October 1, 2025 • 50 mins
On this episode of Bringin’ it Backwards, Adam Lisicky sits down with Henry Cox, frontman of Boston Manor, for an honest, no-frills conversation about how a kid from Blackpool, England went from drumming in jazz band and playing school musicals to leading one of modern rock’s most dynamic acts. Henry opens up about his unlikely entry into music—being the kid without a musical family, drawn into the world of drums and early 2000s hip hop via grainy basketball highlight reels. From there, he shares stories of forming Boston Manor, roughing it on early UK tours, and that surreal moment when a record deal with Pure Noise Records opened the door to international touring—including America’s legendary Warped Tour.
Henry dives deep into the making of Boston Manor’s new album, explaining the personal growth (and even parenthood) that shaped the ambitious double album, with themes that travel from emotional darkness into the hope of new beginnings. He also offers invaluable advice for aspiring artists—stressing the importance of taking time to find your sound, not rushing to release music for the sake of the internet, and focusing on what truly moves you.
You’ll hear why Boston Manor’s music has evolved from teenage experiments to arena-ready anthems and why authenticity, experimentation, and resilience have been at the heart of Henry’s journey. If you’re looking for an honest peek behind the scenes of a band making it work—triumphs, setbacks, and all—this episode’s for you.
So grab your headphones, hit subscribe, and hear what it really means to bring it backwards with Boston Manor’s Henry Cox.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
What is going on? It is Adam. Welcome back to Bringing It Backwards, a podcast
where both legendary and rising artists tell their own personal
stories of how they achieve stardom. On this episode, we
had a chance to hang out with Henry of the band
Boston Manor over Zoom video. Henry was
raised in Blackpool, England and talks about how he got
(00:21):
into music. Henry started singing at a very early age. He took
part in the Christmas shows and the Easter concerts
were held in his local town. He talked about starting to play drums
and actually getting into a art school for high
school. So he was in the jazz band, played drums and also
sang. Played drums with a bunch of bands early on,
(00:44):
eventually started to sing. When he met the guys in
Boston Manor, he talked about jamming with Mike and Dan, brothers
in the band for the first time when what that was like kind of the
connection and chemistry they had. Henry then invited
Ash and Jordan who he'd known from previous bands,
and that's how they started Boston Manor. They talked about the success they
(01:06):
had fairly early on, a lot of roughing it with some of
those early tours, what it was like getting signed to Pure Noise Records
touring the United States for the first time. And Henry talks a lot
about the new album as well. You can watch the interview
with Henry and myself on our Facebook page and YouTube channel
at bringing it backwards, it'd be amazing. If you subscribe to our channel,
(01:29):
like us on Facebook, follow us on Instagram, Twitter and TikTok
at Bringing back pod. And if you're listening to this on Spotify,
Apple Music, Google podcasts would be incredible. If you follow us there as well
and hook us up with a five. Star review, we'd appreciate
your support. If you follow and subscribe to our podcast, we're wherever you
listen to podcasts. We'Re Bringing It Backwards with Boston
(01:51):
Manor.
Bringing it backwards.
Bringing it backwards. Bringing it backwards.
Bringing it backwards. Bringing it backwards.
Bring it backwards.
(02:14):
Awesome. Well, I'm Adam, man. Nice to meet you. Nice to meet you, bro.
And this is a podcast about you and your journey in music and
obviously we'll talk about the new album you guys have coming out.
Sounds great. Sweet. So I always kind of start
off with your, kind of your origin story. Where were you born
(02:35):
and raised? I was born in a place called
Burton, which is just in the middle of the country. But I,
I didn't, I moved to the Blackpool area,
which is where we're from, when I was like a couple years old. So
I grew up there. It's town by the sea. I
grew up in a place called St. Anne's which is like a kind of nice
(02:57):
sub. Nice ish suburb of the town.
Yeah. So I went to school there. Like half my family's from there
and stuff. So. Yeah, it was a pretty, pretty nice
place to. Nice ish place to grow up, you know. Pretty. Pretty
quiet. Nothing. Nothing super crazy. Love it. Love it.
What about as far as a creative household? You come from like a musical family
(03:20):
or anything like that? No, no, not at all.
Like, and that self, you know, self confessed. I
don't mean to. To shit on my parents or anything, but the right.
I say not creative. That's not true. My mom is creative,
I suppose. Not musical. My mom is great. She. She was.
(03:41):
When I was like 10, she like quit her job and
she did like, it sounds really random but like face painting
full time. So it was. Did like kids. Oh cool. Yeah, like kids birthday parties
and stuff. Oh right on. Yeah, yeah, like events and. And stuff. She
still does it now among other things, but
I guess she has like a creative streak in that side of things. But there
(04:04):
wasn't like, you know, the parent playing
guitar in the household or, or anything
like that, you know. Sure. Well then how did you get into music? Were
you like drawn to it as a teenager or.
I was trying to think about this the other day, you know, because I'm. I
have a sister, but I'm the eldest, so I didn't really have that kind of,
(04:26):
you know, record collection bestowed upon me by an elder sibling which
some, some of my bandmates, well, one or two, my bandmates
are brothers and one bestowed music to the other. But they all have
elder siblings that kind of gave them at least a. Record,
some idea of what was cool at the time or whatever.
Exactly. Yeah. But I think so.
(04:50):
So when I was like a little, little kid
I. I really loved like basketball, which was like
really hard to come by in the UK at that time.
Like you couldn't watch the NBA or anywhere. You couldn't even buy like
basketball jerseys anywhere. So I like, I think I, I loved it
(05:11):
from Space Jam. I think I saw Space Jam as a little
kid and was like, this is sick.
And I got like my dad for like my
birthday. You could get like a really, really shitty.
It wasn't even like an ESPN subscription in the uk. It was like a
(05:32):
sort of like portal that you would pay like five bucks a month and you
would get like highlight reels and stuff because it was like early
Internet, like dial up Internet so you couldn't really like watch
long videos or anything. Sure. But I would
email you a clip or something like that. I guess it was just like their
website and be like here's you know, this week's wrap up and you just see
(05:53):
loads of like, you know, almost like kind of like watching like a sports show
where they show you loads of news clips and stuff. And his. Here's the results
of this game and here's some like highlights from it. But there always be like
really cool like kind of very early
2000s, like hip hop over these, over these
clips. And it was stuff that wasn't really coming over the.
(06:15):
Onto the radio and I guess I just would have had the radio
and I remember kind of being like this is really cool and trying to kind
of find out what. Sometimes it would tell you what the song was in the
bottom corner and it was like. I don't think it would have been anything like
crazy undergr. But it was just stuff that, that I'd never really
heard of before. So I started getting into like hip
(06:35):
hop through that and I really loved all that
stuff. Do you remember like a specific artist or anything
like like what was it like? Naughty by nature? I don't know. I'm just trying
to think of something that might have been like those highlight reels. Yeah, it
was. There was a little bit of like, like
RZA and. And oh stuff which was cool.
(06:58):
But then there was a lot of. Because it was like the early 2000s there.
Like timberland and stuff like sure, it's like
before he was like even big as a producer. Like just his rap stuff and
a lot of like west coast stuff. But I guess like Red man and
stuff. Nothing. I know he's not west coast, but. Nothing, nothing.
Nothing that I would say I still listen to now. I'm trying to. I'm trying
(07:19):
to think like it was probably even stuff like friggin
Soldier Boy and stuff. I don't know. Yeah, okay. I'm thinking early. I was going
even earlier. I was going like 90s. But yeah, like early 2000s. Maybe
some of that like, you know what I mean?
Absolutely. Back that ass up.
(07:41):
Probably Joe Bodden and stuff. But I, I didn't
have any kind of. No one
told me about music. So I was just kind of like it
was anything that I heard I would just kind of soak it up really.
So I just kind of listened to everything. And I remember
(08:01):
in year six in school so element. That's like the last year of
elementary school. Yeah, you'd be like 10, I suppose or 11.
In the UK there was a kid in My year,
my class. Shout out Mike Simmons. He's listening. He's
definitely not. He was like the
(08:21):
cooler kid in class because he was like real tall, like good at sports and
stuff. But he was a nice guy and he had a lot of older brothers.
I remember he told me he was like you got to check out this band.
My brother showed me, they're called Linkin Park. And he,
he gave me, I can't if he gave it me or I think I actually
went out and like bought it or something but because I didn't know how to
like like Limewire wasn't a thing then. And it was kind of pre
(08:45):
like Napster maybe. Yeah, maybe Napster was about. I fucking
wouldn't know what that was. I was like 10. But, but iTunes
wasn't really popping yet. I don't think maybe it was but we're talking like
2003 or 2002. So I, I don't know.
But he, yeah, I think like I, that probably came around a couple years after.
I'm a little bit older. I remember when I like itunes and just trying to
(09:09):
figure out how to get something onto an I I pod at
the time was like so mind blowing. I'm like wait, I have to load all
my music onto here. And then I could, yeah, they made it.
But I, I he was like you got to check this record out. Like this
band out and Hybrid Theory just come out. So I went out and and like
bought it with like my, my pocket money from you know, I
(09:31):
get a weekly allowance from like I don't know. Hoovering
doors or whatever. Yeah. Doing household chores and stuff. So I went out and I
probably saved like a month for that thing. But I went out and bought Hybrid
Theory and because so
it blew my head off because obviously it's an
amazing record that still really, I think really holds up today. I love it. I
(09:52):
but obviously you have kind of like the rapping bits in it. So I
guess to my ear then I was like, oh, there's like this is
familiar to me. But then this is like screaming and
really heavy like guitar and drums and stuff and I
just loved it. And I guess the early 2000s as well was we were, we
were messing around with like mixing metal and like hip hop
(10:15):
all over the place. Weren't we like on both sides at the aisle?
So there was a lot of cross pollination there. But I think
that was my first kind of thing where I'd kind of gone out of my
own way to like find a thing and found it was like,
whoa, this is melting my mind. And from
there, were you, like, you know, with Lincoln park, did that open up
(10:36):
the doors to a lot of those other artists that are kind of fall within
that same genre at the time? I guess.
