When I was a kid, growing up in a house with Cat Stevens,
Neil Diamond, and Simon and Garfunkel, the first time I ever heard Kiss's
"Detroit Rock City,"
it was a moment of musical epiphany. It was just so vicious, aggressive and
mean. It changed the way I listened to music. I've had a few minor epiphany's
since then, when you come across a band that just brings something new and
revolutionary to your ears.
What have been your musical epiphany moments?
Aaron: The first one I can really think of is playing NHL
2003 on the PS2 with Liam, and whenever you had a breakaway the game would
enter slo-mo and it was really tense. This awesome song breakdown kicked in and
the 16 year old me got so hyped. Turned out that the song was No One Knows by Queens of The Stone Age, and it really turned us both on
to the Desert/Stoner Rock scene.
Greg - I'd say mine was more recently when I discovered the
use of Major 2nds. Colour Haze & Kyuss both use them a fair amount in their
material and after playing around with them I ended up using them quite a bit
in our most recent release,
Hugh - Mine was the first time I heard Kings of Leon - Youth
and Young Manhood. It was a total game changer for me and was like nothing I'd
heard before at the time. I had to know more; about the band, how to play their
songs , everything. They set me going really. The next big one was Greta Van Fleet, although
the sound had been done before with Led Zep, it really pricked my ears up to
hear the sound coming back around. It was refreshing in a nostalgic way, making
you want to play Bonham triplets in a song wherever possible.
Talk to us about the song-writing process for you. What
comes first, the idea? A riff? The lyrics? How does it all fall into place?
Aaron: Usually myself or Greg comes up with a riff and a
song structure at home, and we bring it into band practice (where it usually
gets ripped apart!). We usually use it as a starting point, Hugh adds his beats
which changes the speed and dynamic a lot of the time. Once we've kinda got somewhere
that we're happy with, Liam writes the lyrics and Greg does the solos. To be
honest, most of the stuff ends up on the cutting room floor, but these days
we're a lot more focused with our practice time. I guess that happens when you
get a bit older!
Who has influenced you the most?
Greg - Honestly, and the boys will probably rinse me for
this, probably Matt Heafy of Trivium. I still can't play any of their solos,
but their tracks inspired me to pick up the guitar and if it wasn't for that, I
probably wouldn't have started jamming with the lads back in the day, and thus
likely wouldn't be writing this! In more recent years though, 1000Mods have
laid down some thick riffs that have definitely eeked their way into the new
material and riffs I've been writing.
Aaron: The whole Palm Desert Stoner Scene has influenced me
the most throughout my life I'd say. The bands that came out of that are just
awesome. I started out on QOTSA, but when you start delving into the music,
especially these days with the information available on the net, you find a
whole bunch of crazy good bands. With regards to my playing, bands like Tool,
Kyuss, Black Sabbath. Never really been a huge fan of UK popular
music, I always tend to sway towards the Scandinavian or US bands.
Hugh - For me its Kings of Leon, Fu Manchu and The Rolling
Stones.
Liam - The same as Aaron really! Bands like Truckfighters,
1000Mods and Clutch have found their way into our sound.
Where do you look for continuing inspiration? New ideas, new
motivation?
Aaron: The UK Underground Stoner scene is huge at the
moment, so we get a lot of inspiration and motivation from some of the other
bands we've played with, like Witch Tripper, Cybernetic Witch Cult and Sergeant
Thunderhoof. There are a lot of really hard working UK Stoner bands, so we try
to follow their template, whilst keeping our work/life balance right. The
evolution of our sound comes from what we listen to really, and I think bands
like Colour Haze, 1000Mods and Spaceslug create some wonderful music.
Greg - Quite often I'll be just listening to a playlist on
Spotify, or letting the related radio take over at the end of an album. There
are times when something catches my attention, and I'll try to work out what
was going on by picking up a guitar and playing it out. Chances are if it's
something I liked, then something similar will come out when I'm fiddling
around with writing.
Hugh - I listen to the older stuff. I prefer the drumming
styles as they had a little more flair a subtlety to them.
We're all a product of our environment. Tell us about the
band's hometown and how that reflects in the music?
Hugh - It's so dull we had to reach out to America for
inspiration!
