Scottish band 'Neon Waltz' took to the stage at local venue PJ Malloy's alongside 'The Nickajackmen' after a busy summer of gigging with plenty more still to come. The band formed in early 2014 and is made up of 6 high school mates from John O' Groats (aka the middle of nowhere). I had a chat with lead singer Jordan just before they played their headline gig
The Band:
Jordan Shearer - Lead singer
Calvin Wilson - Bass
Darren Coghill - Drums
Jamie Swanson - Guitar
Kevin Swanson - Guitar
Liam Whittles - Keys
Why start a band and make music?
'That's kinda a tough question already. We all liked the same kind of music when we were like 12/13 and not a lot of people liked the kind of music that we did. Me and the drummer have quite musical families so there was always instruments in our house, we sort of just picked it up from there. When you realise all your mates like the same kind of music and are into the same bands, it all just sort of falls into playing together.'
What's your process of writing music and how has it changed from when yous first started out?
'It's never really changed, we all write for the band but the actual song idea comes from 1 person. They do a rough recording and send it to the rest of the boys, get to know it, practice it and by the time you're done with the song as a band it's completely different to the original idea once everyone's added their own little bit.'
What music did you listen to growing up and does it still impact how you write today?
'The first band I ever loved was The Backstreet Boys.'
[No, you didn't misread that.]
'And that's true. You're probably too young to remember them! Do you even remember The Backstreet Boys!? We're talking mid to late 90s.
[Yes I have heard of them , no I wasn't quite born when they were about but I consider it a bullet dodged.]
'Well I would of been about 5/6 and I loved them but I grew up a bit. By like 2002 I got into The Libertines and The Coral but The Strokes are probably the first band that I listened to and was like 'FUCK this is brilliant!' That kind of put me on a path to listen to their influences and so on, it opened up a whole new world of people you don't hear on the radio. As for their impact on how I write, I would say that subconsciously it probably does but there's nothing obvious inside my head that I think ' I want to write a song that sounds like that.'
So you recently supported Noel Gallagher's High Flying Birds, that must of been a bit of a HOLY FUCK moment, tell me about that, what was it like?
' Well we've supported him a couple years ago aswell so it wasn't too mad.'
[Still a pretty fucking good confirmation that you're doing alright, I would say.]
'Yeah it's ace to get the email come in to say that you're supporting Noel Gallagher.'
Other big opportunities yous have had this year include playing at festivals such as Neighborhood Weekender down in Warrington, All Points East in London and Glasgow Summer Sessions still to come on the 25th of August. So do you prefer playing a large scale festival or an intimate venue gig like tonight at PJ's?
'There's pros and cons of both. I would say if we got to the stage where we're playing to big crowds and it's our own gig I'd way prefer that to playing a festival because I mean people here are paying just to see you! They're fucking way more dedicated and t's not slagging people off for going to festivals or anything but like they're here to see you so in a way it will be a better night. Obviously it's really nice to play in front of ten thousand odd people like at Noel Gallagher, we're playing in front of more people than we ever dreamed! But there's only about 1% of people in that crowd that are massive Neon Waltz fans the rest of them are just waiting for Noel. Whereas if you're playing somewhere like PJ's tonight, there's probably about 100 people and people are going fucking mental for it so it feels better at the time.'
Another big moment for yous this summer is that it will be a year since your debut album ' Strange Hymns' was released . So looking back what has the reaction to it been like?
'Fucking hell has it been that long! It's been brilliant we've not had any bad reviews or that.
Maybe kind of wished it got a bit further than it did but I think we're gonna be one of those bands where we're juts gonna keep going and in years to come people will go 'fuck have you heard their first album.'We believe in that album so much I think it's up there with some of the best I've heard.
Now that's a bold claim. What are your favourite albums to compare it to then?
'Well that's a hard one cause now I'm thinking what my favourite albums are and that I'd much rather listen to theirs than ours.'
So that's what yous have been up to recently, what's the band's plans for the rest of the year?
'We'll be touring quite a lot the back end of the year, we're writing a lot as well right no. We're sort of planning for a second album but we'll hopefully be having some single releases and EP releases before that.'
[Exciting stuff.]
Who are other local/unsigned bands that you would recommend?
'I've not actually seen a band in quite a while.'
[Ohh controversial just as you are about to play a local gig.]
'Hey we live in John O'Groats, we have to travel about 100 odd miles just to see a band!'
[ I'll let them of this once.]
There's a band that supported us in Inverness like a month or 2 ago, they're called 'Dazed Digital Age.' Since we're mates with them there's a part of you that goes 'I hope they're not shit' but they were fucking brilliant and I don't really listen to a lot of electronic music but they were brilliant, check them out!'
Keep an eye out for what Neon Waltz have coming up and get down to one of their gigs!
WEE GEM: https://youtu.be/OOYWhaoKXEw
( Acoustic version of Neon Waltz - ' I Fall Asleep' I found whilst researching them.)
LINKS N STUFF:
Facebook:https://www.facebook.com/neonwaltz/
Instagram:https://www.instagram.com/neonwaltz/
Twitter:https://twitter.com/neonwaltz
Spotify:https://open.spotify.com/artist/1HMvS7MZ6mocKBi5iAIwBl?si=UKis-trARwG-8bDLYtEexw
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