Were you listening to other, like, rock bands that you kind of
found through Linkin park at that time, or. Yes. Like, it just kind of
whatever I could get my hands on. Like, I. I was a bit sort of
young for, like, new metal to have been around at
(10:57):
the first wave, you know, Like, I guess I heard Linkin park,
but. But kind of the new metal thing, I feel like the wave, it. Or
the wave had already crested at that point when I sort of got into my
teens. But anything that I was kind of, kind of
hearing and, you know, I would start, like, sort of reading the mute, flicking through
the music magazines in the news agents,
(11:19):
trying to find bands that way. And if, you know, if I saw, like, Linkin
park, if they were wearing, like, a band T shirt, you know, like
a Deftones T shirt, like a far T shirt, and I'd be like,
I gotta check that out. But it was kind of. I guess as soon as,
like, YouTube and LimeWire and stuff came in that I was just like,
I need to know about all the music. Like, every single
(11:41):
little thing. And I think at that point, yeah, it was. We. We have in
the UK or had, like, music TV
stations, but they were only available on, like, sky tv, which was like, our kind
of cable. Okay. And I. My. We couldn't afford cable,
but my. My nan had it and over to her
house, so she's always been like, oh, it's so nice to see you, like,
(12:03):
visit little old me. And I'd be like, yeah, good to see you. Now I'm
just gonna go, like, what. I'm gonna go
exactly. But, yeah, it'd be like
that and score. So it'd be also. And at that point, you know, it'd be
like the Foo Fighters. And then it'd be like System of Down and
then, you know, kind of all over the shop, really. So I'd just be
(12:24):
watching anything and everything and sucking it all up. I don't remember
the being kind of. I. I don't think I really had the
foresight at that age to kind of distinguish,
I guess, like, genres or like, sub genres between bands. It was
just like. Yeah, it was. You know, this is
heavier, right? I like this. And then what. How do you then
(12:47):
decide? Or do you, like, get a guitar or, like, what. Like,
what kind of puts you towards wanting to make
music. I guess it never really. So
I was then I guess going into high school and
I got a music scholarship to go to like a.
Like a kind of. I guess you call it like a grammar school
(13:13):
in the town where I live. So it was like a free ride to like
a sort of a good school, I guess a high school
because. Was that through like. Yeah, I guess. How did you get the scholarship? Was
it for singing or like, how did like. And then how do you. Yeah,
it was for singing. I had singing lessons as
(13:34):
a little kid and did some like kind of
musicals and the church choir and all
sorts of like super, super kind of
suburban activities, I
guess. I don't know. I just kind of.
(13:54):
Your parents put you in that. I mean, you obviously. Yeah, yeah,
a great singer. That's what you do. But you know what I mean? Like, was
that something that your. Your mom or dad heard you early on
were like, wow, you know, Henry can. He can sing. Let's throw him
in this. Or. I, I wanted to do
like. There was like a yearly like Christmas musical thing
(14:16):
that in the town. And I just did that
as a little kid, like 8 years old, you know, some other kids that I
knew in my street would do it and it was just something to keep us
occupied, I guess on like Saturday mornings for
however, you know what I mean? So I did that and then
I would, I guess sometimes get like singing parts in. In that.
(14:38):
And the primary school I went to was. Was like a Church of England primary
school. A lot of them are. I didn't grow up in a particularly religious
household, but it's just kind of like, you go to these
schools and they're normally partner with a church and you'll do like whenever there's like
Easter or Christmas, there'll be like, you know, like a pageant. I
should do a little. Little concert, whatever. Yeah, quiet. So I'd
(15:00):
done some of that stuff and I think it must have been somebody at my.
Because there was like two schools in my town and. And they're both good schools,
but one of them, I guess this one was like, oh, they have a music
program at the school and you could go to it
and apply for it, I guess. And they'll
take an X amount of like singers or whatever you do. There was a big
like music program. So there's a lot of people in my year that were playing
(15:22):
like violin and. And like the. And the piano and stuff.
And I. I couldn't play any instruments, but I could just sing. So I went
that. And then from That I kind of had to do all
the music stuff in the school. Sure. Playing the drums as well.
So I would play drums in like the jazz band,
like a school musical concert thing or whatever. I would be
(15:46):
the drummer that played in the band that did the music for it or whatever.
And then I met just loads of friends who were like. I met basically
the only other kids in the school who were like, well, I play guitar and
I like, rancid. Okay, be in a band. Start
a band. Right? Yeah, exactly. And so there's probably like five
kids and we would just sort of scrape together some covers. And
(16:09):
we never really did, like, did a lot, but,
you know, there was a bunch of like, iterations of the high school jam
band thing. I feel like everybody has that at some point, right? Like.
Yeah. Were you drumming for that or were you singing in those?
Yeah, all drumming. I never. I never sang. Oh, wow. In
like a. Any band. Why? Sang in. So
(16:31):
I never sang in any of these high school bands, basically. I was always a
drummer. And then all my. All my, like, close friends really
didn't go to that school. They went to the other school.
So I would kind of, like school would let out and I would go hang
out with those guys. And loads of them were all
musicians and played like, all different kind. They were all into, like, music like
(16:52):
me, and they all played guitar and stuff. So we started a band that was
kind of like my first band that, like, played a gig, so to speak. Sure.
And they already had a drummer and he was better than me, but
they needed a singer and it was
like a kind of. I don't know what this band was. I.
I don't think it was metalcore, but I don't think it was like post
(17:15):
hardcore and I don't think it was like indie. It couldn't decide what
it was. And it was kind of all three of those things. And it
was 2000. It was like 2009.
So this was like right here where there was a lot of two vocalist
bands. Oh, yeah. That was a big thing. Sure. Huge. Right,
so. So I was the clean singer and. Then my friend was the
(17:37):
screamer. Was the screamer. Exactly. Yeah. So we did
that. And it was a lot of fun, actually. And I learned a lot about
just kind of like songwriting and being in a band and stuff. And played
the first ever gig, like, in front of people that was that. Like,
honestly, it was in a pub and there were
about five people watching us and two of them were these old guys at
(18:00):
the bar who were just heckling us the whole time. And it was in,
it was in like the middle of the day. Yeah, it was very good,
very good gig. Yeah. Oh, wow. But we, you know,
we would like, book our own shows and put on shows and we would kind
of travel all around the Northwest. You know, we played a show in Manchester, which
is like, it's where I live now, but it's like the kind of nearest big
(18:21):
city. You know, we, we kind
of did our best and had a lot of fun doing it
and, but I'd never really sort of thought about
anything other than it being for fun, really. And then I knew
a lot of these, the people in Blackpool who were in bands from these, this
(18:42):
band kind of putting on gigs and,
and, you know, playing shows together and stuff and, and all that.
So I, I went off to college, to university,
to, to art school
with little intention of coming back, to be honest. And
then did you go for it. To pursue music or did you
(19:04):
go for something? Totally. Yeah, no, no, I, I basically went to do film,
so. Oh, interesting. Yeah, I kind of transitioned from
that. I did the band thing, but I started shooting music videos for
all the bands in the area. So I met a lot more people through
that, to be honest. Okay. I would just. Are you still
doing that now with your videos and everything? Are you a big part in that?
(19:27):
I, no, I mean, I, I actually saying that I did just do our most
recent video, but that's more of like a kind of graphical
thing. I don't really pick up a camera, so to speak, but I,
I, I'm normally quite closely involved with music video
stuff for Boston Mania, but I,
I, I did that a lot. I really enjoyed it.
(19:49):
And I met Ash and George who are in Boston Manor because I shot
their, their video. Oh, wow. Okay.
Yeah, that's why we, and then do you guys just decide at one point, like,
are all your bands kind of like at a certain level and it just
won't go past or their members that are like, like, did you get
to a point where you like, you were like, I really want to take this
(20:10):
seriously. And maybe those guys were in a band, they wanted to take it seriously
because I know, like, at that age of like, where you're not
there yet, right, and you maybe been doing it for a while.
Members are like, yeah, I'm just gonna, I want to like, get a job and
have a life or like, I, you know, I don't want to. This is, it's
so difficult, right, to like, get to some success with
(20:32):
this. Was it a Point where
that's how you guys all got together to then form Boston Man. Or, like, how
did. How did that happen? In a roundabout way, yeah, because. Because
all these bands kind of broke up when everyone kind of went off to, like,
you say, either go to college or get a job
or whatever. I guess we were all around the same age, give or take a
(20:54):
couple years. So, you know, they all kind of ended at a similar time.
And I got a call from friend
who was saying that these two brothers, and I knew of them, I didn't know
them very well, but they were starting a new band
and they needed a singer. Let's just go, like, chat to him. And I
(21:14):
immediately hit it off of them and was like, oh, I have, like, a real
immediate sort of, like, chemistry with these two. And we started immediately,
like, writing music. And immediately from that, those demos, I was like, oh, this is
like something different altogether. Like, this. This feels. It could be like a. Like
an actual sort of band, really. And I hadn't really ever
considered. I don't think I would have known how to be, like,
(21:37):
in, like, a professional quote, unquote
band back then. It. I. I felt like another
world, really. But I just immediately had this kind of, like, energy.
And I knew that these songs that we were writing were okay, like, quite
good, at least by my kind of standard at the time.
(21:57):
So I got the other two in Ash. And
so at that time, it was just you, Mike and Dan.
Yeah. Yeah. We wrote a demo, which was like five songs
with no drums. Or were you drumming on it or just MIDI drums?
Okay. On the demo. And then we were like. We
immediately wanted to, like, start playing shows and
(22:21):
kind of getting out of the Northwest because. Because where we're from is a bit
of a sort of. It's not remote
at all, really, but it's. There's not a lot going on here in terms of,
like. Not a lot of touring acts come through the county that we're from, Lancashire.
Not a lot of touring acts really come through. So the nearest kind
of major place to play would be at the time here, really.
(22:42):
So we immediately want to start playing shows. And I knew Ash and
George, and I was like, I know a good drummer and a
guitarist. So got immediately kind of started
practicing with those guys and. And it just clicked really, really naturally, really
instantly. And we started playing as many
shows as we could. We bought, like, an old
(23:04):
postal band and turned it into, like, a band, man. Oh,
rad. Going down to. I think our third ever show was in London, which, at
the Time, you know, I think a couple of members had never even been to
London. You know, at the time it felt like such a sort of far off
place. Well, it's like a big. It's like probably it's the biggest city, right? I
mean like, that's like going. If you're like in the States, you're like, I'm going
to New York or LA to play, right? Yeah, yeah. And it's like six hours
(23:27):
away, which in the UK is like a long, quite a long. That's a long
drive, right? Yeah, totally. So it's a big deal for us
and we started kind of just booking shows ourselves and making friends
on Facebook and, and trying to book tours. And we did, we did our
first ever tour. We did a split with a friend's like
hardcore band and then we started
(23:49):
kind of like writing, I guess, more, more kind of
complete sounding songs. I mean, the music sounds very different from the music that we
make now, but it resembled like more of a kind of
developed band, I would say, than the kind of previous
bands that we'd been in. So we did that for
(24:09):
like a couple years and we got to Europe on like a DIY tour where
our van broke down halfway through. We were stranded
in France for like a week and then we had to like, oh
man, kind of hitchhike home. Honestly, it was, it was pretty
fucked. But we had loads of fun adventures like that, man.
