PlanetMosh Keeping it Metal
@louelladeville @Planetmosh interview with Sponge from @electricriver
I chatted to Sponge, front-man for Electric River, before they opened for Toseland at Manchester Academy on 30th September 2014. Find out a bit more about the band, how they came up with name and what’s coming next: –
Whose idea was it to form Electric River?
We got together like most bands do in a small town in Kent, a few of the guys had come in from other areas and though mutual passion for music. School kids, looking for a bit of fun, that’s how we got together.
How long have you been together?
We’ve actually been together ten years but it’s only been in the last few years that we made a concious decision to get out of Kent, start touring, and produce our own record, something that we’re really proud of.
Did you do covers to begin with?
Yeah, typical thing that bands do, you know. Learning our trade and playing covers of bands that we liked originally.
Is it the same line up or have there some changes?
The four guys are the main core of the band, always have been. We’ve experimented in Ska and Reggae music so there were additional musicians, piano, trumpet, saxophone stuff like that but they’re long since gone. Now we’re back to the rock format of the band.
How did you choose the name Electric River?
We were struggling to write a song one day. Most of the song writing back then used to happen in our guitarist Chris’s kitchen. We were struggling for lyrics and it came up in conversation, why don’t we try cutting up a newspaper, random words which is something that we’d learnt David Bowie used to do to get inspired for song lyrics. At the time we were called Midnight ’til Six and we were thinking that we wanted to change the band name but we didn’t know what to. After we cut up all the newspapers and chucked it in the pan, it was actually a pan rather than a hat! I know it sounds really corny but the first word we pulled out was become, the second electric and the third river so we said ‘Yes we’ll go with that, Electric River’
Interesting, as good a was as any! So where does the name Sponge come from?
There’s two Chris’s in the band and I’m slightly older than the rest. I’m one year older so I was the one who always used to get served at the off licence so I tended to be able to drink a little bit more than the rest of the lads and it made life easier.
So it’s Chris then. I was a bit worried that your parents had named you after SpongeBob SquarePants.
Ha Ha – No!
You’re currently on tour with Toseland, how’s the tour going so far?
It’s really surpassed any expectations that we had of it. I admit I didn’t know much about Toseland or even James’s biking history. I don’t follow that sport. It’s been phenomenal. The key thing about it is that the audiences have been really open minded. We’ve done other supports where obviously the fans are there to see the headline band. They’ll stand there with their arms crossed and make it really hard work for you to get your stuff across. But being on tour with Toseland it’s been like a totally different vibe for us.
You’ve had a few sell out shows as well?
Yeah, Nottingham, Wolverhampton, last night in Cambridge. They were all sold out or just around five tickets left.
Who writes the lyrics and the music for Electric River? Do you all jam together?
We go through a pretty vigorous process. Our guitarist Will usually instigates the ideas for the songs. He’ll bring a real rough skeleton to the band then myself and him will sit down with an acoustic guitar and put together ideas. He might have put together a song with a certain set of lyrics and I might not feel that set of lyrics so we do a lot of fishing basically, for subjects and lyrics.Once we’ve got a song together in acoustic guitar format we bring it to the band and everybody starts to add their own parts to the songs. It’s quite a long process. Once we’ve done that we demo them. We’ve demoed songs seven or eight times in the past until we’re fully happy with the end product.
How many albums/EPs have you had out so far?
We kind of wiped the slate clean when we brought out this album, a lot of people call this album which we brought out back in June our debut Faith and Patience. Previous to that years ago we did a low budget thing in a local recording studio called Radio No Go and we’ve done various EPs but they’ve never been pucker releases. They’ve always been back in Kent more for local friends and family really. Even though we’re really proud of them. It wasn’t until we made that decision to make Faith and Patience and spend a bit of time in the studio getting it right. We spent a long time writing the material so that when we got in the studio we came away with something that we can really be proud of. We feel that it really represents Electric River and where we are now.
You’ve played with some really big names along the way so what have been some of the highlights so far?
We played with Lit from America back in May on a UK stint and that was the first time we’ve done a proper tour support, around eight or nine days. We’d done small DIY tours in the past. We’ve been around the country a few times now but that was our first shot with somebody like Live Nation, a big agency group booking the venues, and playing in large venues to large crowds so this year that’s been a real highlight.
If you could open for any act, past or present, who would it be and why?
That’s really hard. I think collectively Electric River’s favourite band is Pearl Jam and I think it would be pretty mind blowing to open for them.
I saw them years ago at a small venue, Manchester International II and now they’re playing massive venues like Manchester Arena.
Yeah – humongous venues.
To someone who has never heard of Electric River, how would you describe the sound?
A lot of people call in Punk ‘n’ Roll like it’s a mixture of Punk Rock and Rock ‘n’ Roll music. It’s very catchy. It’s got poppy choruses but not to the point where it’s sickly. We like melodies, proper songs with chorus, verse. Songs with bridge, chorus etc so I think that’s quite a good description – Punk ‘n’ Roll!
Cool. What would you say are the perks of being in a band?
The experiences that you have. You just don’t have the same experiences in every day life that you do being out on the road with your best mates and playing our music in front of crowds.
Any disadvantages?
Most of the time we’re broke! (Laughs)
What have Electric River got planned in the near future?
We’re hoping to put out the record over in Germany. We’re talking to a label over there at the moment about releasing it before the end of the year and doing our first European tour so that’s what we’re aiming for after we finish this tour and our third single to be released from Faith and Patience is coming out on the 6th October. It’s called Keep the Engine Burning, the videos already up on YouTube and it’s had about eleven thousand views on it so far so the aim at the moment is to plug Keep the Engine Burning whilst we’re on this tour and hopefully go over to Germany .
Is that the song The Levellers heard?
Yeah that’s right, we sent them that track and they sent a message back within twenty minutes and said we’d love you to open the main stage at Beautiful Days (festival) last year and that was obviously a phenomenal gig to play.
I’ve not heard that track yet so will you be playing it tonight?
We will be playing it.
Thank you for speaking to PlanetMosh. Any final words?
Go and grab yourselves a copy of Faith and Patience, it’s available on our website www.electricriver.co.uk come along to a show and come and say ‘Hi’ at the merch stand.
PlanetMosh Review of the gig: http://planetmosh.com/toseland-manchester-academy-3-30th-september-2014/
Electric River are:
Sponge – Bass & Vocals
Chris Aldis- Guitar
Will Whisson- Guitar & Vocals
Alex Mayland- Drums
Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/electricriver