Aaron - True, it is pretty dull, a bit like the weather we
have over here. Yeovil doesn't really have a huge impact on us all personally I
don't think. The music scene used to be all about Hardcore or Death Metal
bands, but luckily that's pretty much passed on now. It was pretty dead for a
good 5 years, but now there's a now a decent venue and some solid bands who
have brought a music scene back to Yeovil. We've all kinda had to work together
to get it back really, putting on shows and the like.
Greg - There's not a fantastic amount of similar likeminded
musicians immediately local to ourselves, but the UK scene is really thriving at the
moment. After seeing bands like Ritual King, Green Lung and Sergeant
Thunderhoof do their thing, it's given us the motivation and desire to push
ourselves as hard as we can.
Where'd the band name come from?
Aaron - It's actually a playzone from World of Warcraft!
Most of us used to play back in the day. For The Horde!
You have one chance, what movie are you going to write the
soundtrack for?
Hugh - No Country For Old Men because there's hardly any
music throughout the whole film, and it's slick film.
Greg - I love the banging soundtrack to The Matrix, but not
sure if Stoner Rock would do it justice.
Aaron - I'd say something like Smokey & The Bandit. I
used to love that movie growing up, and I reckon our music would suit some
truck cruisin'! I do love a good movie score, Hans Zimmer's stuff is huge and
awesome.
Liam - Something like Mad Max Fury Road would be cool to do a
soundtrack for. Our song Kenosha
makes you wanna keep hitting the gas, so it would suit the film quite well!
You now write for a music publication (The Ripple
Effect?). You're going to write a 1,000
word essay on one song. Which would it be and why?
Greg - Gardenia by Kyuss. It's had a huge influence on our
sound and riffs. There's plenty of parts within the song with intricacies that
I'm still noticing with each listen. I'm not sure 1000 words would be enough
really, but it's a perfect specimen to write about.
Hugh - Lynyrd Skynyrd's Freebird for me. It's a long song,
which is relatable to our genre, with crazy good soles. Plenty to write about
on that one.
Aaron - I'd go with Tool's Lataralus, as no doubt Greg is
rolling his eyes! Tool get talked about a lot for being 'deep & edgy
maaaaaaan', but I love what they do. Obviously with the time signatures and
vocal patterns relating to the Fibonacci sequence there's plenty to talk about.
I know it's almost become uncool to like Tool these days, but I get lost in
their music and can get as close as I can to a relaxed, meditative state.
Liam - I was going to say the exact song there Aaron!
Getting inside the mind of Maynard though would be pretty tough, and any
interpretation I'm sure would be wrong!
Come on, share with us a couple of your great, Spinal Tap,
rock and roll moments?
Hugh - Oh wow, that's a pretty difficult one really! Not so
much rock n roll, but Greg, Aaron & Liam are pretty big lads and we played
in a tiny little venue in Bournemouth recently
with Komatsu. Aaron couldn't stand up straight because the ceiling was so low,
Liam had about a foot square to stand in, and Greg was basically playing on a
staircase. Lucky for me I was tucked away in a corner and had plenty of room!
Liam- We're not that exciting these days! But when we were
just starting up, we played a gig in a local field with a stage on the back of
a truck, and some tents around. We played quite early in the day, so we had a
few beers afterwards. One thing led to another and Greg ended up running around
with his shirt off (classic), blind drunk. They had a huge bonfire going and
Greg kept getting way too close to it. Being so drunk he couldn't feel it! We
dragged him away and he ran off to throw up all over himself and try chat to
people about how Trivium were the best band in the world. He ended up sleeping
face down in the grass! In fact, one of the songs on our original EP was about
this very incident!
Aaron - Haha, that was a fun day.
Greg - Ugh
Tell us about playing live and the live experience for you
and for your fans?
Greg - We're a straight to the point, no sh*t talking band.
We love playing our music, and whilst some other bands live for the banter,
we're there for the 'bangers!' We like to keep the flow going throughout our
sets, playing sets consisting of tracks from our most recent EPs. It's pretty
riffy stuff, so we don't blame fans if the find themselves subconsciously
nodding along.
Liam - A good few years ago me and Aaron watched Karma To
Burn play at Download festival. They said absolutely nothing throughout their
set apart from 'Cheers' at the end. We loved it, as too many bands talk about
pointless nothing! Fans are there for the music, talk to them at the bar after
if you want to chat!
What makes a great song?
Liam - I think a great song consists of big memorable riffs
that will get stuck in your head for days, with big choruses that you can get
the fans chanting along to. It doesn't have to be overly technical, anything
that gets the heads going and the crowds moving is a good sign.