Like tons of them. We ended up in all sorts of crazy places. We ended
(24:31):
up. Our van would break down all the time. We played a show in like
rural Wales and then had to like.
It ran out. In fact, it didn't even break down. This is how stupid it
is. It ran out of fuel. I was gonna ask,
did you run out of. Exactly. And it's like super hilly, so we had
to push the van for like four miles until
(24:51):
we like right on the edge of this town to go and like fill up.
And it was like up hills and so this van was tiny, so five of
us could do it. But yeah. Oh my God.
And then, yeah, we, we. We
got signed to. Yeah, you signed a Pure Noise, right, Like
after you had released like an EP and that split you were
(25:13):
talking about. And. Yeah. How does Pure Noise do they find you
just because they. You've been touring and you're like a hard working band or
like, how did you kind of build that relationship to start that and how did
that kind of change the trajectory of the band or
like that? Because, you know, you, you think getting signed is like, oh,
We've got it, you know. Right. That's like the dream. So then that
(25:35):
happens and you get signed to a legit label. Well, it
was a real bucket list label for us as well, which is
amazing. You know, we kind of said, well, here we picked up a
manager who he. He
worked with us for a while. He's a nice guy. And he.
He kind of like fished around and we got a couple of offers. We got
(25:57):
one in from Hopeless Records. Wow, that's still another big one.
It was a. Is a terrible offer. It was like. It was almost
360 deal. Even our lawyer was like, we got a lawyer.
He was like, I really would recommend you don't sign this record deal. It's. It's
really bad. And we were like, booze? Yeah, but it's Hopeless
record. Look at these bands. Exactly. Yeah. And
(26:19):
a bunch of bands were blown upon at the time. And
then we got into like, what you call, like the long form. Yeah, like
the short form, which is. Sorry, no, we got to the short form. Wait, which
comes first? Yeah, the long forms are like the final sort of like, okay,
sign on the dotted line kind of thing. And then like
just before we were about to sign it, Pure Noise just kind of popped in
(26:42):
our inbox and we're like, do you want to have like a. Like a Skype
presume? Yeah, we'd love
to. And then we. We met Jake from Pure Noise,
who's still a good friend of ours today to this day. And he's a
Nashville guy, I think, right? What, Sorry, does he live in Nashville?
I mean, I live in Nashville now. Yeah. I don't know if Jake is
(27:05):
Pure Noise relocated to Nashville. I'm not sure if Jake's still in. In
the Bay Area or if he is international. I'm not sure.
I think he's. He's back and forth a little bit. But yeah, we,
we. We spoke to him and we just really
liked him straight away. And he was awesome and really kind
of got what we were trying to do. And,
(27:28):
and yeah, we. We signed with him like the next week. And. And it was
amazing. And. And there was a real sort of immediate
kind of kickstart to what we were doing. And. And they got us out to
the US which at that time, I mean, it's hard enough now. Like, we're
finding it difficult to get to us at the moment, like, because. Of things like
money and visas and all that. Yeah, I mean,
(27:51):
costs have gone insane after Covid, but at that time, you know,
UK bands just didn't get out there. It just didn't. It just wasn't really a
thing. You get all these huge UK Bands that were
doing so well domestically that just never really had a chance to
tour over there. I don't think we. We'd ever expected to be able to
do that. That was kind of immediately. Our expectation.
(28:12):
Expectations have been exceeded when that. When that happened. In fact, it was a bit
of a false start. First, the first U. S. Tour going to do. Our visas
didn't get approved in time, and we were. It got down to the wire and
we were, like, packed for the tour, gonna fly, like, the next
day. And we were like, it's gonna come in today. And then we got this
call from our manager, and they were like, it's not happening. So we had to.
(28:32):
We had to drop off the first tour that we were meant to do, which
was. Oh, man. Yeah. Who was that? Was that the. Was that.
I think I saw something about that. Was that the Can't Swim tour? It was
the Pure Noise Records tour. So I'm trying to remember now, but I think it
was like, Can't Swim were on it, I think. And then it would have
been something like, I don't know, like four years. Strong
(28:54):
and, okay, hit the leg. Maybe state champs or something
like, oh, yeah, yeah, okay. Punk tour. But I. I can't remember who else
was on at the time, but, yeah, we were super
bummed about that. But it came through, like, later. Like,
I think either later on that year or. Or early the following year.
And then from there, we. We. We did like
(29:17):
three US Tours a year. We start. People in the UK and Europe start
complaining, saying we were like a US Band now. Like, we would be there all
the time. Well, and your band's name is Boston Manor, so, I
mean, people probably assumed right away, oh, boss. And, you know,
yeah, we do all right Massachusetts. Band.
We do all right our New England.
(29:38):
That's funny. Yeah. So you put that record out. I mean, you guys
did Warped Tour, what, a couple of years later, a year later? I mean, you
start seeing things started happening, right. Once that. Once you
made the US Trip and. And everything else, it really snowballed.
And we were like, you know, we were super young and we were on tour
all the time. We talk for, like 10 months of the year. And when we
(29:59):
weren't touring, we were like, in the studio making records and stuff. So it was
kind of nonstop from, I would say, sort of
2016 until the pandemic hit, really,
like, kind of completely relentlessly. And it was it was amazing. You
know, we. We did like, like you say Warped Tour was like, such an incredible
experience. Like, I'm so grateful to have done that. It was unreal.
(30:23):
We did like, Japan, Australia,
you know, we made like a couple albums in the States, which was really, really
sick. And. And then, yeah, it kind of
just all ground to a halt really quickly when the pandemic hit, which was.
I mean, I'm. I'm jumping ahead here, but it's. It's. No, it does feel like
a bit of a whirlwind that kind of three or four years because it was
(30:45):
just so non. Nonstop, you know? Yeah. Because you guys did.
I mean, you put out three albums with Pure
Noise and. And it sounds like it was in that kind of time, right where
it was. Stuff was going and it was like, okay, now you put out welcome
to the Neighborhood and that does really well and
you get nominated for awards and. And all
(31:06):
these things start happening. Like, at what point were you guys working, like, day jobs
prior to signing with Pure Noise? And, like, did they. Do you remember going
in and like, quitting your job or not having to do that anymore?
Yeah, yeah. I mean, I like. So I
kind of had like an actual job for a little bit, and it's the only
proper job that I've ever had, so I would just like,
(31:28):
work in bars and shit. But I had like a job
in this weird. Like, it was like a. It was really weird. It was like
a local. Imagine like a local Yelp, but like just
okay area. It was really strange. It was kind of like a
restaurant guide. I don't know. It was really weird. But I. I did all the.
Like, I just did. It's like an admin job. But I did that for
(31:49):
like a few months as soon as I finished university.
And then, yeah, I kept having to just like, phone in
sick. But I wasn't sick. I was playing
shows. And then it got to the point where it was just like, I was.
The lies were getting too elaborate. And, yeah, they kind of
knew something was up and I just kind of had to like, be like, I
(32:11):
have to quit. And by the way, I'm in this band and we got signed
and that's why I'm quitting. So from that. Yeah, pretty much
immediately. Like, we. We lived dirt cheap because we were
always on the road. So we. We recorded that debut album in the
uk. We lived in the studio for like a month and made it. No, it
was only like two weeks, actually. We made it super fast. And then we went
(32:31):
on the Road. And then I feel like we. We would only come home for
like a couple weeks at a time, stay at our parents place or wherever
and then just on to the next tour. It was
kind of like carnies. It was crazy.
Yeah. I mean, I can't imagine. I would imagine that you would be. Yeah. Touring
so often that it's like, what's the point of even having a place
(32:53):
to pay for that's just going to sit here, right, you know? Yeah, yeah, totally
long. It was just a place to kind of like, you know,
leave our bags and like,
you know, sometimes how we would even stay in this. There's times when there was
no point even going back. We like stay in the States for a couple weeks.
You know, we had a visa, so we would just stay there with a friend
(33:13):
and then start the next tour kind of thing. Yeah. You said you
did a. Did you do welcome to the neighborhood and glue in this in the
United States or no? Yeah, yeah, we did. It was awesome. We did
it with Mike Sapone. He's a really good friend still. He's an amazing
producer. We did it in Lake or
Patcong in New Jersey. It's kind of weird, like. Okay, kind of
(33:35):
isolated, like lake town. It was cool, really
cool. But like it was super isolated. So it was like.
There was like a diner and a gas station
and like a sort of bodega type thing
in the town and that was like it. Oh, there was like a bar as
well. That was literally like all there was in the town. So. And it was
(33:56):
just kind of like you'd get to the, the town limits and it'd just be
like the woods forever. So, you know, cool. But
it was, it was like a little creepy in the winter. You know, we were
snowed in a few times and we obviously didn't have that or anything, so we
couldn't. We just had to go over on foot. So we were there for like
I think six weeks making welcome to the neighborhood. So it's a long time to.
(34:16):
To be on one street
essentially. Right. Yeah. And in such a small
town with no like real way to get around other than walking.
Yeah, yeah. Honestly, I'm surprised when. Drink more, to be quite honest. Like
there was nothing to do, but it was, it was super fun making the album,
you know, and it was so such a, such a trip for us being like
(34:39):
in America, making an album in like a big studio, you know, the,
the. The album in our first record and it was like, you know, it was
a nice enough studio, but it was like, small, like a little bit diy,
you know, it was kind of just in, like, an old bar, and
we stay in, like, a bunk house next to it that had, like, rats in
it and shit. It wasn't. It wasn't glamorous. And then this
(35:00):
album was in this kind of gorgeous, you
know, neve console suite thing. Leveled up a
bit with that next one. Yeah, totally, totally. And it was. You know,
we were like, wow. We in America making an album, you know,
so it was. It was so much fun. And Same with
Glue, you know, we did in the same place. It was. It was. It was
(35:22):
sick. Got to kind of just try a lot of stuff and
experiment. And I think we changed as a band quite a lot
in a short space of time because of that. Oh, just
recording in that place. Yeah. And just also all the
places that we'd been in, the people that we met. Oh, sure, sure, sure. It
was like we were kind of living life on fast forward for.
(35:44):
Right. So I feel like we change. So. So it must have
been weird for. And I've talked to friends about this, you know, from home who.
Who knew me as a teenager, and I'm still friends with, you know, kind of.
They wouldn't see me for, like, six months, and then they'd see me again, and
I. I would not change. But, you know, have experienced so
much and. Yeah, you grew faster in a way, because you had,
(36:07):
like, way more life experience. I mean, you had been around the world. Yeah, I
guess. You know, things like our tastes and things, and even kind of the
way we would talk, you know, we'd spend some people, be like, you sound like,
I'm an American. And it'd be like, friends are American. I spend all my time.
