We got the chance to speak with Norwich five-piece Lightscape at their Worthing show as part of the tour leading up to their newest EP ‘Circles’ that’s coming out on December 1st. Here vocalist Will Overton and guitarist Sam Nichol talk about their new songs, breaking through and politics in music.
You have your EP Circles coming out in a couple of weeks and just released the video of the first single ‘By Design’ last week, how has the response to that been so far?
Sam: Awesome, it’s the video that we’ve always wanted to record and we’ve finally done it. It’s got all the right camera shots we wanted, it gives off enough energy and we love the song. Alex Baker on Kerrang! Radio has been playing it and people seem to love it.
Will: Alex Baker seems to really like most of our stuff, which means we must be doing something fairly right and it’s been played by Scuzz on TV as well, which is really cool for us. It’s encouraging for us that if you work hard enough and really push for it, you can get yourself into some of these positions if your work is good. All you want is for people to take that on merit and not how much you pay, who you know and that kind of thing. I think probably the best thing about this video is that it’s already gone that little bit further than everything else we’ve done.
Alex Baker’s show, ‘Fresh Blood’ exclusively plays music from emerging bands. How do you think being played on a show like this can help you break through to the bigger crowd?
Will: I think it’s essential that there are things like that around, because it’s our only real life line. We realised that a lot of people get opportunities through meeting and knowing people and the biggest problem for us is that we’re in Norwich. If we were in London we’d meet more people and do the same thing, but we don’t live in that situation so we’re having to work that bit harder to meet more people and do more things and try to move further along, because we’re stuck out there on the east coast.
You ended up eight in the Salute Music Maker competition, a competition that offer musicians across the UK the opportunity to change their musical career, without the unfair attachments that come with the many UK music competitions. How do you think the way music is made and shared has changed recently and how does it affect emerging bands like yourselves?
Will: The problem with the internet for me is that it’s great, but it’s its own worst enemy. We can get our music out to so many people, there’s such a wide audience, but so can everyone else. For every good band you might get ten rubbish ones. People get bombarded with crap and then they got to cherry pick out what they like, so yes you can get it to more people, but it’s harder to be heard.
Sam: Yeah, with things like Spotify we’ve got fans all over the world now, which we would have never achieved otherwise, even if we were signed. It’s hard to achieve that sort of organic reach, that’s just thanks to Spotify and we get all the data with where our listeners come from and it’s really interesting to see.
The song you were nominated with, ‘Live in Fear’, what is it about?
Will: I wrote the lyrics to ‘Live in Fear’ after the Paris attacks, I was at a point that I felt desperate to do something, but I didn’t know what so I had a long chat about it with the guy we recorded with and I wrote it all down. The song is on ‘Circles’, but I would say generally it’s an EP of hope. A lot of the songs come from negative scenarios but try to offer a positive outcome, that’s probably the best way of describing it.
Can we expect more political songs from you guys?
Will: I don’t want us to be a political band. It’s difficult because I write all the lyrics and I’m opinionated but only when I’m in my comfortable area. I don’t feel the need to tell everybody of my opinions, I always worry that when you write your opinion in lyrics people think you want their attention. You’re putting yourself out there for people to criticise or disagree with you and I’m representing the band.
Sam: We all need to believe in what we’re saying, because it’s our faces attached to it too so in a way it’s my opinion as well.
Who influenced you most musically for the new EP?
Sam: To compare it to existing artists I’d probably say Bring Me The Horizon and bands like that but with a clean vocalist, or 30 Seconds To Mars, that sort of big epic feel, but all of our influences are so different in between the five of us.
Will: I don’t think there’s a band that all five of us like, but when it all comes together we all agree that we like our sound. We agreed we wanted a big sound and a lot of melody, as long as there is melody in every song and there’s a big vibe to it, the rest will fall into place. We’re proud of how it sounds, we think it’s different and original and that’s all we were trying to achieve.
How has it been playing the new songs live?
Sam: It’s been great, especially ‘Circles’, it’s just got that big riff when it comes in and it’s got groove. We still have one song yet to play, it’s an epic one that we’re all exited to play and I think is all our favourite one.
Will: It’s a different one for us, I played it to my friend and he said it’s the closest thing we’ve got to a ballad. It’s a lot slower and it’s got a very spacy vibe, it’s all about the feels. It’s the first song we’ve written like that. It feels like the song that I’ve always wanted to write and I feel like I’ve finally done it.
Comentarios