8 minute read
The Backfires: Divided by the Atlantic
Interview By Lauren Elizabeth Campbell, Editor-in-Chief
English/American rock band The Backfires released their first EP 'Consider the Backfires' February 19th. Its members Matt Walter, Alex Gomez, and Harry Ruprecht respectively live in Charleston, South Carolina, New York City, and London. The band has toured across the East Coast (US) and London, and plans to again once it is safe to tour. Get to know the rock band:
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"Anything" is such a great song - it also introduces your band’s unique circumstance, living "on different coastlines." What is it like being in a band that lives apart from each other?
Matt: Overall, I think it has provided us many different opportunities to grow as a band and musicians. Traveling to NYC to work with Alex and London for Harry has never felt like a chore but dreams coming true. It has been hard at times to all be on the exact same page of life, but we are luckily all good mates. I’d say that us being separated gives us each a unique life experience to express through our music and lyrics.
Alex: Living on different sides of the Atlantic is a lot of FaceTime calls at random times of the day or week. Usually, I’ll phone Harry after lunch and he’s had dinner. Sometimes though if I’m going to bed particularly late, as I often do, I’ll call him when I go to sleep as he gets up fairly early. It’s definitely strange not being together all the time. As I’m writing this it’s been nearly a year to date since the last time we shared a stage, and even longer since we first got to recording these songs. I think navigating the pandemic and all is difficult, but being a long-distance band from the get-go made it a bit of an easier transition because we had already been writing on FaceTime and such before.
Harry: Being in a band that lives apart from each other is a lot like a long-distance relationship. It takes a lot of time on the phone and quite a lot of dedication from everyone involved to make it work. That being said, it has a lot of benefits too. We’ ve been able to play shows in both the UK and USA relatively easily and on a crazy low budget because we can bunk at each other’s places in the two countries. For example, in the summer of 2019, I was able to fly over so we could play a series of gigs down the East Coast (US). It was an amazing experience that never would have happened if I’d been in a band with people from my town.
How would you describe The Backfires?
A: I like to think we’re rather adaptable. There’s certainly been a lot of ups and downs since we first started playing music together. The world is a completely different place, too. I think The Backfires are the sort of band that you should throw on at the end of the week when you want to forget the mundanity of Zoom and being inside. Our music has the sort of energy that I loved about the 00s bands I grew up listening to. All that being said, though, I think our music is fairly matter-of-fact. Most of the lyrics are about our experiences of growing up in one way or another.
What kind of sound or mood did you hope to capture with Consider the Backfires?
M: 'Consider the Backfires' is very much a young person's account of traversing the common yet unforgiving landscape of figuring out your life and what you really want out of it.
What is The Backfires’ creative process like?
H: As we’ve been separated by the pandemic the creative process has taken place mainly on FaceTime in the last year. It generally starts with one of us coming up with a chord progression and melody we like. We then decide what we want to write about, start off with one line and build it out from there. Usually, one of us will have a line we’ve noted down while going about our day, and we’ll take that as a starting point. The rest of the process then takes place in rehearsal rooms as we work out our instrumental parts. Revisions are constant.
Which song off the EP would you have a new fan listen to first, why?
M: I’d say "Falling" is the song I'd show a new fan. I think it is the most accessible due to the intro being very chill but building up to our own catchy rock sound.
A: I think the song I always come back to is "Going Gets Easy." I remember writing it with Harry when we were just two teenagers in London going about our first year of school. When we wrote it, it was originally about going out and those other feelings you often drown out in a night, but since then I think the lyrics can be taken in a different way. When I listen back, it feels more like a memory in the sense that living in a pandemic altered world, most can’t help but miss the way things were before. Perhaps it’s when you literally can’t remember going out or the way things used to be that the going gets easy and you can accept the new world we live in. I suppose I just like the idea that some of these lyrics or songs can be interpreted in different ways.
H: I would probably ask someone I was trying to convince to be a ‘fan’ to listen to ‘Falling’ because I think it’s the most chilled out and therefore the song that the largest number of people would enjoy. But if they are already a fan, I’d have them listen to "Before the Sunrise" because it’s my favourite. It takes the most inspiration from British rock and I love it.
What artist(s) influence you the most?
M: The Beatles, Catfish and the Bottlemen, The Black Keys.
A: Over the years I’ve increasingly become more influenced by Alex Turner. Before living in London and meeting Harry, I hadn’t listened to much Arctic Monkeys aside from AM, but since then I’ve explored the discography and his other projects with Alexandra Savior and the Last Shadow Puppets. I’m particularly drawn to his lyricism and his way with metaphors. Through him, I’ve gotten into the Beach Boys and some of those older artists. That being said, "Anything" and "Falling" which were written first out of any of the other tracks and are definitely influenced by John Mayer. I listened to him a lot in high school and was trying to learn "Neon" when I ultimately got frustrated and wrote "Anything." "Falling" was more influenced by the way he plays guitar.
H: Arctic Monkeys, Sports Team, Metallica. I personally take a lot of inspiration lyrically from Arctic Monkeys and Sports Team. Surprisingly, Metallica definitely has subtly influenced the music I make. For example, the verse guitar of the third song on the record, "Going Gets Easy," was originally written as one continuous guitar riff that definitely took inspiration from Bay Area thrash. But since it got turned into multiple guitar and bass parts it definitely doesn’t sound like that now! They're not a band I want to sound like, but they really do have subtle influences on my guitar musings.
What did you learn making this EP?
M: I’d say the number one thing I learned from putting together this EP is that the initial songwriting process is just the tip of the iceberg, and that it is called the "recording process" for a reason.
A: The biggest takeaway from the process was the importance of patience. I think before the pandemic, and even now, there was a sense that everything was go-go-go and you needed to get things done as soon as possible. The reality is that it’s very difficult to plan for all the different things that life ends up throwing at you. Also, nothing happens the way you expect it to. When we were in the studio in January 2020, we had a lot of ideas about how we wanted everything to sound but by the time we finished mixing remotely over the Summer, some of those ideas had changed. I think it’s important to be open-minded to wherever your mind takes you in those creative settings.
H: I learnt a lot about how to add layers to our songs. Initially, going into the creative process I was thinking a lot about my own guitar parts. While that’s really important, I was neglecting thinking about the parts for the track more broadly: all the additional sonic elements that make the track feel full. How to listen for them in other people’s music and how to use them in our own is definitely something I learned from.
What songs are you currently listening to?
M: I’ve been obsessed with the second record by The Strokes recently, more specifically “Under Control.” Along those lines, I’m a massive fan of The Black Keys so songs like “Little Black Submarine” or even Dan Auerbach's spin-off band The Arcs’ “Velvet Ditch.”
A: I recently just discovered the Avalanches and have been listening to their most recent record quite a bit with their song "The Divine Chord" being on repeat. ‘Sunflower Seeds’ by the Orielles is another one I found recently. ‘Right Around the Clock’ by Sorry is a very cool tune as well. I’ll throw in "Foreign Room" by Telekinesis. As far as records, 'The Bends' by Radiohead was one I’ve been listening to a lot as well.
H: I'm listening to "Who Says" by John Mayer whilst writing this. Also been loving "Knuckle Tattoo" by Girlhouse in the car recently. More generally though Alex, Matt, and I have been listening to a record a week and discussing it for a few weeks now. Last week was "What did you expect from the Vaccines," so I have been pretty much exclusively listening to that. It’s pretty sweet.
