For those readers that have not heard of Biscay before could you tell us a bit about the band, your story?
Well, the 4 guys in the band go back more than 20 years in terms of playing together in various bands – I met Ben & Kris when they were kids, being taught music by a good friend of mine. The first time we played together in their school rehearsal room, they’d have been 13/14 years old!! We played for years in various covers bands and it wasn’t until I started writing for the first time in 2011/12 that things changed tack. We mislaid our previous lead singer in 2015 and started auditioning for new singers in early 2016…that’s when Eléa showed up, smashed her audition and was the obvious choice.
We got straight into recording with her, changed the band name to Biscay and launched our debut EP ‘Burnt Mementos’ in March 2017. We’ve since continued to write and gig, and our new EP in the first in a series of releases we’re planning for 2020/21.
Your songs seem to be getting more miserable! How are you feeling?!
Pretty chipper actually!! Our creative process has become a finely tuned machine, so that aspect of life is really satisfying, but the bigger picture looks pretty grim for all of us – despotic leaders, burning rainforests, Silicon Valley, Fox News…
So the world’s problems are clearly an inspiration?
I kind of wish they weren’t (in the sense those problems didn’t exist), but when we’re all so insignificant it’s hard to know what to do about all these issues, so writing these songs is undoubtedly a form of self-help…
Are they therefore intended to be a form of therapy for listeners?
In the sense that all music has a therapeutic value then yes, but I do hope the lyrics give a new perspective to people kind enough to listen, or if they choose to ignore the words they can just groove along.
Could you tell us a bit about the writing/recording of the ReverbNation Competition winning track ‘Heartstrings’?
‘Heartstrings’ reflects the slightly odd way I write songs in the sense that I nearly always start the process with lyrics, whilst most songwriters tend to start with music. In this case, the lyrics and the theme were inspired by a poem by Neil Gaiman I read called ‘The Fairy Reel’, which is a nightmarish tale of someone whose ex-lovers rip out their heart, stretch it into 4 strings, re-string a violin and force them to play melancholy tunes on it!! Gaiman doesn’t use the word Heartstrings (which is the clear implication), so I put it front and centre and predictably swapped the violin for a guitar.
The musical inspiration came from Steven Wilson – I’ve always admired his ability to write songs in odd time signatures that sound totally natural. The lyrics seemed to work over a 5/4 groove, and add this to some Lydian harmony and the song wrote itself!
Like all our recordings it started with a live performance which we then layered with various overdubs – multiple guitars doubling the solo and closing sections, keyboard pads to add some atmosphere, doubling the word ‘Heartstrings’ in the vocal and then some gratuitous reverse-reverb and bingo!!
And Irvin Yalom inspired another…
Yes, the song Buried Deep came from his book ‘Staring At The Sun’, whose title reflects the biggest issue with death, namely that we avoid the subject. It made me feel much better about our inevitable demise, so again I wanted to share some of its insights…
And not without humour…
Yes, there’s one line which says ‘Be grateful you won’t be there’ – we’re not really around when we die so why fret about it?
You do fret about Silicon Valley in the song ‘Online Parole’
Oh yes, I think their takeover of our lives is truly insidious and too many of us are letting this happen in exchange for a little more convenience. I’m not telling people to go ‘off-grid’, but I think there are ways we can better protect ourselves from their intrusion. As Jaron Lanier says in his book ‘Ten Arguments For Deleting Your Social Media Accounts Now’, we should be more like cats than dogs….indifferent to and independent of Silicon Valley rather than unthinking and overly-loyal!
Loyalty also looks like an issue in the song ‘Cut the Cord’
From my experience I’ve seen too many people hang around in either destructive or simply ill-matched relationships, terrified at the prospect of being single and alone. Cut The Cord is about being brave enough to get out when things are toxic and get to where the grass can be greener!!
You said earlier your creative process has become a well-oiled machine – how has that happened?
I think we’re getting better at all stages of the creative process. Firstly, I’m writing much more collaboratively with Eléa, which has improved our melodic output and adapted the lyrics more effectively to her voice. We’ve also taken more time as a band to arrange the songs in the rehearsal room, which in turn has meant we’re much better prepared when we finally hit the studio. The new studio, The Milking Parlour, has also been a revelation – Luke Dibbens there has improved our sound, tightened our mixes and made us appreciate the value of quality over quantity. We’ve been back since and recorded 5 more songs more in November 2019, which we’ll release later in 2020.
They make you sound like a live band
That’s because it is!! We do some overdubs and record vocals separately, but otherwise, it’s live in the studio, partly because it’s quicker but mainly because we’ve always been a live band and want to be heard that way.
You’ve also taken a different approach to making video
Yes, instead of filming ourselves, which just tends to result in clichéd performance vids, we’re making lyric videos, which we think are much more interesting. Heartstrings and Worn Out Word are already on YouTube and all of the tracks on ‘Stare At The Sun’ will be up there soon.
Here at Artistic Echoes, we are always on the lookout for new artists do you have anyone to recommend?
From our jazzy-related world, we really like Yazmin Lacey and Mama’s Gun and there’s a fabulous singer-songwriter called Hattie Whitehead who we’ve done gigs with – she’s amazing!!
What plans do you have for the rest of the year?
More recording is the priority right now….we recorded an additional 5 songs last November which need some over-dubbing/editing/mixing/mastering then they’ll be good to go, and we have a further 8 songs we demoed in January which we’ll continue working on and record in the Autumn. We might release another EP this year or possibly wait to release a full album in early 2021 – we’re not sure yet, but there’s a lot in the pipeline!!
Find out more:
Website: http://biscay.co.uk/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/biscaymusic/
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/Biscaymusic
Twitter: https://twitter.com/BiscayMusic
