On the 20th January we’ve got a stacked lineup upstairs for Backyard Festival, so we though we’d sit down and get to know the bands. All seven of ’em!
Hey all! Really looking forward to having you all here for Backyard Festival, for some this will be your first show here at The Bodega, for others this’ll be your debut. What can you tell us about your experiences at the venue?
We do love the venue for sure. This will be our first time playing in a while and shows at the Bodega are always good. – Marvin’s Revenge
Bodega’s mint both as a venue and boozer, it’s got such a great community and the 20th January is really looking like a big party. – Sex Toy Vending Machine
Hey, thanks for having us! Well it’s funny because we debuted at Bodega only a couple months ago and Backyard will actually be our third consecutive show there, feels strange to say! But we absolutely love the atmosphere, the room is the perfect size and the sound is absolutely incredible, couldn’t ask for a better room. – Soaphead
There’s a real community feel to this show, how do you feel about the Nottingham scene at the moment and do you think it’s important that larger lineups come together now and then for big shows like this?
We’re sure Marvin’s Revenge would agree with us, playing many shows with them in Notts over the last 4 years, that there’s really something cooking in Nottingham. The city is such a great place to want to be a musician as there is so much support and care from the other bands that share these stages. It’s just so crazy to us that something like this is happening, we’ve been friends with most of the people playing this festival since 2019 and watched them grow as people, join bands, and then in-turn watched them grow as a musicians. To see that all of us have gotten to this point where we can even have this festival and be confident that it’ll sell tickets and create buzz is so unbelievably heart warming to see. For us, it is super important that the scene does more independent stuff like this to really show off the level of creativity that we’re so lucky to have in Nottingham. – PASTE.
Yes, definitely. The Nottingham music scene has always been so vibrant and it’s nice to see everyone collaborating in a big way, and all for a good cause. – Badhand
I (Ed) only moved to Notts a few years ago but think this is the best and most diverse music community I’ve seen around the country. It’s amazing to bring a load of us together but you could easily do the event with a whole different line-up which just shows how many good bands are in Notts. I hope we see more events like it. – Fakers
It is incredibly important for collaboration to occur in a small scene. Community and a collective effort to boost each others’ exposure/outreach are key to success. It’s great to see a group of young bands in Nottingham which are now collectively recognised and I hope we can take this forward after the festival and continue to help each other grow long term. – Skitzwizards
Now that we’re into 2024 can we expect to see any new music from you own the way?
We’re hoping to release an EP soon, which is entirely DIY, as are our singles that have already been released. – Badhand
You bet your bucket you can expect new music! In-fact, if you want to hear what we’ve got brewing, come to BY! we’ve got a special setlist planned that perfectly sets up what we have planned for 2024. It’s not just us though, everyone’s got plans in the works, which is what makes it all so exciting! – Soaphead
We recorded 2 new songs “No Beaches” and “Come inside” at JT Soar at the end of last year. Expect to hear them very soon in all the usual places. – Fakers
Yep, we’ve got plenty planned for 2024. – Skitzwizards
Yes, you certainly can! In 2024, it’s a big year for us as we are releasing our debut album “Start to Finish”. Completely independent, many of the musicians playing this festival helped even make this album possible for us. Recording at our lovely friend Troy Foster’s (Badhand) studio and having been inspired by the scene in a lot of the songs we have coming, it really is an homage to this little city calls Notts. Even just having gone out for drinks with literally every band playing Backyard over the years has inspired and helped us shaping this thing, be it as people or in musical influences. We’ll have much more to say on this album in the coming months. – PASTE.
I think our plan is to focus on writing some new stuff this year and work towards a bigger project but I imagine we will put a song out or something. – Marvin’s Revenge
Yes. – Sex Toy Vending Machine
There’s some crossover between members of bands here and obviously every songwriting process is different, how do you go about writing tunes?
The four of us in PASTE. have very differing music tastes, and when we write it’s literally just getting into a room together and jamming and having as much fun as we can with music. Typically it’ll start with a small idea or riff before being taken to a rehearsal room and transformed into a full song; “PASTE-ified” as Jed likes to call it. Sometimes a song will be born from the concept of writing a specific style/genre, or even just as a joke and it begins to stick since it fits! The final chorus in Pretty Lies was originally going to be the same as previous choruses, but the lights in the building went out and we decided to immediately start playing black metal. We realised it might actually improve the song if we altered the chorus to incorporate more black metal sensibilities. We believe it’s so important to dig out inspiration from anywhere when making art. – PASTE.
Yeah the overlap’s a little crazy haha! Personally with songwriting though, it’s more about an emotion than some lyrics or a few chords. The process seems to vary so drastically I hesitate to even call it a process, but you always end up trying to get a certain feeling out of yourself or through what you’re making, I once asked Luke from Marvin’s about lyrics and he said try and stick to a theme, which always helps me keep a bit of focus when writing. But honestly, anything works, as long as it sounds good! – Soaphead
Luke is the main writer in the band, he will usually come up with an idea and we will just follow suit with our own inputs where we feel they are needed. – Marvin’s Revenge
Normally one of us will come up with an idea and we’ll just work around it. Pretty much everything we’ve wrote is all 4 of us working together. – Sex Toy Vending Machine
We normally tend to build our songs around a bass line or guitar riff, which could be written by any of us, then Troy will add some drums, and whoever is taking lead vocals will figure out the melodies to go over the song. – Badhand
It can vary but a lot of songs are Alex bringing 5-10 minute demos of ideas and after a few run throughs at Zach’s drumming speed we end up with a 2 minute punk version. Add on some guitar parts from Charlie and we have a Fakers song. We keep trying to do something longer than 2mins but it never happens. – Fakers
Our song process has completely changed multiple times over the past couple of years. Notably recently with Fin and Zach joining the band and having the experience of sitting down and writing a song as a group rather than me and Paul behind a computer trying to stick sections together like a jigsaw. – Skitzwizards
There’s some great rehearsal spaces around Notts and some real hidden gems, is there anywhere in particular you’d recommend for a new band starting up?
That Weird Shop offers a reasonably priced rehearsal space and they’re all lovely, JT Soar’s great if you can get your foot in the door, and if you give Kofuku £20 I’m sure they’d let you jam in there for a couple hours or something. – Soaphead
Affordable places that come to mind would be Pirate studios, Magnet and if any of you are enrolled at Confetti, Metronome is always your best bet. – Badhand
Magnet and JT Soar are both great. We started rehearsing in Derby at Dubrek and Abbey Road which also are run by great people. – Fakers
When it comes to rehearsal spaces in Nottingham, we think that Magnet Studios has always been up there. It’s cheap has good vibes and nice gear. Also That Weird Shop has now started opening rehearsal spaces which have great amps! – PASTE.
JT Soar for sure. – Marvin’s Revenge
Lastly before you go, who out of the band is crowdsurfing at this show?
We’ll be saving our energy to catch Dan Dibb when he falls off whatever he is climbing. – Badhand
Dan Dibb. Of PASTE. – Sex Toy Vending Machine
Dan Dibb and Paul ‘The Gunslinger’ Paulson will be crowdsurfing. – Skitzwizards
Obligatory response is Dan, but for one second, imagine the king himself: Sir Luke Eaton awkwardly crowdsurfing, True Surf Rock From Hell. Make it happen Luke. – PASTE.
I will pay one million great british pounds to anyone who can get Luke to crowd surf (From Job). – Marvin’s Revenge
Grab yourself a ticket to Backyard Festival now!
