First of all give us an introduction, your name and role in the band.
Fitch: My names Fitch and I sing and write the basis of most of the songs we do. I also write the lyrics which is the main thing for me really.
Alex: I'm Alex and I do the recording, programming, and play guitar for the band.
Happy New Year guys what are your resolutions? What was the biggest achievement as a band in 2011?
Fitch: I want to just try harder this year, we need to dedicate way more time to the band to get where we want to be - not that we haven't been working hard already. In all honesty we didn't really achieve that much this yeah haha. We started off on our journey and we've got our name out locally, and I think people know who we are and what we've got planned. Recording a bunch of songs with actual meaning was my favourite achievement, and hearing peoples feedback and seeing the downloads adding up means a lot.
Alex: Music. And my other resolution is to get fit. And not just any kind of fit, we're tailing Worlds Strongest Man fit
How was The Bad News Bears formed? tell us a bit about your former band Glory Scars.
Fitch: Well Glory Scars were doing really well for ourselves from the outsider looking in, but it just wasn't working within the band. Everyone went through phases of trying and saying they wanted to work harder - while the rest of us just lazed about and cancelled practices left right and centre. In the end we just drifted apart really, slowly doing less and less as we lost faith in each others commitment to the band. It was sad though, and to this day I listen to the music we made and realise we had something special.
Alex: I worked at a studio when Glory Scars split up. Me and Fitch kept in contact, well, we all did, but we started meeting up and recording some song ideas that were floating about. For a while Joe from the old band was coming along and writing with us, but we soon realised that it wasn't working. We still see him though, and he is still nightmare haha.
Fitch: When it was just us two again, we could get ideas and entire songs down so much quicker than before. We knew we actually had something that could work!
How did you come up with the name?
Fitch: I wish there was an amazing story for this but I just saw the film name in a TV magazine… I'm sorry.
How would you like to describe your sound?
Alex: Deep. I dunno. Electronic, pop, pop punk?
Fitch: Yes, deep haha. We started off wishing we were in Four Year Strong, back when we were writing with Joe. But the music is getting more electronic as we write more and more songs. I'd say now we're at an electronic, pop, indie stage - I never thought I'd use the word indie to describe a band I was in.
What are your influences?
Alex: Pro Tools, Four Years Strong, Friendly Fires, Adam Fitch, Fashion, dunno.
Fitch: Fool. I take on so many little bits of anything I hear. So it's a long list. We're being careful not to copy any other bands, and be original as we can with the songwriting this time. Some bands always stick with me: Taking Back Sunday, Four Year Strong, The Wonder Years, The Story So Far, Crucial Dudes… but you can't hear that any more in what we're doing. I don't write like the bands I like haha.
You have been working on lots of cover songs lately, any plans to release a cover album?
Alex: Yes. Shortly followed by an original ep. We're not doing straight covers of songs though, we're definitely doing them in our own style.
Fitch: It's not just a straightforward covers album. I want to honour the town that shape me musically. I don't really like the place that much but back when I was like 16, 17, 18, there were some awesome bands around here, and seeing play them definitely had a lasting effect on me. We're covering some of the local bands that we feel deserve it and also the bands that will let us do them ha. There's a lot of unsung talent around here.
Are you guys going to continue as a duo? Any plans to recruit new members?
Alex: No. Maybe!
Fitch: We're sticking as a duo for now because it's so easy for us to write and record this way. Also we only have two chairs in the studio. We're thinking about getting a female musician in if one comes along. Would be good to get another set of vocals in the songs.
Tell us about your upcoming EP, What can people expect from it?
Alex: I can't think of any words.
Fitch: It's the start of the journey really. We've accepted ourselves as a two piece, and we're not writing songs for a full band any more. We've embraced drum machines, and synths, and that less is more. We're going way more poppy, and way more catchy. The messages will still be in the songs, but the lyrics are more complex now.
Any plans to release a music video?
Fitch: We're actually releasing four videos at once when we release the ep. I am also a music video producer so we're doing one for each song of the release. It's going to be so much work but I know it's going to pay off. I've learnt from life that you really don't get anything unless you put in your all.
Lastly anything else you'd like to add for the fans?
Alex: Thank you.
Fitch: I wanna really show that I appreciate everyone who has listened or downloaded from us so far, and everyone who has just said a kind word, and the people who came down to our shows. We're honestly just getting started and please stick around, it means to world to me. We have a chance and we're not giving it up.
Post a Comment