Life on Mars performance
Kurt & Aaron Starkie perform a cover of David Bowie’s Life on Mars at Sound Control in Manchester.
Louder Than War interview
The band is interviewed by Louder than War. On being part of the Manchester scene:
Manchester is an important city musically and culturally it has given the world so many great bands. That is both a blessing and a curse. There are a lot of great bands coming through in Manchester but it’s quite varied; from psychedelia to electronic to traditional guitar bands. I don’t think there is one sound that unifies it as a ‘scene’. Then again I’m not sure that was the case with ‘Manchester’ either, I guess scenes are often about fashion and drugs as much as the music I suppose.
BBC 6 Live interview
Aaron Starkie and James Ryan are interviewed by Hawkins on BBC 6 Live. On their sound and image:
AS: I think we’re learning that more and more. The last gig we did at Gorilla, the lighting show a was a big part of it. And that’s something we’re considering more for the future, perhaps involving video. In terms of writing, somebody comes up with a riff, whether Jim on the bass, or me on the keyboards, or Kurt on the guitar. Then we jam around that for a while. A lot of the time we’re beating the hell out of it to get it into a working a song. And I’ll have random lyrics for a while. Then there’s other ones like Don’t Mind, that came from start to finish in one complete unit. It’s amazing when that happens.
JR: We don’t sit down write a song that sits into our image.
AS: There’s a few that have been dismissed for being a bit too sunny.
GIGSoup interview
The band is interviewed by GIGSoup. On still working day jobs.
A lot of bands that are a higher level than us still have day jobs…we speak to them and they’re all on a decent label and having success but they still work. You just think, it would help (not having a job) because you could do like 20 date tours and go around Europe, we have got fans overseas and stuff, but for the moment it’s not on the horizon. You get a lot of trust fund kids basically in music these days and I think that’s why the accent seems to have been exclusively middle to upper class. It seems from the outside it looks easier to ‘make it’…it seems you just throw a video on Youtube, get 3 million views or whatever, and that’s it but you know there’s a lot more that goes on behind that, the time, the effort.
Ellipsis interview
The band is interviewed by Ellipsis before their performance in Liverpool. About Cavalcade:
On the first album, some of the tracks came from a previous incarnation of ours, a band called Omerta that Jim and I used to be in, so the first album was written over a much longer period than this one…The songs stood up but a lot of the first album felt quite old, to us anyway, but the second album, that was written over… maybe two years, I don’t know…Two years, around day jobs and things, and we had a really good working relationship with the producer – not that we didn’t on the first one, but I think he got a little bit more out of us, and it was a little bit closer to what we wanted…We’ve got more of our own sound on this one, maybe, whereas on the first album we were trying out a few different things, sort of big string-symphonic melancholy stuff, synth-driven stuff. We’ve the same on the second album but less… less orchestration, I guess.
Evening Times interview
The band are interviewed in advance of their appearance at the Classic Grand in Glasgow:
We’re really looking forward to playing the Classic Grand. We have great fans in Scotland and Glasgow is a great city. It feels a lot like Manchester actually. Glasgow crowds seem to be well up for a good night and won’t just stand there stroking their chins. We had a warm welcome the last time we played there at Stereo. We’re very proud of Cavalcade and glad it’s been well received. Word seems to be spreading as gigs are getting busier and busier. We’ve just played a sold out show at Manchester Gorilla and that blew us away.
Plant The Seed video
0 CommentsThe band release the official video for Plant The Seed, from their album Cavalcade. Aaron Starkie:
We went into the studio with the track unfinished. The chorus came from a random ad-lib I did while the track was on loop and we were all sorting out our parts. I wanted to write something hopeful as the rest of the album is quite bleak. Any one of us can kick the sing off. Sometimes it’s a keyboard part, sometimes a bass line. I will then sing a vocal melody over the top with nonsense lyrics at first. The proper lyrics come later, usually on the day of recording.
Isle of Wight festival
The band perform Plant The Seed on the Jack Rocks This Feeling stage at the Isle of Wight Festival.
Start Again performance
The band perform Start Again, from their album Cavalcade, at the World Book Night in Manchester’s Central Library. Aaron Starkie:
We’ll be the first band to play here. We feel really privileged to be involved.
Cavalcade
The band releases their second album, Cavalcade. The album is produced by Phil Bulleyment.
Its dynamically a bit more sophisticated, the individual instruments have a bit more room to breathe. This is partly due to us getting better as musicians but our producer Phil Bulleyment played a major role in shaping the sound of this record. Fundamentally though it’s popular because the songs mean something to people, it’s been fantastic to hear people singing along at gigs and it’s amazing to share that connection with people.