Yeah, I just spent so much time there. Yeah, right. Yeah,
exactly. With glue. I mean, you put that out in 2020.
(36:27):
Was that you. You talked about how the pandemic then obviously
stopped everything in a way. You put that album out
in May. That's, like, right after the Pandemic had already kind of been
going for a minute. So was that album all done,
and then were you gonna release it earlier, or
was that always the plan? Like, how did that. That affect that album?
(36:50):
Yeah, it totally kind of, like, messed
up the whole thing, really. I mean, we. We'd already recorded it,
and that was a cool process in and of itself. We. We split it up
and did half of it in Texas and half of it in that other studio.
Oh, wow. It was super cool.
But it was. It came out when it was always meant to come out. But
(37:12):
I guess we kind of sort of started the rollout, so to speak, before the
Pandemic, and then by the time it came out, it like kicked
in. So we were like, oh, well, this is what it is now. Right?
And yeah, you know, it kind of just got a bit sort of.
I mean, we never did a tour on it. We. We did that. Like,
we kind of did a tour on it, but it was like. It was that
(37:33):
one. I don't know if you can see that tour there, but it was kind
of, you know, two years after the record came out, once Covid was
over. So it wasn't really a Glue tour.
Because at that point, did you already have the, you know, part one of what
you're going to release a second album here next month?
Was that already in the works or. Yeah,
(37:55):
we, we. So we, we. I think when that tours came
out, when that tour happened, we just released
the EP after the Pandemic. Okay.
Or we were about to. We've been dropping singles off of it and
then. And so from the Pandemic, we'd started writing it. We wrote a lot of
the tour in the Pandemic, so we'd kind of already started. So that's the
(38:18):
thing with Glue, we'd kind of already started moving on to the next thing.
Did you know Detour? It was going to be a part of a two part
thing going into it. Yeah. Okay. Was it always.
That's always been the idea. It's gonna be a double album. Yeah. We kind
of wanted to do this like double album, but
because each part was going to be so contrasting, we kind of were like,
(38:42):
well, let's split it up into two kind of records, really. And they were meant
to be like shorter. Like the tour was the.
Well, Sundive was meant to be short. They're both meant to be like six, seven
songs, almost like two EPs really. But then Sundial kind of became this
like, I guess, full length, like bigger record just
because it kind of did. I don't know, it just kind of happens that
(39:04):
way. Did you write all those songs together? Like the touro was
that. Because just based off what I was reading and you know,
this. Sonically, this was pretty like electronic has like
a heavy production value to
it. And the songs that you've put out thus far
are pretty rock and, you know, rock and roll is that. Was that kind of
(39:26):
the idea when you went into it? Like, what was like the concept going in,
like, we want to make an album that or a double album that does
this, like. Was there, like, an idea? Yeah. And. And
I think. I think it came. The sort of themes and. And
the. The. The emotions of the different albums
came before the actual sounds of them. Like, we sort of
(39:49):
knew that the tour was this, like, dark record about kind
of, I guess, the sort of hangover of the craziness of the
last few years that we've kind of all been riding high on
and a bit of Pandemic glue mixed in there. But a lot of it was
about kind of like getting to the end of our twenties and
feeling kind of a bit burnt out and,
(40:11):
like, spiritually hungover, I suppose.
And we had kind of figured out we
were like, well, we definitely kind of have some
kind of growing up to do a little bit and a bit of changes to
make. And, you know, some of us weren't that healthy.
And we were kind of like. We kind of need to sort our shit out,
(40:33):
really. So we kind of. That's kind of part of it. And we
kind of thought, well, there's no point in kind of like, writing a record about
the sort of the next
chapter where you've kind of fixed your problems if you haven't fixed your problems yet.
So we. We sort of decided to kind of, like, write this structure, I
guess, a little bit kind of like willing change into being in
(40:53):
terms of, like, we're gonna do the second part where we need to
sort our shit out, so we better go and sort our shit out so
we can make this album okay. But it was also kind
of, I suppose, about kind of emotional change
and a change in the mood of. Of kind of
the bigger picture outside of us, you know, I guess
(41:16):
politically, I knew that we were moving towards
a. End of the conservative government that we've had for the last
14 years. And I'm hoping that's going to bring about some positive change.
It's also kind of like, you know, if you. If you contextualize the tour
within the confines of the Pandemic, then we're certainly in a much better
place than we were in terms of that. Sure. Yeah.
(41:40):
But. Yeah, you know, and. And it's one of those things where it started
to kind of like, build itself. So we. When we wrote the tour, we kind
of like, decided what the sort of building blocks of Sundial was going to
be. You're going to have the intro that was going to be like the. The
reflection of the. The tour intro. So Detour A Dust Detour
Dawn. We were going to have kind of, like,
(42:00):
slightly melancholy but like, woozy finisher to the
record, we're going to have an interlude that I'd already made.
The Morning Star. I kind of made that at a similar time to Shell from
the Rain on the Torah. So it kind of.
Because it was also supposed to be like 12
hours of a night and then 12 hours of the day, it kind of had
(42:23):
to have almost like a clock face, like similar. Oh,
okay, I see what you're doing. Yeah, yeah. So,
yeah, because the tour is the night, and then when. Then
Sundiver will come into the day. The daylight of. Yeah,
the kind of. The concept. Yeah. So the Torah ends with like,
birdsong, like obviously the break of dawn. And
(42:45):
then the exact same sample starts. Sundiver.
Oh, rad. Okay. So it kind of just follows on into.
Into the next day. And it's supposed to be kind of about new beginnings and
new life and. And the idea that you can kind of always
change. It's never too late sort of thing.
And then, yeah, you know, it started to build itself. It. Lots of things happened
(43:09):
in our life. Like two of us became parents, which obviously had a. A
huge impact on everything and. And particularly the themes of the record. It
kind of suited it down to a T. And I just
feel like we all did so much growing up in the time that since we
began writing the first half of this album, this double
album to now, it seems like a lifetime ago, really, but
(43:31):
it's crazy to sort of look back and reflect on because we've kind of been
in it for so long. Like, we kind of have been making this album for
about four years, really, which is. Is wild. Yeah.
So do you finish the tour before you start writing the songs
and music and. Or lyrics or emotions or whatever behind
Sundiver? Okay. Yeah, We. We kind of didn't want to
(43:53):
preemptively like, write the record because it also
had to kind of be genuine and come from place. So we.
We sort of knew the. The kind of, like I say, the sort of,
I don't know, the. The rough storyboard of the record, if you will,
but we. We hadn't like actually written any music or lyrics
or anything from it. I think one song came from a Detour
(44:17):
demo, but if you were to compare it with the
finished article with the demo, you wouldn't even be able to tell it was the
same thing. It basically all was like
we'd left it until the Torah finished to start making
Sundive. And I'm glad that we did it that way really, because also, I think
I'd be so sick of this record, if I'd record.
(44:37):
They're all four years old. Was
there a song that you wrote or like a moment? Because I would imagine you.
You write hundreds of songs, probably not just the 11
that made the album. Was there a song that you wrote or a moment
that you can remember? You're like, oh, okay, this is. I
know we're on the path like this. This is going to be the start to,
(45:00):
you know, I, I like. You saw the change. You could see the work being
done as far as like getting to that other side the the of,
you know, into Sundiver. Was there a song that you wrote or
a moment that you. You all knew, like, this going for. This is.
Okay, we're. We're. Now it's time to start heading towards writing the second
album. Yeah, it's a song called Fornix,
(45:24):
which on the B side of the album. Okay.
Put that one out yet? No, no, it will come out with the record. But
if you look at the, like the lyrics of that song, it's like a pretty
good kind of like one sheet of the themes of the whole
album. Like, it kind of sums a lot really well. And a big part, a
big challenge on the album was kind of like getting this like, kind
(45:47):
of like big rock sound, this big guitar
sound to sound really bright and I guess vaguely positive
without it sounding like really sort of just like happy and just kind
of like. And kind of cheesy,
you know, sugary pop. We kind of still wanted it to have this
like, grit to it and to kind of sound like us because we tend to
(46:09):
be quite a sort of minor key, melancholy, like, dark
sounding band. So we kind of kind of strike this fine line. And
I think the first time that we really nailed it was when we. When we
wrote that song. So that was one of the first written for the record that
made the cut. Anyway. We probably wrote about 200 songs for this album. But
this, I think Fornix was. Was maybe the
(46:30):
first sort of like finished song that we did. Okay.
And yeah, from there, but it still wasn't like we've had albums where
it's like you take ages to get. Find the
right feel. And then when you write that song
for welcome to the Neighborhood, it was like Digital Ghost
(46:50):
and Bad Machine. And then after that it was like boom, boom, boom, boom, boom.
We got it. Yeah. Gates open. So. Yeah. Yeah,
totally for this. It was just like a real battle. And we were still kind
of writing right up until the Wire, really, and
sort of trying to, you know, we recorded a Couple extra songs,
like completely in the studio and then never put them on the album because they
(47:11):
were like, it doesn't. Doesn't fit the,
into the, into the sort of the jigsaw, really. We were,
I guess, trying to sort of still keep it quite a diverse record, but make
this a really hard part of it, make it still feel cohesive
so not so like it's kind of, you know,
(47:32):
a playlist and still more of like an album.
But, but yeah, we, I, I think we achieved that. I think it was a
hard going and I hope when people listen to it, it does feel
cohesive because that was a real sort of goal for us to have
a kind of broad sound that all still
sounds like the same record, you know,
(47:54):
like if you. Played it all the way through, it feel even through the first
album, it would feel like it all still kind of fits in a way.
Well, particularly, particularly Sundiver, because we did want it to
contrast the Torah. But I think, I think when you put them together, if you
listen to it from track one of the Torah to track 11 of Sundiver,
it does still. It feels like a real journey, you know. And we also were
(48:15):
like. We kind of would talk about it in. In the same senses of
like films, like how they have sort of like three act structures.
We kind of want that emotive
kind of ebb and flow and in
the album. So there was like a kind of, you know,
if it was like a cheesy movie, you'd have like the. The
(48:38):
protagonist is kind of down on his look at the end of Act 2 and
then there's like the big redemption and in the sort of middle of Act 3
and then the kind of closer. The resolve or whatever, you know.
So we kind of were keeping stuff like that in mind as well. I'd
say Sundev has that more than dottor, but they still do work together as like
a kind of narrative if you listen to it. Love
(48:59):
it. Well, I appreciate your time, Henry. Thank you so much, man, for doing
this. Thank you, mate. No, you as well. It's great. I have one
more question before I let you go on and if you have any advice for
aspiring artists. Yeah, I do.