Aaron - You know when you hear a song for the first time and
you kinda get goosebumps? That always gets me. Good vocals, groovy catchy riffs
and lots of depth is key for me.
Tell us about the first song you ever wrote?
Aaron - Haha! It was a song called Want Me To Be, which
never got to see the light of day on record. It was basically a rip of Face To
The Floor by Chevelle.
What piece of your music are particularly proud of?
Greg - We're really proud of the last 2 EPs. We think we've
really made strides in our sound and production, and it was the first time
we've worked super hard in the studio. They were recorded by Chris Fielding
from Conan who's a great guy. He works you hard, but you reap the benefits in
the end.
Who today, writes great songs? Who just kicks your ass? Why?
Aaron - I've been listening to a lot of Villagers of Ionnina
City recently. I love the sound and the fact they merge in some less
conventional instruments without differentiating too far from a hard rock beat.
I do like the greek hard rock / stoner scene over the last few years.
Greg - The latest Green Lung album is something I keep
coming back to. Both them and 1000Mods. Those bands have the knack for writing
catchy riffs that get stuck in your head for hours on end. But equally they
share very different lead styles, and as a guitarist that's great to draw
inspiration from.
Hugh - I'm so out of touch with current music, but I think
Sam Fender is writing some pretty catchy tunes for the radio at the moment. As
far as ass kickings, every time we play a show there seems to be one band on
the bill that you just stand there and think 'they just made us look like we
learned to play our instruments yesterday!'. Sergeant Thunderhoof for one!
Liam - Similar to Greg, I think Green Lung are slaying at
the moment. Their Woodland Rites album is pure quality and I'm looking forward
to hearing their next. We were lucky enough to share a stage with them a few
years back and their live show is great too. It inspires us to keep improving
and releasing music.
Vinyl, CD, or digital? What's your format of choice?
Aaron: It's difficult really. I still use CDs in the van as
they're just really easy to chuck in the player. I think Vinyl is great for a
whole package of art, but can be difficult to listen to on the go. Digital is
just easy, but lacks the love for physical artwork. I like to have a physical
product, so I'd probably say CD, as you get the best of both worlds really.
Liam - We'd love to do some vinyls of our own at some point,
but being unsigned, the initial outlays are pretty expensive. One for the
future I think.
Whiskey or beer? And
defend your choice
Aaron - Beer! It's a really sociable drink. You can't
exactly tell the wife your going out for some 'Whiskeys with the boys' can you!
You'd sound a bit pretentious.
Greg - Beer. Nothing quite like chilling out watching a few
bands of listening to some albums with a few cold ones. Whiskey is still great
(and I do like a tipple or three!), but for me beer is a session bevvy, so I'd
much rather grab a few beers than a few whiskeys.
Hugh - Beer. Whiskey had me in a bit of a pickle once or
twice. I've only recently started drinking the stuff again.
Liam - Boilermaker, why choose when you can have both!
We, at the Ripple Effect, are constantly looking for new
music. What's your home town, and when we get there, what's the best record
store to lose ourselves in?
Aaron - Yeovil used to have a great little vinyl music store
called Acorn Music. Sadly this shut last year and all we have is the corporate
giant that is HMV. However, our local HMV is doing a lot of showcasing local
talent with a new initiative, which culminates in them selling your music and
playing in store. It was cramped and loud, but we enjoyed it! There's plenty of
local bands getting involved with it, each having their music being sold in
store.
What's next for the band?
Liam - So we've got some pretty big underground UK festivals to play in the next couple months,
one being Riffolution Festival in Manchester and
the other being Stonebaked Festival in Leeds.
We're also heading to France
to play a festival at the end of the year which we're not allowed to talk about
yet! Aaron is having his first child in May/June, so we've got a month off
then! I think from then on we will be getting to work on writing the final
chapter to the Space Cowboy saga, which will be an album. Hopefully this will
be not too long in the future! That, and hopefully some more gigs, Brexit
willing of course!
Any final comments or thoughts you'd like to share with our
readers, the waveriders?
Hugh - Thanks for listening to us babble on! Check out 'The
Long Dark' & 'The Lost Tales' and give us some feedback if you liked or
didn't like it! We love hearing different people's views on what we've
produced. That, and keep riding that wave of riffs of course!
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