Riffed

Yorkshire based band O Captain chatted to us this week. The Captain's have recently released thier new EP 'Ghetto Hikes' and were on hand to tell us a little about that and themselves. This is how it went down:

1) Who are O Captain?

O Captain are: Thomas Bower - Vocals and Guitar / Ryan Smith - Bass and Vocals / Paul Bamforth - Guitar / Michael Watson - Drums and Vocals. We formed back in January 2013, with Michael Watson joining in June 2013 after original drummer Nathaniel moved to china.

2) You've recently released your new EP 'Ghetto Hikes', tell us a little about that?

'Ghetto Hikes' is 3 songs that we recorded a while back, but being indescribably disorganised we've only just managed to get it out there for people to listen to. They're 3 of our catchiest songs, the most fun to play, and go down great live. It's available for free on our bandcamp page: http://thebandocaptain.bandcamp.com

3) Favourite gig of which you've played?

We've had some great fun playing gigs but some stand-outs include: our first ever gig in Sheffield back in late 2013 supporting the mighty Honeyblood, playing the launch night for new music, art and culture magazine 'No Brainer' in Manchester a couple of months ago, and performing to a packed venue at last weekend's Live in Barnsley Festival - so busy, even the event organisers had to watch us from the street outside.

4) Where do you O Captain see themselves in 5 years time?

We do this for the love of it. Getting in a room together and writing music we love, and performing it in the hopes that others will appreciate it and enjoy it too. We all work full time so we really do take the whole thing 1 step at a time and are just enjoying the ride.

5) What's next for O Captain?

Our next big one is Tramlines Festival 2014 in Sheffield City Centre. We'll be performing 4 gigs over 3 days. Player's bar on the Friday, both DQ and Beg, Borrow & Steal on the Saturday, before finishing off at The Red House on the Sunday evening. There's going to be some rushing about and some sore heads come the Monday morning. Then we'll be performing at the launch of a brand new punk rock club night in Sheffield, 'This Party Sucks' on the 2nd of August along with Wolves at Heart and Bad Blood. We're also looking to get another EP recorded in July/August for a release in September/October time.

Big thanks to O Captain for the interview.

Visit O Captains webpage on Bandcamp and listen: http://thebandocaptain.bandcamp.com/ or listen via Soundcloud: https://soundcloud.com/thebandocaptain

Follow O Captain on Twitter: @thebandocaptain  /  https://twitter.com/Thebandocaptain

And like their Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/weareocaptain

RIFFED x

London lads CURSE chatted to us recently. The quartet are currently working on some new tracks and Rod Broadbent of the band was on hand to tell us a little about them. Here's how it went down: 

1) Who are CURSE?

CURSE are, Rob Broadbent, (Lead Vocals and Rhythm Guitar) Jack Herring (Lead Guitar), Robert Carter (Bass) and Tobias Thacker (Drums)

2) Favourite gig of which you've played?

We played a great label launch gig in a basement in Dalston. We did the sound for the bands ourselves, organised the night in general and gave people free tequila on the door - it was a great way to start the label.

3) You've recently been working on some new tunes, tell us a little about them?

The new tunes are rough ready and sure to stick to your brain like velcro. One of them we're particularly looking forward to is called 'Kaleidoscoping', we opened with is a few weeks back and it went down a treat.

4) Where do you see yourselves in 5 years?

We don't know what we're going to eat for lunch let alone 5 years time. To wherever the winds of rock and roll take us.

5) What's next for CURSE?

Next for us is establishing our monthly label nights under the banner Lock Up Rock and getting another band or two in to join the collective. On our launch night we filled out an 80 capacity basement. The second night we put on was in an underground bar, filled to capacity again with with 120 people. The next one will be bigger still, it'd be great to organise a pinnacle event at the end of the summer, an all dayer or something. But we'll see how we go, one event at a time and all that.

Big thanks to Rod of CURSE for the interview.