I would say don't. Don't pay too much attention to the
Internet, quite honestly, and. And other.
(49:22):
What other artists are doing. Spend, spend.
Don't be in such a hurry to release stuff either. Spend more time kind of
like figuring out what you like and what you don't like and, and listening
to music and making music and you know, don't don't
feel that everything has to be a hit. Don't feel that everything
has to be immediate. And don't feel that you have to release stuff at the
(49:45):
pace that social media is kind of telling you what you do.
Bring it backwards,
bring it backwards. Bring it backwards.
Bring it backward. Bring it back,
(50:07):
bring it backward.
What is going on? It is Adam. Welcome back to Bringing It Backwards, a podcast
where both legendary and rising artists tell their own personal
stories of how they achieve stardom. On this episode, we
had a chance to hang out with Henry of the band
Boston Manor over Zoom video. Henry was
raised in Blackpool, England and talks about how he got
(00:21):
into music. Henry started singing at a very early age. He took
part in the Christmas shows and the Easter concerts
were held in his local town. He talked about starting to play drums
and actually getting into a art school for high
school. So he was in the jazz band, played drums and also
sang. Played drums with a bunch of bands early on,
(00:44):
eventually started to sing. When he met the guys in
Boston Manor, he talked about jamming with Mike and Dan, brothers
in the band for the first time when what that was like kind of the
connection and chemistry they had. Henry then invited
Ash and Jordan who he'd known from previous bands,
and that's how they started Boston Manor. They talked about the success they
(01:06):
had fairly early on, a lot of roughing it with some of
those early tours, what it was like getting signed to Pure Noise Records
touring the United States for the first time. And Henry talks a lot
about the new album as well. You can watch the interview
with Henry and myself on our Facebook page and YouTube channel
at bringing it backwards, it'd be amazing. If you subscribe to our channel,
(01:29):
like us on Facebook, follow us on Instagram, Twitter and TikTok
at Bringing back pod. And if you're listening to this on Spotify,
Apple Music, Google podcasts would be incredible. If you follow us there as well
and hook us up with a five. Star review, we'd appreciate
your support. If you follow and subscribe to our podcast, we're wherever you
listen to podcasts. We'Re Bringing It Backwards with Boston
(01:51):
Manor.
Bringing it backwards.
Bringing it backwards. Bringing it backwards.
Bringing it backwards. Bringing it backwards.
Bring it backwards.
(02:14):
Awesome. Well, I'm Adam, man. Nice to meet you. Nice to meet you, bro.
And this is a podcast about you and your journey in music and
obviously we'll talk about the new album you guys have coming out.
Sounds great. Sweet. So I always kind of start
off with your, kind of your origin story. Where were you born
(02:35):
and raised? I was born in a place called
Burton, which is just in the middle of the country. But I,
I didn't, I moved to the Blackpool area,
which is where we're from, when I was like a couple years old. So
I grew up there. It's town by the sea. I
grew up in a place called St. Anne's which is like a kind of nice
(02:57):
sub. Nice ish suburb of the town.
Yeah. So I went to school there. Like half my family's from there
and stuff. So. Yeah, it was a pretty, pretty nice
place to. Nice ish place to grow up, you know. Pretty. Pretty
quiet. Nothing. Nothing super crazy. Love it. Love it.
What about as far as a creative household? You come from like a musical family
(03:20):
or anything like that? No, no, not at all.
Like, and that self, you know, self confessed. I
don't mean to. To shit on my parents or anything, but the right.
I say not creative. That's not true. My mom is creative,
I suppose. Not musical. My mom is great. She. She was.
(03:41):
When I was like 10, she like quit her job and
she did like, it sounds really random but like face painting
full time. So it was. Did like kids. Oh cool. Yeah, like kids birthday parties
and stuff. Oh right on. Yeah, yeah, like events and. And stuff. She
still does it now among other things, but
I guess she has like a creative streak in that side of things. But there
(04:04):
wasn't like, you know, the parent playing
guitar in the household or, or anything
like that, you know. Sure. Well then how did you get into music? Were
you like drawn to it as a teenager or.
I was trying to think about this the other day, you know, because I'm. I
have a sister, but I'm the eldest, so I didn't really have that kind of,
(04:26):
you know, record collection bestowed upon me by an elder sibling which
some, some of my bandmates, well, one or two, my bandmates
are brothers and one bestowed music to the other. But they all have
elder siblings that kind of gave them at least a. Record,
some idea of what was cool at the time or whatever.
Exactly. Yeah. But I think so.
(04:50):
So when I was like a little, little kid
I. I really loved like basketball, which was like
really hard to come by in the UK at that time.
Like you couldn't watch the NBA or anywhere. You couldn't even buy like
basketball jerseys anywhere. So I like, I think I, I loved it
(05:11):
from Space Jam. I think I saw Space Jam as a little
kid and was like, this is sick.
And I got like my dad for like my
birthday. You could get like a really, really shitty.
It wasn't even like an ESPN subscription in the uk. It was like a
(05:32):
sort of like portal that you would pay like five bucks a month and you
would get like highlight reels and stuff because it was like early
Internet, like dial up Internet so you couldn't really like watch
long videos or anything. Sure. But I would
email you a clip or something like that. I guess it was just like their
website and be like here's you know, this week's wrap up and you just see
(05:53):
loads of like, you know, almost like kind of like watching like a sports show
where they show you loads of news clips and stuff. And his. Here's the results
of this game and here's some like highlights from it. But there always be like
really cool like kind of very early
2000s, like hip hop over these, over these
clips. And it was stuff that wasn't really coming over the.
(06:15):
Onto the radio and I guess I just would have had the radio
and I remember kind of being like this is really cool and trying to kind
of find out what. Sometimes it would tell you what the song was in the
bottom corner and it was like. I don't think it would have been anything like
crazy undergr. But it was just stuff that, that I'd never really
heard of before. So I started getting into like hip
(06:35):
hop through that and I really loved all that
stuff. Do you remember like a specific artist or anything
like like what was it like? Naughty by nature? I don't know. I'm just trying
to think of something that might have been like those highlight reels. Yeah, it
was. There was a little bit of like, like
RZA and. And oh stuff which was cool.
(06:58):
But then there was a lot of. Because it was like the early 2000s there.
Like timberland and stuff like sure, it's like
before he was like even big as a producer. Like just his rap stuff and
a lot of like west coast stuff. But I guess like Red man and
stuff. Nothing. I know he's not west coast, but. Nothing, nothing.
Nothing that I would say I still listen to now. I'm trying to. I'm trying
(07:19):
to think like it was probably even stuff like friggin
Soldier Boy and stuff. I don't know. Yeah, okay. I'm thinking early. I was going
even earlier. I was going like 90s. But yeah, like early 2000s. Maybe
some of that like, you know what I mean?
Absolutely. Back that ass up.
(07:41):
Probably Joe Bodden and stuff. But I, I didn't
have any kind of. No one
told me about music. So I was just kind of like it
was anything that I heard I would just kind of soak it up really.
So I just kind of listened to everything. And I remember
(08:01):
in year six in school so element. That's like the last year of
elementary school. Yeah, you'd be like 10, I suppose or 11.
In the UK there was a kid in My year,
my class. Shout out Mike Simmons. He's listening. He's
definitely not. He was like the
(08:21):
cooler kid in class because he was like real tall, like good at sports and
stuff. But he was a nice guy and he had a lot of older brothers.
I remember he told me he was like you got to check out this band.
My brother showed me, they're called Linkin Park. And he,
he gave me, I can't if he gave it me or I think I actually
went out and like bought it or something but because I didn't know how to
like like Limewire wasn't a thing then. And it was kind of pre
(08:45):
like Napster maybe. Yeah, maybe Napster was about. I fucking
wouldn't know what that was. I was like 10. But, but iTunes
wasn't really popping yet. I don't think maybe it was but we're talking like
2003 or 2002. So I, I don't know.
But he, yeah, I think like I, that probably came around a couple years after.
I'm a little bit older. I remember when I like itunes and just trying to
(09:09):
figure out how to get something onto an I I pod at
the time was like so mind blowing. I'm like wait, I have to load all
my music onto here. And then I could, yeah, they made it.
But I, I he was like you got to check this record out. Like this
band out and Hybrid Theory just come out. So I went out and and like
bought it with like my, my pocket money from you know, I
(09:31):
get a weekly allowance from like I don't know. Hoovering
doors or whatever. Yeah. Doing household chores and stuff. So I went out and I
probably saved like a month for that thing. But I went out and bought Hybrid
Theory and because so
it blew my head off because obviously it's an
amazing record that still really, I think really holds up today. I love it. I
(09:52):
but obviously you have kind of like the rapping bits in it. So I
guess to my ear then I was like, oh, there's like this is
familiar to me. But then this is like screaming and
really heavy like guitar and drums and stuff and I
just loved it. And I guess the early 2000s as well was we were, we
were messing around with like mixing metal and like hip hop
(10:15):
all over the place. Weren't we like on both sides at the aisle?
So there was a lot of cross pollination there. But I think
that was my first kind of thing where I'd kind of gone out of my
own way to like find a thing and found it was like,
whoa, this is melting my mind. And from
there, were you, like, you know, with Lincoln park, did that open up
(10:36):
the doors to a lot of those other artists that are kind of fall within
that same genre at the time? I guess.
Were you listening to other, like, rock bands that you kind of
found through Linkin park at that time, or. Yes. Like, it just kind of
whatever I could get my hands on. Like, I. I was a bit sort of
young for, like, new metal to have been around at
(10:57):
the first wave, you know, Like, I guess I heard Linkin park,
but. But kind of the new metal thing, I feel like the wave, it. Or
the wave had already crested at that point when I sort of got into my
teens. But anything that I was kind of, kind of
hearing and, you know, I would start, like, sort of reading the mute, flicking through
the music magazines in the news agents,
(11:19):
trying to find bands that way. And if, you know, if I saw, like, Linkin
park, if they were wearing, like, a band T shirt, you know, like
a Deftones T shirt, like a far T shirt, and I'd be like,
I gotta check that out. But it was kind of. I guess as soon as,
like, YouTube and LimeWire and stuff came in that I was just like,
I need to know about all the music. Like, every single
(11:41):
little thing. And I think at that point, yeah, it was. We. We have in
the UK or had, like, music TV
stations, but they were only available on, like, sky tv, which was like, our kind
of cable. Okay. And I. My. We couldn't afford cable,
but my. My nan had it and over to her
house, so she's always been like, oh, it's so nice to see you, like,
(12:03):
visit little old me. And I'd be like, yeah, good to see you. Now I'm
just gonna go, like, what. I'm gonna go
exactly. But, yeah, it'd be like
that and score. So it'd be also. And at that point, you know, it'd be
like the Foo Fighters. And then it'd be like System of Down and
then, you know, kind of all over the shop, really. So I'd just be
(12:24):
watching anything and everything and sucking it all up. I don't remember
the being kind of. I. I don't think I really had the
foresight at that age to kind of distinguish,
I guess, like, genres or like, sub genres between bands. It was
just like. Yeah, it was. You know, this is
heavier, right? I like this. And then what. How do you then
(12:47):
decide? Or do you, like, get a guitar or, like, what. Like,
what kind of puts you towards wanting to make
music. I guess it never really. So
I was then I guess going into high school and
I got a music scholarship to go to like a.