Mancunian Ways interview
Aaron Starkie is interviewed by MancunianWays.com. On releasing Cavalcade as an album.
We’d had various bits of advice, and the industry is changing to less of a focus on the album, and more on singles. But we always thought [the songs] would be part of an album…If I had one criticism of the first record. It’s well loved by fans and I love it myself. Some of those tracks we’d recorded three or four times by then, and you just haven’t got the energy that you have when you go into the studio and write it for the first time.
On the title track:
I’ve got two young kids, a four-year-old boy and a six-month-old girl. And was seeing my son grow up, the speed he changed from a baby to a toddler. And it made me think about me leaving home, and one day him leaving home, and all that melancholy stuff. There’s a track on Seargent Pepper’s called She’s Leaving Home, it’s the same kind of sentiment. One day you are going to go out into the world — the Cavalcade — and it’s a big adventure.
I Saw A Ghost video
The band release the official video for I Saw A Ghost, from their album Cavalcade.
Manchester Library session
The band perform an acoustic set for Matter of Sound, at Manchester Library. Aaron Starkie:
It was nerve-wracking, but it was cool. It’s quite a good sound in there — I was surprised.
Days Like These Will Break Your Heart video
The band release the official video for Days Like These Will Break Your Heart, from their album Cavalcade.
We Close Tonight interview
The band are interviewed by London-based music blog, We Close Tonight. On Manchester’s live scene:
Yeah, Kurt had been in a band with David as well before so we were all familiar with the live scene in Manchester. I think our first gig as Omerta was at Band On The Wall and probably our first gig as SRC was at Ruby Lounge. We’ve played a few places around Manchester, some of the newer venues as well like Soup Kitchen and The Castle we’ve played recently. There was a thing in the press recently about it being the most live venues in the country of any city. There’s a lot of choice. There’s not always people there. More recently there tends to be more people. These venues become trendy and suddenly they’re not trendy any more. It’s a cool city for music.
Don’t Mind video
The band release the official video for Don’t Mind, from their album Cavalcade.
Gigslutz interview
The band speak to Gigslutz. On their Manchester influences:
The Stone Roses and The Smiths are probably our favourite Manchester bands, we didn’t grow up in that era but their music still featured heavily on the playlist at indie clubs like 42nd Street, 5th Avenue and the Venue in our formative years.
On being recognized by New Order’s Peter Hook and Coldplay:
We were on the same bill as Peter Hook at Salford Music festival, didn’t even realise he caught our show till he was bigging us up in the NME. He is a legend isn’t he, so it was a great honour. The Coldplay thing was even more bizarre, our video for ‘Block Out The Sun’ featured on the Coldplay site for a week in a gallery section where they highlight anything from music to art. Brought us a good few thousand views and more importantly lots of new fans. It was great of them to give us their endorsement and share our music with their following.
Start Again lyric video
0 0 Mark Devlin Mark Devlin2016-04-22 13:02:102016-04-22 13:02:10Start Again lyric videoForever In Your Debt video
The band release the official video for Forever In Your Debt, from their album Cavalcade. Aaron Starkie:
The song started with Jim’s bass. It has quite a good groove. It’s been one of our most successful singles. It’s had a lot of success overseas, particularly in Italy…It’s about finding hope through being in love with someone despite facing life’s difficulties.
Bitter Sweet Symphonies interview
The band is interviewed by Bitter Sweet Symphonies, before their headline set at The Royal Oak pub in Chorlton. They talk about recording their upcoming album:
The way we are going is more current. We’re really proud of what we’re doing so far. We’ve got five tracks done so far, because we work in the day, we kind of work around that, we get it done when we can. Hopefully, we’ll have an album’s worth by 2020 [laughs]. I don’t know, but it’s gone pretty well so far and the producer we’re working with is really good. But it is different, but not different totally. Different good.
We’re really proud of [Forever In Your Debt] though, so if the rest of the album can come up to that standard. I think there’s one or two at the moment that we probably think are there, then we’ll be more than happy. But to me anyway, I can’t speak for everybody, but I think that is kind of a blueprint, like the bar, that we want to meet. It might be that people prefer the other stuff that we’re doing more than that one but we’re proud of Forever In Your Debt and that’s why it’s going to be the first single…I remember the first couple of times we did Forever In Your Debt live and my heart was just up in my chest, you know what I mean. Especially, when you’re first introducing it to people, and the reaction for that one has been pretty good live.