Like CURSE on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/cursebanduk

Or follow them on Twitter: https://twitter.com/curseband

Listen to CURSE via Soundcloud: https://soundcloud.com/cursebanduk

RIFFED x

RIFFED chatted to PowderedCows this week, the Dorset based band are a true snyth spectacle. They're when Arcade Fire met the 80's. PowderedCows are currently working on their debut album 'Laguna', and if we were to base our ideas on what it'll be like from their latest EP 'Make My Miami', we're in for an album and a half. Here's how our interview with PowderedCows went down:

1) Who are PowderedCows?

Mainly, PowderedCows are Martin Roberts (lyrics and most instruments) and James Worrall (Bass and some lyrics) although we have a collective of musicians via The Burrow (the label we're on) who sometimes play live and record with us. For example we currently have Gavin from The Burrow band Not Made In China who is writing/recording/playing live with us on ipad synths and ipad music making software.

2) You released your latest EP in December 'Make My Miami', tell us a little about that?

Monsters of Revelations is about the weird and wonderful monsters that crop up in the book of revelations. We thought it was funny that it mentioned unicorns and fire-breathing sea serpants that we ended up writing a song about it.

Siberia is about an article that Martin read on forteantimes.com surrouding the tunguska event.

Brain Freeze is genuinely a song about icecream although icecream is used here as a metaphor for lost love, apparently...

National Winner is about acheivement.

Catch Two Birds is about Martin's cat.

Littledown is about having that one last kick around town with your best friends before your paths seperate for a while.

3) You are working on your debut album 'Laguna', how's that going for you?

Great thanks, we're about 78% done on that. just a few more songs to be recorded. Will be a mix of indie guitar songs and indie electronic. We've been listening to a mish mash of CD's we've had in the car (martin's renault laguna): blur, lcd soundsystem, real estate, future islands, the orwells, british sea powe ...

4) You've featured many times on local BBC Introducing shows, how does it feel to have your tracks getting airplay?

James: Everyone has their 15 minutes of fame, well, it's like having that magic feeling of 3 minutes of fame.

Martin: The feedback we've had has been overwhelming, things really kicked off on the social medias and on the back of it we're getting some great reviews. James is pretty good at talking to people at gigs we go to when we see other bands play, i've learned from the master you could say, and on the back of that we have made some awesome friends along the way. I want more radio play, more of that would be good.

5) Where do you see yourselves in 5 years time?

Martin: I really have no idea, but we'll never stop doing music. I expect James will just want me to play The Libertines track Music When the Lights Go Out. That pretty much sums it up for us really the answer to this question. We're kinda like the Pete and Carl of Bournemouth. But we can't wait for the future, lets see what happens next...

We must say a huge thank you to the James and Martin (A.K.A Pete Doherty and Carl Barat) of PowderedCows for the interview.

Like PowderedCows on Facebook: www.facebook.com/powderedcowsmusic

And Follow them on Twitter: https://twitter.com/Powderedcows

Listen via Soundcloud: www.soundcloud.com/powderedcows or via Bandcamp: http://powderedcowsmusic.bandcamp.com/

And visit their webpage: www.powderedcows.moonfruit.com

Learn more about PowderedCows Record label here: http://theburrowbournemouth.co.uk/

RIFFED x

Sheffield band The SSS chatted to us recently. The lads have headlined many gigs within their hometown, including instore gigs at Pretty Green, and also a gig where support came from The Twang on DJ duties. And this is how it went down:

1) Who are The SSS?

The SSS.

2) Biggest inspirations for the band?

We grew up when Sheffield indie music was running the scene. When you think that bands like Milburn and the Monkeys have made it, it just makes you think...

3) Favourite gig you've played?

Tough choice. We did a warehouse gig where The Twang DJ'd for us, it was sold out and was mad. Then there was our single launch in May at the Plug in Sheffield - confetti and chaos.

4) Where do you see yourself in 5 years time?

Vegas, hopefully.

5) What can we expect from The SSS next?

A busy summer of writing, then our second single this winter.

Big thanks to The SSS for the interview. 