Like a kind of. I guess you call it like a grammar school
(13:13):
in the town where I live. So it was like a free ride to like
a sort of a good school, I guess a high school
because. Was that through like. Yeah, I guess. How did you get the scholarship? Was
it for singing or like, how did like. And then how do you. Yeah,
it was for singing. I had singing lessons as
(13:34):
a little kid and did some like kind of
musicals and the church choir and all
sorts of like super, super kind of
suburban activities, I
guess. I don't know. I just kind of.
(13:54):
Your parents put you in that. I mean, you obviously. Yeah, yeah,
a great singer. That's what you do. But you know what I mean? Like, was
that something that your. Your mom or dad heard you early on
were like, wow, you know, Henry can. He can sing. Let's throw him
in this. Or. I, I wanted to do
like. There was like a yearly like Christmas musical thing
(14:16):
that in the town. And I just did that
as a little kid, like 8 years old, you know, some other kids that I
knew in my street would do it and it was just something to keep us
occupied, I guess on like Saturday mornings for
however, you know what I mean? So I did that and then
I would, I guess sometimes get like singing parts in. In that.
(14:38):
And the primary school I went to was. Was like a Church of England primary
school. A lot of them are. I didn't grow up in a particularly religious
household, but it's just kind of like, you go to these
schools and they're normally partner with a church and you'll do like whenever there's like
Easter or Christmas, there'll be like, you know, like a pageant. I
should do a little. Little concert, whatever. Yeah, quiet. So I'd
(15:00):
done some of that stuff and I think it must have been somebody at my.
Because there was like two schools in my town and. And they're both good schools,
but one of them, I guess this one was like, oh, they have a music
program at the school and you could go to it
and apply for it, I guess. And they'll
take an X amount of like singers or whatever you do. There was a big
like music program. So there's a lot of people in my year that were playing
(15:22):
like violin and. And like the. And the piano and stuff.
And I. I couldn't play any instruments, but I could just sing. So I went
that. And then from That I kind of had to do all
the music stuff in the school. Sure. Playing the drums as well.
So I would play drums in like the jazz band,
like a school musical concert thing or whatever. I would be
(15:46):
the drummer that played in the band that did the music for it or whatever.
And then I met just loads of friends who were like. I met basically
the only other kids in the school who were like, well, I play guitar and
I like, rancid. Okay, be in a band. Start
a band. Right? Yeah, exactly. And so there's probably like five
kids and we would just sort of scrape together some covers. And
(16:09):
we never really did, like, did a lot, but,
you know, there was a bunch of like, iterations of the high school jam
band thing. I feel like everybody has that at some point, right? Like.
Yeah. Were you drumming for that or were you singing in those?
Yeah, all drumming. I never. I never sang. Oh, wow. In
like a. Any band. Why? Sang in. So
(16:31):
I never sang in any of these high school bands, basically. I was always a
drummer. And then all my. All my, like, close friends really
didn't go to that school. They went to the other school.
So I would kind of, like school would let out and I would go hang
out with those guys. And loads of them were all
musicians and played like, all different kind. They were all into, like, music like
(16:52):
me, and they all played guitar and stuff. So we started a band that was
kind of like my first band that, like, played a gig, so to speak. Sure.
And they already had a drummer and he was better than me, but
they needed a singer and it was
like a kind of. I don't know what this band was. I.
I don't think it was metalcore, but I don't think it was like post
(17:15):
hardcore and I don't think it was like indie. It couldn't decide what
it was. And it was kind of all three of those things. And it
was 2000. It was like 2009.
So this was like right here where there was a lot of two vocalist
bands. Oh, yeah. That was a big thing. Sure. Huge. Right,
so. So I was the clean singer and. Then my friend was the
(17:37):
screamer. Was the screamer. Exactly. Yeah. So we did
that. And it was a lot of fun, actually. And I learned a lot about
just kind of like songwriting and being in a band and stuff. And played
the first ever gig, like, in front of people that was that. Like,
honestly, it was in a pub and there were
about five people watching us and two of them were these old guys at
(18:00):
the bar who were just heckling us the whole time. And it was in,
it was in like the middle of the day. Yeah, it was very good,
very good gig. Yeah. Oh, wow. But we, you know,
we would like, book our own shows and put on shows and we would kind
of travel all around the Northwest. You know, we played a show in Manchester, which
is like, it's where I live now, but it's like the kind of nearest big
(18:21):
city. You know, we, we kind
of did our best and had a lot of fun doing it
and, but I'd never really sort of thought about
anything other than it being for fun, really. And then I knew
a lot of these, the people in Blackpool who were in bands from these, this
(18:42):
band kind of putting on gigs and,
and, you know, playing shows together and stuff and, and all that.
So I, I went off to college, to university,
to, to art school
with little intention of coming back, to be honest. And
then did you go for it. To pursue music or did you
(19:04):
go for something? Totally. Yeah, no, no, I, I basically went to do film,
so. Oh, interesting. Yeah, I kind of transitioned from
that. I did the band thing, but I started shooting music videos for
all the bands in the area. So I met a lot more people through
that, to be honest. Okay. I would just. Are you still
doing that now with your videos and everything? Are you a big part in that?
(19:27):
I, no, I mean, I, I actually saying that I did just do our most
recent video, but that's more of like a kind of graphical
thing. I don't really pick up a camera, so to speak, but I,
I, I'm normally quite closely involved with music video
stuff for Boston Mania, but I,
I, I did that a lot. I really enjoyed it.
(19:49):
And I met Ash and George who are in Boston Manor because I shot
their, their video. Oh, wow. Okay.
Yeah, that's why we, and then do you guys just decide at one point, like,
are all your bands kind of like at a certain level and it just
won't go past or their members that are like, like, did you get
to a point where you like, you were like, I really want to take this
(20:10):
seriously. And maybe those guys were in a band, they wanted to take it seriously
because I know, like, at that age of like, where you're not
there yet, right, and you maybe been doing it for a while.
Members are like, yeah, I'm just gonna, I want to like, get a job and
have a life or like, I, you know, I don't want to. This is, it's
so difficult, right, to like, get to some success with
(20:32):
this. Was it a Point where
that's how you guys all got together to then form Boston Man. Or, like, how
did. How did that happen? In a roundabout way, yeah, because. Because
all these bands kind of broke up when everyone kind of went off to, like,
you say, either go to college or get a job
or whatever. I guess we were all around the same age, give or take a
(20:54):
couple years. So, you know, they all kind of ended at a similar time.
And I got a call from friend
who was saying that these two brothers, and I knew of them, I didn't know
them very well, but they were starting a new band
and they needed a singer. Let's just go, like, chat to him. And I
(21:14):
immediately hit it off of them and was like, oh, I have, like, a real
immediate sort of, like, chemistry with these two. And we started immediately,
like, writing music. And immediately from that, those demos, I was like, oh, this is
like something different altogether. Like, this. This feels. It could be like a. Like
an actual sort of band, really. And I hadn't really ever
considered. I don't think I would have known how to be, like,
(21:37):
in, like, a professional quote, unquote
band back then. It. I. I felt like another
world, really. But I just immediately had this kind of, like, energy.
And I knew that these songs that we were writing were okay, like, quite
good, at least by my kind of standard at the time.
(21:57):
So I got the other two in Ash. And
so at that time, it was just you, Mike and Dan.
Yeah. Yeah. We wrote a demo, which was like five songs
with no drums. Or were you drumming on it or just MIDI drums?
Okay. On the demo. And then we were like. We
immediately wanted to, like, start playing shows and
(22:21):
kind of getting out of the Northwest because. Because where we're from is a bit
of a sort of. It's not remote
at all, really, but it's. There's not a lot going on here in terms of,
like. Not a lot of touring acts come through the county that we're from, Lancashire.
Not a lot of touring acts really come through. So the nearest kind
of major place to play would be at the time here, really.
(22:42):
So we immediately want to start playing shows. And I knew Ash and
George, and I was like, I know a good drummer and a
guitarist. So got immediately kind of started
practicing with those guys and. And it just clicked really, really naturally, really
instantly. And we started playing as many
shows as we could. We bought, like, an old
(23:04):
postal band and turned it into, like, a band, man. Oh,
rad. Going down to. I think our third ever show was in London, which, at
the Time, you know, I think a couple of members had never even been to
London. You know, at the time it felt like such a sort of far off
place. Well, it's like a big. It's like probably it's the biggest city, right? I
mean like, that's like going. If you're like in the States, you're like, I'm going
to New York or LA to play, right? Yeah, yeah. And it's like six hours
(23:27):
away, which in the UK is like a long, quite a long. That's a long
drive, right? Yeah, totally. So it's a big deal for us
and we started kind of just booking shows ourselves and making friends
on Facebook and, and trying to book tours. And we did, we did our
first ever tour. We did a split with a friend's like
hardcore band and then we started
(23:49):
kind of like writing, I guess, more, more kind of
complete sounding songs. I mean, the music sounds very different from the music that we
make now, but it resembled like more of a kind of
developed band, I would say, than the kind of previous
bands that we'd been in. So we did that for
(24:09):
like a couple years and we got to Europe on like a DIY tour where
our van broke down halfway through. We were stranded
in France for like a week and then we had to like, oh
man, kind of hitchhike home. Honestly, it was, it was pretty
fucked. But we had loads of fun adventures like that, man.
Like tons of them. We ended up in all sorts of crazy places. We ended
(24:31):
up. Our van would break down all the time. We played a show in like
rural Wales and then had to like.
It ran out. In fact, it didn't even break down. This is how stupid it
is. It ran out of fuel. I was gonna ask,
did you run out of. Exactly. And it's like super hilly, so we had
to push the van for like four miles until
(24:51):
we like right on the edge of this town to go and like fill up.
And it was like up hills and so this van was tiny, so five of
us could do it. But yeah. Oh my God.
