on the same stage as people such as Johnny Marr was a great privilege and to open for a band on a headline tour was also unreal! The sound was amazing too so that was a brilliant gig. Another highlight was the release of my first EP, which was pretty awesome. Finally seeing all the hard work I put into it starting to pay off!

And what’s the moment you want to forget?
Playing countless of gigs to an empty room. As an unsigned musician this sort of stuff happens all the time so I've now learnt to get used to it. The thing is, even if one person turns up to the show, it makes my night!

If you had to pick just one of your songs to represent your music, what would it be and why?
I think the best song to describe my music now is 'Sleep' which is the opening track on my new EP. (Released 13/10/2014). The reason being is that I believe it shows my new musical direction and shows how much better my songwriting has become. Also, heres my new single that I'm pretty proud of! Go check it out! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KnvMlTyI_NI

Where can we listen to it? 
You can listen to and download for free my new EP at www.williamstead.bandcamp.com. (You can also grab my old one there too, plus a couple of covers!)



Where can we find out more about your music? 
Twitter - @williamfstead

B Yellow Q&A

Your name:
Adam Comer.

Where are you from?
We are from a town called Basingstoke, we don't expect anyone to actually have heard of it ;)

Name of band:
We are called 'B Yellow', still not sure how we even came up with the name, we have made ourselves look silly before trying to answer that question.

Who is in your band?
There are five of us in the band, Nathan 'Wade' Harrison (Guitar/Vocals), Adam 'Fingers' Comer (Keys/Vocals), Mr Ellison (Banjo), Ninja (Drums), and our fez-loving poncho-wearing friend Tim (bass).

How would you describe yourselves?
We've come up with a name for our genre - Folk'N'Roll. It's a unique combination of rock and contemporary folk, something quite different and we'd live more people/artists to embrace this genre.

Who are your main influences musically?
We all have various music tastes in the band, for example Ninja Drummer likes Bon Jovi, Wade likes Ben Howard, Fingers is more of a metal fan. But our music is mainly inspired by artists like Mumford & Sons or The Levellers.

What do you hope to achieve in music?
Simple. We wanna get to the top, and won't stop until we do.

What has been the highlight of your career so far, and why?
There have been many highlights in the past, playing the main stage at events such as Basingstoke Live or Newbury Real Ale Festival is always fun. But our most exiting gig is supporting The Christians on their UK tour.

And what’s the moment you want to forget?
To be honest, we love everything about the band, there's not one thing we regret, apart from being too drunk at a pub and getting kicked out maybe ;)

If you had to pick just one of your songs to represent your music, what would it be and why?
We'd pick one of our own songs 'Legends'. It is by far our best song written, and it's about making something with your life and doing the best you can to achieve greatness. It is the moral that we live by...and we like the name haha

Where can we listen to it? 
Currently the only place to see the full band is live or on YouTube (/BYellowMusic). However, we are recording in the studio at this very moment and hope to bring a release to you all soon.



Where can we find out more about your music? 
The best way to stay connected with us is through our Facebook or Twitter which we post frequently on both.
www.twitter.com/BYellowMusic
www.facebook.com/BYellowMusic

Anything else you’d like to say about your band/music that I forgot to ask?
We would like to thank everyone for their amazing support so far, it has been a great experience but we feel the journey has only just begun, onwards and upwards.
Fans can contact us through our email which we check everyday - contact@byellow.co.uk