Follow The SSS on Twitter: @_theSSS

Listen to The SSS via Youtube: http://youtu.be/LU-KIQgeLiI or Bandcamp: www.the-sss.bandcamp.com

RIFFED x

The Whereabouts chatted to us yesterday. The lads appear to be following in the footsteps of fellow Irish band The Strypes, are they set to top them? Here's our interview with The Whereabouts:

1) Who are The Whereabouts?

We are are four lads who want to show and express our music and play and make it their career.

2) You played Liverpool Sound City recently, how did that go?

It went really good yeah, we met Attorney for the 2nd time and he gave us some really good updates on the band and what he has coming up for us. Also the club we played was really welcoming, and looked after us like we were some famous band! The club was packed and and we played a 40 minute set which went down a storm.

3) You are a young band from Ireland, similar to The Strypes, have they inspired you?

The Strypes are another great band outta Ireland but we aren't inspired by them no, but we are inspired by what they have done..

4) Where do you see yourselves in 5 years time?

Hard question to answer but we hope to be wowing crowds and sustaining the importance of old school rock "n" roll maybe? But we're confident in our ability that we can do it... "WE'LL DAMN GIVE IT A GOOD GO THOUGH"

5) What's next for The Whereabouts?

Well what's next is that we'll be playing several festivals and releasing an EP very soon.

Big thanks to The Whereabouts for the interview.

You can find all of The Whereabouts' tracks and socials via their webpage: http://www.thewhereaboutsofficial.com/

RIFFED x

Cardiff lads The Cradles chatted to us this week. Supporting Professor Green on his Cardiff date last year is the highlight of the rock band's career to this day, but The Cradles could well have a huge future ahead and for this reason we grabbed an interview with them and here it is:

 1) Who are The Cradles?

We're a rock band from Cardiff formed in the summer of 2012 made up of Joe Norman (vocals), Toby Andrews (Guitar), Kieran O'Brien (Guitar), Luke Haines (Bass) and Declan Andrews (Drums).

2) You recently supported Professor Green, how did that go for you?

We're not big fans of Professor Green's music so it was a slightly strange scenario to be acting as his main support but it was a good night. It gave us the chance to play a venue as good as Cardiff's Great Hall and also to a large audience. That's something you want to be doing every night so you don't rest contented with having done it.

3) Who are the biggest inspirations for The Cradles?

Any bands and artists with great melodies and lyrics such as The Beatles, The Kinks and Arctic Monkeys always have a big influence on what we do and aim to do. We also draw a lot from bands such as Pixies, The Strokes and The Doors when putting music together.

4) Where do you see yourselves in 5 years time?

Glastonbury. Hopefully not as spectators.

5) What's next for The Cradles?

We play Dempseys in Cardiff on the 5th of July and The Fleece in Bristol on Thursday 10th of July. After that we'll be gigging regularly across the UK and should be recording a couple of new tracks in July.

A big thank you to The Cradles for the interview.

Listen to The Cradles via Soundcloud, Bandcamp and Spotify:

https://soundcloud.com/the-cradles/sets/the-cradles

http://vividriot.bandcamp.com/album/the-cradles-do-you-wonder-why

http://open.spotify.com/artist/0DP6Mke28ThoHShGLmCfkr

Follow The Cradles on Twitter: https://twitter.com/TheCradles

And like their Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TheCradles?ref_type=bookmark

RIFFED x

The Sales of Germany spoke to us this week, the band may be of German ethnicity but when listening all that springs to mind is Britpop. Here's how our interview with the Germans went down:

1) Who are The Sales?

We're an indie band from Passau, Germany. We play indie/alternative/post-punk stuff, somewhere in between probably. We formed in winter 2012 and did our first professional recordings in 2013 in Berlin.

2) Favourite gig of which you've played?

That's not a hard question, since we've only played two gigs just now. Our favorite gig was definitely the second one. We played with two other bands in a nice venue in our hometown called 'Tabakfabrik' (german for tobacco factory). Kind of a run-down place, but pretty cool. The other bands were really nice and good to work with. And the audience was just great.

3) Who are your greatest influences?

Our greatest influence are definitely 'The Strokes', that's quite obvious. But there are many different influences in all of our songs. For example, one with some kind of disco-like 'Daft Punk' influence, or one with a bit of an 'Eagles of Death Metal' sound.