And then, yeah, we, we. We
got signed to. Yeah, you signed a Pure Noise, right, Like
after you had released like an EP and that split you were
(25:13):
talking about. And. Yeah. How does Pure Noise do they find you
just because they. You've been touring and you're like a hard working band or
like, how did you kind of build that relationship to start that and how did
that kind of change the trajectory of the band or
like that? Because, you know, you, you think getting signed is like, oh,
We've got it, you know. Right. That's like the dream. So then that
(25:35):
happens and you get signed to a legit label. Well, it
was a real bucket list label for us as well, which is
amazing. You know, we kind of said, well, here we picked up a
manager who he. He
worked with us for a while. He's a nice guy. And he.
He kind of like fished around and we got a couple of offers. We got
(25:57):
one in from Hopeless Records. Wow, that's still another big one.
It was a. Is a terrible offer. It was like. It was almost
360 deal. Even our lawyer was like, we got a lawyer.
He was like, I really would recommend you don't sign this record deal. It's. It's
really bad. And we were like, booze? Yeah, but it's Hopeless
record. Look at these bands. Exactly. Yeah. And
(26:19):
a bunch of bands were blown upon at the time. And
then we got into like, what you call, like the long form. Yeah, like
the short form, which is. Sorry, no, we got to the short form. Wait, which
comes first? Yeah, the long forms are like the final sort of like, okay,
sign on the dotted line kind of thing. And then like
just before we were about to sign it, Pure Noise just kind of popped in
(26:42):
our inbox and we're like, do you want to have like a. Like a Skype
presume? Yeah, we'd love
to. And then we. We met Jake from Pure Noise,
who's still a good friend of ours today to this day. And he's a
Nashville guy, I think, right? What, Sorry, does he live in Nashville?
I mean, I live in Nashville now. Yeah. I don't know if Jake is
(27:05):
Pure Noise relocated to Nashville. I'm not sure if Jake's still in. In
the Bay Area or if he is international. I'm not sure.
I think he's. He's back and forth a little bit. But yeah, we,
we. We spoke to him and we just really
liked him straight away. And he was awesome and really kind
of got what we were trying to do. And,
(27:28):
and yeah, we. We signed with him like the next week. And. And it was
amazing. And. And there was a real sort of immediate
kind of kickstart to what we were doing. And. And they got us out to
the US which at that time, I mean, it's hard enough now. Like, we're
finding it difficult to get to us at the moment, like, because. Of things like
money and visas and all that. Yeah, I mean,
(27:51):
costs have gone insane after Covid, but at that time, you know,
UK bands just didn't get out there. It just didn't. It just wasn't really a
thing. You get all these huge UK Bands that were
doing so well domestically that just never really had a chance to
tour over there. I don't think we. We'd ever expected to be able to
do that. That was kind of immediately. Our expectation.
(28:12):
Expectations have been exceeded when that. When that happened. In fact, it was a bit
of a false start. First, the first U. S. Tour going to do. Our visas
didn't get approved in time, and we were. It got down to the wire and
we were, like, packed for the tour, gonna fly, like, the next
day. And we were like, it's gonna come in today. And then we got this
call from our manager, and they were like, it's not happening. So we had to.
(28:32):
We had to drop off the first tour that we were meant to do, which
was. Oh, man. Yeah. Who was that? Was that the. Was that.
I think I saw something about that. Was that the Can't Swim tour? It was
the Pure Noise Records tour. So I'm trying to remember now, but I think it
was like, Can't Swim were on it, I think. And then it would have
been something like, I don't know, like four years. Strong
(28:54):
and, okay, hit the leg. Maybe state champs or something
like, oh, yeah, yeah, okay. Punk tour. But I. I can't remember who else
was on at the time, but, yeah, we were super
bummed about that. But it came through, like, later. Like,
I think either later on that year or. Or early the following year.
And then from there, we. We. We did like
(29:17):
three US Tours a year. We start. People in the UK and Europe start
complaining, saying we were like a US Band now. Like, we would be there all
the time. Well, and your band's name is Boston Manor, so, I
mean, people probably assumed right away, oh, boss. And, you know,
yeah, we do all right Massachusetts. Band.
We do all right our New England.
(29:38):
That's funny. Yeah. So you put that record out. I mean, you guys
did Warped Tour, what, a couple of years later, a year later? I mean, you
start seeing things started happening, right. Once that. Once you
made the US Trip and. And everything else, it really snowballed.
And we were like, you know, we were super young and we were on tour
all the time. We talk for, like 10 months of the year. And when we
(29:59):
weren't touring, we were like, in the studio making records and stuff. So it was
kind of nonstop from, I would say, sort of
2016 until the pandemic hit, really,
like, kind of completely relentlessly. And it was it was amazing. You
know, we. We did like, like you say Warped Tour was like, such an incredible
experience. Like, I'm so grateful to have done that. It was unreal.
(30:23):
We did like, Japan, Australia,
you know, we made like a couple albums in the States, which was really, really
sick. And. And then, yeah, it kind of
just all ground to a halt really quickly when the pandemic hit, which was.
I mean, I'm. I'm jumping ahead here, but it's. It's. No, it does feel like
a bit of a whirlwind that kind of three or four years because it was
(30:45):
just so non. Nonstop, you know? Yeah. Because you guys did.
I mean, you put out three albums with Pure
Noise and. And it sounds like it was in that kind of time, right where
it was. Stuff was going and it was like, okay, now you put out welcome
to the Neighborhood and that does really well and
you get nominated for awards and. And all
(31:06):
these things start happening. Like, at what point were you guys working, like, day jobs
prior to signing with Pure Noise? And, like, did they. Do you remember going
in and like, quitting your job or not having to do that anymore?
Yeah, yeah. I mean, I like. So I
kind of had like an actual job for a little bit, and it's the only
proper job that I've ever had, so I would just like,
(31:28):
work in bars and shit. But I had like a job
in this weird. Like, it was like a. It was really weird. It was like
a local. Imagine like a local Yelp, but like just
okay area. It was really strange. It was kind of like a
restaurant guide. I don't know. It was really weird. But I. I did all the.
Like, I just did. It's like an admin job. But I did that for
(31:49):
like a few months as soon as I finished university.
And then, yeah, I kept having to just like, phone in
sick. But I wasn't sick. I was playing
shows. And then it got to the point where it was just like, I was.
The lies were getting too elaborate. And, yeah, they kind of
knew something was up and I just kind of had to like, be like, I
(32:11):
have to quit. And by the way, I'm in this band and we got signed
and that's why I'm quitting. So from that. Yeah, pretty much
immediately. Like, we. We lived dirt cheap because we were
always on the road. So we. We recorded that debut album in the
uk. We lived in the studio for like a month and made it. No, it
was only like two weeks, actually. We made it super fast. And then we went
(32:31):
on the Road. And then I feel like we. We would only come home for
like a couple weeks at a time, stay at our parents place or wherever
and then just on to the next tour. It was
kind of like carnies. It was crazy.
Yeah. I mean, I can't imagine. I would imagine that you would be. Yeah. Touring
so often that it's like, what's the point of even having a place
(32:53):
to pay for that's just going to sit here, right, you know? Yeah, yeah, totally
long. It was just a place to kind of like, you know,
leave our bags and like,
you know, sometimes how we would even stay in this. There's times when there was
no point even going back. We like stay in the States for a couple weeks.
You know, we had a visa, so we would just stay there with a friend
(33:13):
and then start the next tour kind of thing. Yeah. You said you
did a. Did you do welcome to the neighborhood and glue in this in the
United States or no? Yeah, yeah, we did. It was awesome. We did
it with Mike Sapone. He's a really good friend still. He's an amazing
producer. We did it in Lake or
Patcong in New Jersey. It's kind of weird, like. Okay, kind of
(33:35):
isolated, like lake town. It was cool, really
cool. But like it was super isolated. So it was like.
There was like a diner and a gas station
and like a sort of bodega type thing
in the town and that was like it. Oh, there was like a bar as
well. That was literally like all there was in the town. So. And it was
(33:56):
just kind of like you'd get to the, the town limits and it'd just be
like the woods forever. So, you know, cool. But
it was, it was like a little creepy in the winter. You know, we were
snowed in a few times and we obviously didn't have that or anything, so we
couldn't. We just had to go over on foot. So we were there for like
I think six weeks making welcome to the neighborhood. So it's a long time to.
(34:16):
To be on one street
essentially. Right. Yeah. And in such a small
town with no like real way to get around other than walking.
Yeah, yeah. Honestly, I'm surprised when. Drink more, to be quite honest. Like
there was nothing to do, but it was, it was super fun making the album,
you know, and it was so such a, such a trip for us being like
(34:39):
in America, making an album in like a big studio, you know, the,
the. The album in our first record and it was like, you know, it was
a nice enough studio, but it was like, small, like a little bit diy,
you know, it was kind of just in, like, an old bar, and
we stay in, like, a bunk house next to it that had, like, rats in
it and shit. It wasn't. It wasn't glamorous. And then this
(35:00):
album was in this kind of gorgeous, you
know, neve console suite thing. Leveled up a
bit with that next one. Yeah, totally, totally. And it was. You know,
we were like, wow. We in America making an album, you know,
so it was. It was so much fun. And Same with
Glue, you know, we did in the same place. It was. It was. It was
(35:22):
sick. Got to kind of just try a lot of stuff and
experiment. And I think we changed as a band quite a lot
in a short space of time because of that. Oh, just
recording in that place. Yeah. And just also all the
places that we'd been in, the people that we met. Oh, sure, sure, sure. It
was like we were kind of living life on fast forward for.
(35:44):
Right. So I feel like we change. So. So it must have
been weird for. And I've talked to friends about this, you know, from home who.
Who knew me as a teenager, and I'm still friends with, you know, kind of.
They wouldn't see me for, like, six months, and then they'd see me again, and
I. I would not change. But, you know, have experienced so
much and. Yeah, you grew faster in a way, because you had,
(36:07):
like, way more life experience. I mean, you had been around the world. Yeah, I
guess. You know, things like our tastes and things, and even kind of the
way we would talk, you know, we'd spend some people, be like, you sound like,
I'm an American. And it'd be like, friends are American. I spend all my time.
Yeah, I just spent so much time there. Yeah, right. Yeah,
exactly. With glue. I mean, you put that out in 2020.
(36:27):
Was that you. You talked about how the pandemic then obviously
stopped everything in a way. You put that album out
in May. That's, like, right after the Pandemic had already kind of been
going for a minute. So was that album all done,
and then were you gonna release it earlier, or
was that always the plan? Like, how did that. That affect that album?
(36:50):
Yeah, it totally kind of, like, messed
up the whole thing, really. I mean, we. We'd already recorded it,
and that was a cool process in and of itself. We. We split it up
and did half of it in Texas and half of it in that other studio.
