Gen:NOW Zine, Vol.1

EWAN WILLIAMSON

JOSH MCQUEEN is a Birmingham-based indie rock project lead by Josh McQueen. While in a live setting the project is at times just McQueen and his guitar and/or keyboard, McQueen is also sometimes joined by his bandmates on stage and in the studio. His bandmates include Meia (drums), Milo (bass), Jess (guitar), Emily (keyboard/saxophone), as well as McQueen himself on vocals, guitar, and keyboard of course.

My introduction to Josh McQueen was at The Future Sound Project Weekender at The Sunflower Lounge in February 2023, where McQueen and the band kicked off the whole weekend with a setlist of melancholic indie rock, accompanied by some funny inside jokes and self-deprecation on the side. This instantly put them on my radar, and following a brief chat over email and Instagram DMs, I was able to tag along to a rehearsal session of theirs at Pirate Studios. At the start of the session some members of the band were a little bit uncomfortable by the fact I was there to take photos of them in their rehearsal space, but they quickly got used to it and actually ended up warming up to the situation a bit.

They all displayed great chemistry throughout the session as they practiced their set, and would occasionally goof around, adding things like reverb to their microphones and instruments while making jokes. They would regularly reference the sounds of Geometry Dash and Basshunter as influences in a jokingly manner, all of which was entertaining as an outsider. Overall this session was a really pleasant experience, and really gave me a better idea of Josh McQueen’s band as individuals. A couple of days after this, I was invited to photograph a solo acoustic set Josh McQueen was playing at a lovely record shop on Bristol St, Birmingham, called The Diskery. The overall tone of this set was, as expected, a lot more casual and stripped back when compared to their Future Sound performance. But he did bring the same level of wit that helped with audience engagement and got people laughing during their previous show. I’d often find myself getting absorbed into the emotional lyrics, but soon snapping out of it and laughing at one of McQueen’s jokes, which was amusing but didn’t distract from the show overall.

A week later I was able to interview McQueen via ZOOM in hopes of getting to know a bit more about the story of Josh McQueen and their musical journey up until now. Throughout our hour-long chat we discussed topics such as their origin, their influences, how the band went from a solo project to full band, as well as more extensive themes like indie promoters and diversity in the local scene.

16TH MARCH 2023

PIRATE STUDIOS BIRMINGHAM

I was introduced to you and your band through the Future Sound Project Weekender at the Sunflower Lounge this last February. How did that opportunity come about, and what was it like to share a lineup with a lot of other young bands like yourselves?

It was really good. So the opportunity came up itself because me and the Future Sound Project, well they gave me my first ever gig as well. So let me go back a few years now… So I don’t ever search out for gigs to be quite honest, which sounds weird, but they just ask me. They tend to go, oh, we haven’t booked Josh in ages, we’ll just ask him if he’s free for this random gig on whatever day, and I’ll usually say yes. To be honest, I do my best to keep my schedule free where I can so I can be more flexible, ‘cause in this industry, if you can’t be flexible with your time, you’re kind of dead in the water. You do kind of have to make exceptions, which is why I like being on my own rather than as a band, because as a band, I couldn’t say yes to over half of the things I do because I wouldn’t be in charge and I’d have to ask everybody. So by the time we’ve debated about whether we can do it or whether they can’t do it, then the answer is probably like, no, we can’t do it.

But yeah, I’ve worked with ‘em a few times. There’s a few promoters I’ve worked with in Birmingham. To be honest, they are always a bit patchy due to the way the promoter system works. I can’t say I fully agree with it in the sense that promoters don’t really promote anything anymore. They certainly used to. But nowadays, and this goes for all of them as far as I’m concerned right now, unless you’re dealing with someone who is a national promoter, where they actually have money to throw around in terms of a marketing budget. But what you’ll usually get is a poster, two posts on their story about the gig coming up, alongside eight other gigs that they’re also busy trying to plug.

To continue on the topic of the Future Sound and the local scene, I feel like there’s a great sense of community there, especially surrounding the younger bands in the scene. I’ve noticed a great support system in place there with people hyping each other up, showing up for each other’s shows, and booking each other on lineups, etc. How does that sense of community and support feel to you? It must be encouraging?