4) Where do you see yourselves in 5 years time?

That's hard to tell. Of course we hope that we'll be successful and maybe even get a record deal, but we won't just wait for that. We work hard and our songs are good, so things will be looking up eventually.

5) What's next for The Sales?

What's next? Gigs, gigs and gigs. As many as we can play. We also want to shoot a selfmade video for our song 'No Mas'. We're no experts with videos, so we don't know how that will turn out but we'll try our best. And since we've just finished setting up a little home-studio, we'll be able to record more of our songs now. So, we will be quite busy the next few months.

Cheers to The Sales for the interview.

Follow The Sales on Twitter: @thesalesband

Like The Sales on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thesalesband

Visit The Sales' webpage: http://thesalesband.com/

Listen to The Sales via Soundcloud: https://soundcloud.com/the-sales

RIFFED x

We chatted to Kassassin Street recently. The five piece from Portsmouth are the defintion of psychedelia, a sound of which sends you into a subconcious daze. They're Temples but with their own twist. Having recently featured in NME's Radar, RIFFED stepped in to grab an interview with the lads.

1) Who are Kassassin Street?

Kassassin Street are a Psychedelic band from Portsmouth, Hampshire. Birthplace of Charles Dickens and exactly 9,366 miles from Ayer's rock, Australia…

2) You've recently released your new single 'The Royal Handkerchief Ballet', tell us a little about that?

Ah The Royal Handkerchief Ballet. I was sat up one night, pretty hazy at 3 am watching old episodes of Button Moon (as you do) and an episode came on entitled 'The Royal Handkerchief Ballet', it kind of really stuck to me, like art imitating life. I suppose we're all part of The Royal Handkerchief Ballet to a degree. We're all performers, and no one ever gets the joke...

It's been great to get our first track out there. It was a pleasure to record at Konk in London with producer Tristan Ivemy (Frank Turner/Tubelord). We've had an amazing response, far better than we anticipated! It's all still very fresh to us, we feel like we're right at the beginning of the road and we've got so much more to prove...

3) You're playing a few festivals this summer, how excited are you?

We love playing live, it's what we do best! Taking our circus to festivals this summer is going to be something else. We've got some amazing line up slots, some of which we're still not allowed to announce, so I must keep my mouth shut slightly. We are very excitable, though that could be a side affect of the hay fever drugs...

4) Where do you see yourselves in 5 years time?

Hmmm that's tough. I'm a simple soul, alive would be good. Alive and playing music would be better. Alive and playing music to someone who wants to listen would be bloody perfection!

5) What can we expect next from Kassassin Street?

Apart from all of the great shows we have lined up, you can most certainly expect another single before the summer is out! We're very excited about the next one...

Huge thanks to Kassassin Street for the interview. Expect to be hearing plenty more of these lads in the future.

Kassassin Street's debut single ‘The Royal Handkerchief Ballet’ is OUT NOW:

Purchase via iTunes: https://itunes.apple.com/gb/album/royal-handkerchief-ballet/id867463933

Watch the video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rvmmh6T1Weo

Follow Kassassin Street on Twitter: http://twitter.com/kassassinstreet

And like their Facebook page: http://facebook.com/kassassinstreet

Visit Kassassin Street's webpage: http://www.kassassinstreet.com/

RIFFED x

Suffolk lads Cemetery Junction spoke to us this week. The alternative rock band as they brand themselves upon have recently released their new single 'Eighteen' and were willing to chat to us about it:

1) Who are Cemetery Junction?

We are a four piece band, all mates from school. Toby Mills (singer) Leon Bishop (guitar) Tom Ashby (bass) Craig Barrott (drums). The band formed in 2011 playing just covers. In 2012 we started to write and perform our own material and it went down well so we pushed that side more. We consider the covers gigs as our apprenticeship and they have helped us to craft a professional live performance.

We are kind of 'what you see is what you get'. When we play we like to absolutely have it! Loads of energy. Loads of movement and we try to get the same out of the audience. Love a good bit of banter and when asked opinions we'll give a straight answer.