Oh, wow. It was super cool.
But it was. It came out when it was always meant to come out. But
(37:12):
I guess we kind of sort of started the rollout, so to speak, before the
Pandemic, and then by the time it came out, it like kicked
in. So we were like, oh, well, this is what it is now. Right?
And yeah, you know, it kind of just got a bit sort of.
I mean, we never did a tour on it. We. We did that. Like,
we kind of did a tour on it, but it was like. It was that
(37:33):
one. I don't know if you can see that tour there, but it was kind
of, you know, two years after the record came out, once Covid was
over. So it wasn't really a Glue tour.
Because at that point, did you already have the, you know, part one of what
you're going to release a second album here next month?
Was that already in the works or. Yeah,
(37:55):
we, we. So we, we. I think when that tours came
out, when that tour happened, we just released
the EP after the Pandemic. Okay.
Or we were about to. We've been dropping singles off of it and
then. And so from the Pandemic, we'd started writing it. We wrote a lot of
the tour in the Pandemic, so we'd kind of already started. So that's the
(38:18):
thing with Glue, we'd kind of already started moving on to the next thing.
Did you know Detour? It was going to be a part of a two part
thing going into it. Yeah. Okay. Was it always.
That's always been the idea. It's gonna be a double album. Yeah. We kind
of wanted to do this like double album, but
because each part was going to be so contrasting, we kind of were like,
(38:42):
well, let's split it up into two kind of records, really. And they were meant
to be like shorter. Like the tour was the.
Well, Sundive was meant to be short. They're both meant to be like six, seven
songs, almost like two EPs really. But then Sundial kind of became this
like, I guess, full length, like bigger record just
because it kind of did. I don't know, it just kind of happens that
(39:04):
way. Did you write all those songs together? Like the touro was
that. Because just based off what I was reading and you know,
this. Sonically, this was pretty like electronic has like
a heavy production value to
it. And the songs that you've put out thus far
are pretty rock and, you know, rock and roll is that. Was that kind of
(39:26):
the idea when you went into it? Like, what was like the concept going in,
like, we want to make an album that or a double album that does
this, like. Was there, like, an idea? Yeah. And. And
I think. I think it came. The sort of themes and. And
the. The. The emotions of the different albums
came before the actual sounds of them. Like, we sort of
(39:49):
knew that the tour was this, like, dark record about kind
of, I guess, the sort of hangover of the craziness of the
last few years that we've kind of all been riding high on
and a bit of Pandemic glue mixed in there. But a lot of it was
about kind of like getting to the end of our twenties and
feeling kind of a bit burnt out and,
(40:11):
like, spiritually hungover, I suppose.
And we had kind of figured out we
were like, well, we definitely kind of have some
kind of growing up to do a little bit and a bit of changes to
make. And, you know, some of us weren't that healthy.
And we were kind of like. We kind of need to sort our shit out,
(40:33):
really. So we kind of. That's kind of part of it. And we
kind of thought, well, there's no point in kind of like, writing a record about
the sort of the next
chapter where you've kind of fixed your problems if you haven't fixed your problems yet.
So we. We sort of decided to kind of, like, write this structure, I
guess, a little bit kind of like willing change into being in
(40:53):
terms of, like, we're gonna do the second part where we need to
sort our shit out, so we better go and sort our shit out so
we can make this album okay. But it was also kind
of, I suppose, about kind of emotional change
and a change in the mood of. Of kind of
the bigger picture outside of us, you know, I guess
(41:16):
politically, I knew that we were moving towards
a. End of the conservative government that we've had for the last
14 years. And I'm hoping that's going to bring about some positive change.
It's also kind of like, you know, if you. If you contextualize the tour
within the confines of the Pandemic, then we're certainly in a much better
place than we were in terms of that. Sure. Yeah.
(41:40):
But. Yeah, you know, and. And it's one of those things where it started
to kind of like, build itself. So we. When we wrote the tour, we kind
of like, decided what the sort of building blocks of Sundial was going to
be. You're going to have the intro that was going to be like the. The
reflection of the. The tour intro. So Detour A Dust Detour
Dawn. We were going to have kind of, like,
(42:00):
slightly melancholy but like, woozy finisher to the
record, we're going to have an interlude that I'd already made.
The Morning Star. I kind of made that at a similar time to Shell from
the Rain on the Torah. So it kind of.
Because it was also supposed to be like 12
hours of a night and then 12 hours of the day, it kind of had
(42:23):
to have almost like a clock face, like similar. Oh,
okay, I see what you're doing. Yeah, yeah. So,
yeah, because the tour is the night, and then when. Then
Sundiver will come into the day. The daylight of. Yeah,
the kind of. The concept. Yeah. So the Torah ends with like,
birdsong, like obviously the break of dawn. And
(42:45):
then the exact same sample starts. Sundiver.
Oh, rad. Okay. So it kind of just follows on into.
Into the next day. And it's supposed to be kind of about new beginnings and
new life and. And the idea that you can kind of always
change. It's never too late sort of thing.
And then, yeah, you know, it started to build itself. It. Lots of things happened
(43:09):
in our life. Like two of us became parents, which obviously had a. A
huge impact on everything and. And particularly the themes of the record. It
kind of suited it down to a T. And I just
feel like we all did so much growing up in the time that since we
began writing the first half of this album, this double
album to now, it seems like a lifetime ago, really, but
(43:31):
it's crazy to sort of look back and reflect on because we've kind of been
in it for so long. Like, we kind of have been making this album for
about four years, really, which is. Is wild. Yeah.
So do you finish the tour before you start writing the songs
and music and. Or lyrics or emotions or whatever behind
Sundiver? Okay. Yeah, We. We kind of didn't want to
(43:53):
preemptively like, write the record because it also
had to kind of be genuine and come from place. So we.
We sort of knew the. The kind of, like I say, the sort of,
I don't know, the. The rough storyboard of the record, if you will,
but we. We hadn't like actually written any music or lyrics
or anything from it. I think one song came from a Detour
(44:17):
demo, but if you were to compare it with the
finished article with the demo, you wouldn't even be able to tell it was the
same thing. It basically all was like
we'd left it until the Torah finished to start making
Sundive. And I'm glad that we did it that way really, because also, I think
I'd be so sick of this record, if I'd record.
(44:37):
They're all four years old. Was
there a song that you wrote or like a moment? Because I would imagine you.
You write hundreds of songs, probably not just the 11
that made the album. Was there a song that you wrote or a moment
that you can remember? You're like, oh, okay, this is. I
know we're on the path like this. This is going to be the start to,
(45:00):
you know, I, I like. You saw the change. You could see the work being
done as far as like getting to that other side the the of,
you know, into Sundiver. Was there a song that you wrote or
a moment that you. You all knew, like, this going for. This is.
Okay, we're. We're. Now it's time to start heading towards writing the second
album. Yeah, it's a song called Fornix,
(45:24):
which on the B side of the album. Okay.
Put that one out yet? No, no, it will come out with the record. But
if you look at the, like the lyrics of that song, it's like a pretty
good kind of like one sheet of the themes of the whole
album. Like, it kind of sums a lot really well. And a big part, a
big challenge on the album was kind of like getting this like, kind
(45:47):
of like big rock sound, this big guitar
sound to sound really bright and I guess vaguely positive
without it sounding like really sort of just like happy and just kind
of like. And kind of cheesy,
you know, sugary pop. We kind of still wanted it to have this
like, grit to it and to kind of sound like us because we tend to
(46:09):
be quite a sort of minor key, melancholy, like, dark
sounding band. So we kind of kind of strike this fine line. And
I think the first time that we really nailed it was when we. When we
wrote that song. So that was one of the first written for the record that
made the cut. Anyway. We probably wrote about 200 songs for this album. But
this, I think Fornix was. Was maybe the
(46:30):
first sort of like finished song that we did. Okay.
And yeah, from there, but it still wasn't like we've had albums where
it's like you take ages to get. Find the
right feel. And then when you write that song
for welcome to the Neighborhood, it was like Digital Ghost
(46:50):
and Bad Machine. And then after that it was like boom, boom, boom, boom, boom.
We got it. Yeah. Gates open. So. Yeah. Yeah,
totally for this. It was just like a real battle. And we were still kind
of writing right up until the Wire, really, and
sort of trying to, you know, we recorded a Couple extra songs,
like completely in the studio and then never put them on the album because they
(47:11):
were like, it doesn't. Doesn't fit the,
into the, into the sort of the jigsaw, really. We were,
I guess, trying to sort of still keep it quite a diverse record, but make
this a really hard part of it, make it still feel cohesive
so not so like it's kind of, you know,
(47:32):
a playlist and still more of like an album.
But, but yeah, we, I, I think we achieved that. I think it was a
hard going and I hope when people listen to it, it does feel
cohesive because that was a real sort of goal for us to have
a kind of broad sound that all still
sounds like the same record, you know,
(47:54):
like if you. Played it all the way through, it feel even through the first
album, it would feel like it all still kind of fits in a way.
Well, particularly, particularly Sundiver, because we did want it to
contrast the Torah. But I think, I think when you put them together, if you
listen to it from track one of the Torah to track 11 of Sundiver,
it does still. It feels like a real journey, you know. And we also were
(48:15):
like. We kind of would talk about it in. In the same senses of
like films, like how they have sort of like three act structures.
We kind of want that emotive
kind of ebb and flow and in
the album. So there was like a kind of, you know,
if it was like a cheesy movie, you'd have like the. The
(48:38):
protagonist is kind of down on his look at the end of Act 2 and
then there's like the big redemption and in the sort of middle of Act 3
and then the kind of closer. The resolve or whatever, you know.
So we kind of were keeping stuff like that in mind as well. I'd
say Sundev has that more than dottor, but they still do work together as like
a kind of narrative if you listen to it. Love
(48:59):
it. Well, I appreciate your time, Henry. Thank you so much, man, for doing
this. Thank you, mate. No, you as well. It's great. I have one
more question before I let you go on and if you have any advice for
aspiring artists. Yeah, I do.
I would say don't. Don't pay too much attention to the
Internet, quite honestly, and. And other.
(49:22):
What other artists are doing. Spend, spend.
Don't be in such a hurry to release stuff either. Spend more time kind of
like figuring out what you like and what you don't like and, and listening
to music and making music and you know, don't don't
feel that everything has to be a hit. Don't feel that everything
has to be immediate. And don't feel that you have to release stuff at the
(49:45):
pace that social media is kind of telling you what you do.
Bring it backwards,
bring it backwards. Bring it backwards.
Bring it backward. Bring it back,
(50:07):
bring it backward.
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