Yeah, I would agree on that. The community spirit in Birmingham I’d say is one of the better ones I’ve seen, probably nationally to be quite honest. I’ve played in Gilford and around London. That sense of community just doesn’t exist, with the main reason being that, to be honest, it’s too big to some extent. There are too many bands in London. But yeah, in Birmingham and places like Manchester, Liverpool perhaps, there’s more chance for a community to develop, mainly because the people who are playing here normally are the ones who are just here, and that’ll be limited to maybe 30-40 bands at any one time. Having said that, there is a lot of new music coming up at the moment, like a lot of new musicians and acts and they’re all really great.

Weirdly, the community has changed in the last couple of years, and I think that’s partly due to COVID, and to be honest it’s very interesting because it’s come with good and bad. So, on the good side, I think the people coming through now are the more serious people, and are the more dedicated, and know what they want. And even though you could say that their dreams are unrealistic, it’s like well at least they have a dream to go after. Whereas some people were clearly just going through the motions and they got fed up eventually. But the biggest drawback I’ve noticed to the current community is that because we’ve lost so many people from the previous generations of musicians, there’s been a little bit of etiquette that’s been lost as time’s gone by.

JOSH MCQUEENShot at THE DISKERY

THE SKEME are a Midlands-based alternative rock band, consisting of Ben (vocals + guitar), Glenn (lead guitar), Jake (drums), and Tom (bass), with most of the band being based in Banbury, while Ben studies at BIMM in Birmingham.

As with Josh McQueen, I discovered The Skeme at The Future Sound Project Weekender at The Sunflower Lounge, Birmingham, in which they played on the second day. They played a casual but classically British rock set that certainly filled the room and got me to pay attention to them. They also played a few tracks from their latest EP, ‘Preminitions of Yesterday’, introducing friends and fans alike to some new tunes. A couple of weeks after this, I bumped into them again whilst photographing a Cigarette Social Club / Alice Lily co-headline show at The Rainbow in Digbeth, in which The Skeme were the opening act. After working at both of these shows, it’s safe to say I was fairly familiar with The Skeme and their laidback alternative rock sound at this point.

18TH FEBRUARY 2023

THE SUNFLOWER LOUNGE BIRMINGHAM

Do you mind telling me a bit about The Skeme’s background?

Yeah, so me and Jake started around year nine at secondary school, and we started playing Royal Blood covers and just getting used to jamming together. So it was only the two of us to start with, and then we decided that we wanted to start a whole band. So we wanted more of a proper setup. We spoke to Ben and at the time, me and Ben were having guitar lessons together, so I knew Ben was a good guitarist, and it was kind of sparse at school in terms of musicians. There weren’t many people that played instruments, so anyone that did was super cool, so you’d just get them in your band. And then Tom was in a brass band at the time. He still plays brass instruments now. He plays the Euphonium, but was playing bass as well. So we kind of formed it together in secondary school, and we’ve probably been going for about five years now.

And obviously now that you are not at school together, you’ve all kind of… I mean, you’re all still relatively close to one another, but you’re kind of living in different locations now If I’m correct there?

We all came from around Banbury way to start with, and then Ben’s moved up here for Uni, so he lives in Birmingham now. And the three of us still live here (in Banbury). So what we do is, we’ll set a day aside and Ben will come down and join us for that. But then if we have a practice after college, we’re

already in Birmingham anyway so we’ll book something in town. It hasn’t been that long, we’ve only done it for 18 months when we’ve been in different places, but it seems to be working alright.

No, that’s good. It’s good that you are able to continue collaborating and working together despite the distance.

In terms of yourself and the rest of the band, what would you say are your major influences that have inspired your overall direction?

The main one to get us started was the Foo Fighters, and anyone rock-based really. Foo Figthers, Nirvana. And then we kind of realised that our strengths were in more indie music, so we listened to more Arctic Monkeys, Babyshambles, The Libertines, and we really just enjoyed that scrappy rock sound. Because when you’re starting out, you’re not technically amazing, so you kind of just play anything that you can play that sounds like a song, and you’d focus on that.