2) You've recently released your debut single 'eighteen', tell us a little about that?

Eighteen was written about a particular lad, touch on the nuts side. Basically it's about being young, bold, stupid, naive, but at the same time very free. The line 'I'm yours forever' is something I'm sure plenty of people have said to another at that age and whilst its nice to hear, I'm sure it's said without massive thought and wisdom. It's a bit of a party tune too to try and celebrate being young, embrace it and not to over think your future to early.

3) Favourite gig of which you've played?

Cliche, but we love them all. Gigs local to us are decent as we get a good, familiar crowd. Camden Crawl on the 21st June is going to be mega and we are really looking forward to that! Couple of festivals last year were good too.

4) Where do you see yourselves in 5 years time?

Hopefully still doing what we love. Our fan base is growing and we want to keep it that way. Best way to achieve this is to keep writing good songs and stay very true to who we are. Two things we don't plan to change. Maybe sailing into a Caribbean island on some rich fuckers yacht because he likes one of our tunes. One can dream. But in all seriousness, it would be great to make music a living as well as a massive hobby so yeah, we would like to be doing that.

5) What's next for Cemetery Junction?

Well, we have a single release on the 8th September and a couple later in the year. Then hopefully jan of 2015 we will have another EP out with more tracks so more material is coming. We are working on establishing ourselves in other areas around the country and giving people the chance to hear us and hopefully they will like us.

Big thanks to Cemetery Junction for the interview.

Like Cemetery Junction on Facebook: Facebook/cemeteryjunction

Or follow them on Twitter: @cemeteryjunc

Follow Cemetery Junction on Instagram: cemetaryjunction

Listen to Cemetery Junction: soundcloud.com/cjunction

Keep up to date with gig announcments on Bandsintown: Cemetery Junction

RIFFED x

Hull band Breeze spoke to us this week. Branded by themselves as an alternative rock band, the yorkshire lads have already supported bands such as SKATERS , Drowners and Girls Names and are set to support Catfish and the Bottlemen next month. The future is looking bright for the 'ull boys, so we grabbed an interview with Aron from the band and here it is:

1) Who are BREEZE?

We're a four piece band from Hull, two guitars, one bass, one drum and three vocals. We don't really want to categorize ourselves as a certain type of band because that's for every body else to decide but we quite often get the words grunge and lo-fi slung about in there.

2) You're set to release a new single and EP soon, tell us a little about that?

Yeah we're releasing a 3 track single/e.p in August called Post Youth, it's quite exciting really to think about as it's the first time any of us will of ever had our music in a physical and digital form. In terms of sound it's sounding really heavy and dirty. The guy who produced it (Paddy Tobin from Mountain Sound Recording Studio in Hull) kept giving us these baritone guitars to record with to give it that extra bang. Sounds really cool though, we'll be releasing it after the first music video.

3) You are supporting Catfish and the Bottlemen at the Fruit in Hull in July, a gig RIFFED are going to be at, how excited are you for this?

Yeah we're quite excited to be fair, we've played Fruit a few times before and often with big bands like Skaters, Drowners and Girls Names so it's not really new to us but Catfish are a really exciting band so it'll be a good experience to share the stage with them. Plus our mates in NEED are playing and they're starting to sound mega. I've got to say that because I used to be in a band with two of them... But all jokes aside we're dead excited for it.

4) What's next for BREEZE?

Whats next for BREEZE is getting the single and the video out really and getting it around the country, we're hoping to book a series of out of town gigs and give the single a big push, but for the foreseeable future the main plan is just to gig gig and gig with us spending quite a bit of time in the studio this year. We've also got a few massive shows to announce as well in the next few weeks or so.

Big thanks to Aron of BREEZE for the interview.

You can check BREEZE out here: www.soundcloud.com/wearebreeze

And follow them on Twitter: www.twitter.com/wearebreeze

Or like them on Facebook: www.facebook.com/wearebreeze

Also you can follow BREEZE on Instagram: www.instagram.com/wearebreeze_

RIFFED x