Yeah, so two or three years in, we were just destroying power chords really. And now it’s a little bit more refined because me and Ben studied a bit of jazz, so we’ll add jazz harmonies into our tracks, but still try and keep it true to indie. So a really basic riff, and then we’ll throw in tritons and things and then, yeah that’s what gives us our sound. Keeping it at indie roots, but also experimenting with time

Throughout the day of the show, I documented them in their down time chatting and preparing for the show, as well as their soundcheck, and the gig itself. I was also able to get the band together for a few portrait shots outside of the Muthers Studios’ entrance. The show itself was as electrifying as any, with a mixture of original tracks and covers on the setlist, with a number of familiar crowd-pleasers, including Paramore’s ‘All I Wanted’, and Katy Perry’s ‘I Kissed a Girl’. It was clear as day that the crowd were having a great time, thus proving that Broken Drumstick are more than deserving of their headline slot that night.

STUDIOS BIRMINGHAM

So, to get things started, if you wouldn’t mind just telling me a bit about your background as a band

WILLOW: I mean, we met here in college.

ECHO: Me and you had known each other for a while before that.

JACK: Yeah, me and Echo have known each other for about almost six years now.

ECHO: And then sort of lost contact a little bit and then met here.

JACK: And then we met everyone else, and it kind of just clicked in a way.

WILLOW: I asked you lot if you wanted to be in a band first of all though.

JACK: Yeah yeah, so Willow came up with the idea and then it all kind of just came together, and it just worked.

ECHO: It was November that we started with just the four of us. This was before we had Olive, and then December, January.

JACK: It was probably January. It was just after our first gig and then we realised something was missing. So we brought in Olive as the rhythm guitarist to give it that structure and make it a bit more full. And that’s worked really well for us.

ECHO: So we’ve literally been together since November.

15TH MARCH 2023 MUTHERS

JACK: At the moment, with the covers that we do, we tend to take pop songs.

WILLOW: We like to have fun.

JACK: Yeah, exactly. We tend to take pop songs and make them heavier. So we do it in a way that still sounds structured, but it’s also for our own enjoyment and to have…

ECHO: Yeah, it’s about that balance between like, being professional with but still wanting to enjoy it.

JACK: Yeah, exactly.

ECHO: Very punky, rocky, sort of…

JACK: Yes, punk rock, almost metalcore even.

WILLOW: Also originals…

ECHO: And then with originals, the one that we’ve been performing for the longest is… how the fuck do we describe that?

JACK: It’s probably punk metal almost, I’d say.

ECHO: It’s very hard to describe.

JACK: Yeah, cause it’s not metal, but it’s not punky. It’s in that middle ground.

JACK: It’s probably going to be on one of the smallest stages, but I mean, they’ve got Download, so yeah.

JACK: Yeah, exactly. And to be fair, I think one of my main influences is if you just go to see any live music, because I’ll just go to a concert and I’ll see them on the stage and I’ll be like, that’s what I want to do.

ECHO: Musically, it’s sort of less obvious here. I think all of us will just go to a gig and go, oh, they do that thing. That’s pretty cool. I’m going to steal that. Like yeah, that’s my thing now, and that’s what helps us with stage presence really.

JACK: It’s just live music in general that I think gives us all a drive to want to do it even more. It just gives you the motivation. If someone said to me, ‘someone’s dropped out of this gig, we need you to fill in for them tomorrow’, I’d do it. Yeah, I just love it so much.

JACK: Yeah, cause it’s very heavy on the drums and the guitars distorted, but it’s not like Slipknot vocals.

ECHO: It’s like actually sung vocals, but with the very heavy instrumentals. And then with the originals we’re writing at the moment, we’re trying to stick to that.

JACK: Yeah, we’re trying to go down the same route. We do have a plan in place of what we’re going to do with the original music. We’re hoping to, by like the end of the year, bring out a concept album. That’s the plan anyway.

ECHO: It’s going to go to shit realistically, but we can try.

JACK: Haha, but nah, we’ve got a plan in place. We aim to release ‘Insomnia’, which is the original song we’ve got at the moment, as a single to entice people in. And then the concept album will come out later on in the year. It’s like our first big band project.

ECHO: Yeah, that’s one of our big successes as a band, is how we are on stage.

JACK: Exactly, yeah.

ECHO: They’re not as big, so I don’t know if anyone would actually know who we are on about when we say this, but we’ve always said we’re very heavily influenced by Witch Fever.

JACK: They’re like a metalcore band.

ECHO: They’re playing Download, and they’re like, yeah.

I almost forgot to ask. Obviously when you do perform on stage, you all have a very signature look in terms of costume and makeup. I was just curious on what your key influences are when it comes to your overall aesthetic there.

ECHO: That’s such a hard question.

JACK: I hate to say it.

ECHO: Please don’t, no, please don’t say it.

JACK: It’s true though. So, you’ll know him. You know YUNGBLUD? He wears very… you know it’s him because of what he wears, and that’s what I kind of wanted to do. I don’t copy him, but yeah, I definitely got the influence of wearing more feminine things ‘cause it goes against the line of what people think should be allowed. ‘Cause I just think it’s good to express yourself.

ECHO: I think the whole sense of being coordinated with outfits, makeup and stuff isn’t really influenced by anything. We sort of just decided for our first gig that we all wanted to look very cohesive, and so we came up with a colour scheme theme wise, which has just stuck. And then with the makeup, we just wanted to do something nice.

WILLOW: Big up Riley for that.

ECHO: Yes, thank you very much to Riley for doing that for us all the fucking time. But yeah, I don’t think there is anyone that we’re particularly influenced with by that. We just wanted to do something that makes people remember us and the crazy eyeliner and everything like that works very well for us. People notice that and they go, ‘they’ve got strange eyeliner on, what is going on’ and they pay more attention.

Just a couple questions left here. So it goes without saying that Birmingham is an extremely diverse city culturally. Would you say this is reflected in the local music scene today, and if not, how can we make it more inclusive?

ECHO: I dunno about you two, but I think it is present, especially in the more local scene. But I think regardless of that, it is still your white male fronted bands that are the ones that do successfully. As much as you are obviously getting people of colour that are doing amazingly with their bands and stuff, and like women fronted bands and all that. Great. But there’s still a very clear divide between how well certain people are doing compared to how well they’re doing.

But I think that’s just something where if you’re going to gigs, try your best to be supporting every band rather than just picking out ones that you’re going to see. Just stay and support… it’s gone, what I was going to say it’s gone out my head…

JACK: I agree, I think it’s definitely gotten better. Even in the past year after COVID happened, I feel like so many, for example, women fronted bands or full women bands have just hit the ground running. Like Wet Leg, for

example. Before lockdown nobody heard of them. They’re still doing music, and now they’ve won like two BRIT Awards, is it? Yeah.

ECHO: I think it’s still improving, but obviously it’s got a long way to go.

A lot of the time, what people will do is they will look at someone and go, I’m not going to like your music before even listening to it or something because they like to pre-judge their music just based on the look of the band.

ECHO: Even I’m guilty of it. At the Future Sound Weekender, was it Anita that was on before?

WILLOW: Anita, yeah.

ECHO: And having heard of her before, I was like, I don’t think I’m going to like her stuff. I still stayed and watched, but she was like fucking amazing and I absolutely loved it and I really wasn’t expecting to. But everyone’s guilty of it. It’s just making that conscious decision to go, you know what I might not like it, but I’ll stay for a couple of songs though because you never know when you’re going to find a band that you absolutely love.

JACK: Exactly,

ECHO: And you’re missing out on so much if you don’t stay to watch someone’s set just because you think you might not like their music, when you actually don’t know what it’s gonna be like.

JACK: and that’s the same with support acts for bigger bands. So for example, Witch Fever who we said were our main influence earlier, me and our drummer and Riley, who does like our makeup and stuff, went to watch Poppy at the O2 Institute, I dunno, end of last year I think. And then Witch Fever supported them, and just from that we’ve gotten our look and our aesthetic, because it drives us to do what they’re doing.

ECHO: Yeah, you said with our drummer that you won’t class us as having made it until they follow us back.

JACK: Yeah, exactly haha. But it annoys me when people like, don’t go and see the support act, ‘cause you’re missing out on so much, and the support act is there to get everyone pumped. Also the support act is just there to try and make a living for themselves, if you’re not supporting them it just feels a bit sad.

It’s been lovely to talk to you this morning. Before we conclude things, is there anything else you’d like to plug?

JACK: So if you follow our Instagram, which is @broken_drumstick, we’ve got a lot of news coming on there soon regarding new tunes and shows.

It’ll be there at some point!

ECHO: Yeah. That’s pretty much everything. Okay, thanks for joining me. It’s been good fun!

JACK: Nice. Thank you.

ECHO: Yeah, cheers.

ANITA QUINN

ANITA QUINN is an Irish-born, Birmingham-based rapper, singer, and song-writing student at BIMM. Since moving to Birmingham They’ve been making the rounds in the local scene, having formed a band with some close friends on their course, and landing bookings at various venues around the city, including The Future Sound Project Weekender, and a couple of recent acoustic sets at Symphony Hall and HMV respectively.

Quinn is known for their introspective lyricism about their own life experiences, as well as their energetic live shows that really get the crowd moving. My introduction to Quinn, like every other act throughout this project, was via the Future Sound Weekender, in which Quinn put on a noteworthy performance that ended up being one of my personal highlights of that entire weekend. Creating a nice departure from the more rock-heavy acts that took up the majority of the lineup.

Ok, so I’m from Ireland, and I’ve moved over here to study at BIMM so I could do music. I’ve always been quite interested in music and stuff like that, but actually rapping… It’s been a bit on and off.

The first time I ever wrote a song and performed was basically… this one time in school, there was this person that I was really interested in, and I went to like, an all girls school back in quite a small town. I think there’s like 6,000 people roughly. So basically, there was this person I had my eye on, but like everyone had their eye on ‘em and stuff like that, and I was thinking, how can I shoot my shot in a way that hasn’t been done before. ‘Cause I didn’t want to be too obvious about it as well. So I decided to write them a song, but I couldn’t sing, so I decided to rap because I thought if I can’t sing I don’t want to be flat and pitchy and just say all these words ‘cause it wouldn’t have the same effect. So I decided I was gonna rap, and I stood on this chair in front of this whole assembly of like 300 people, all the years were there or whatever. It was the first time I rapped and it worked! So I was like, wow, maybe I can do this more often. Maybe instead of sending a simple text or a message and just doing it the blueprint way, I can be a bit cool, quirky, and creative and just sort of do that. And I just kept on doing that really.

And then it wasn’t really until after the end of school I needed to figure out what to do, except I’m terribly dyslexic, and like school was good for me, it was jokes and there was banter and it was funny. But apart from that, I was badly behaved, I was dyslexic, I was doing the bare minimum, I just couldn’t get it. And then I couldn’t really do sport as a career because the main sport I played was Gaelic Football, and it’s only played in Ireland, do you know what I mean?

Exactly, so it was like that, or music. And then a couple of years ago I found out about BIMM, and I always knew I wanted to go there. I was gonna go somewhere in Ireland and stuff, but then I found out about the UK music colleges, and my Mum kind of pushed me to go. She was like, ‘just get out of the country and explore, do what you want to do, figure yourself out’, etc. And I literally Googled the biggest places in the UK. Saw London, and was like ‘that’s too expensive’, so I settled for Birmingham. So I’d never been here before until then, but I just kind of came here and that was that really.

Oh amazing mate. Yeah, absolutely amazing.

Yeah, a hundred percent. There’s so much to do. There’s so many different types of people, and that’s kind of why my Mum encouraged me to come here as well.

7TH MARCH 2023, SYMPHONY HALL, BIRMINGHAM

“we’re all just chasing a dream, and we all learn things about music and this industry that you would never find out about via the internet or whatever”

“once you do try something different, it’ll pay off, people will notice”

“I’m still finding my own community to be honest.I’m still figuring it out.”

© Ewan Williamson Photos (2023)