Manchester Band The Falling had a Interview With Me!

The Falling are  a four piece with a genre of their own. Get to  know the four piece and their Music  path!

 

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What are your Full names?

We’re The Falling and we’re John Done, Brian Mitchell, Andy Keating and James Cuddy.

 

What is your band’s Genre?

It’s a little bit difficult to pin down exactly what our sound is all about. The punk influence is definitely at the forefront of what we do and how we approach our music but there’s a few other things in there as well. We always try to place an influence on melodies and expressing a particular feeling. Its punk, its rock and its also unashamedly pop music.

 

Give us a little bio of the band and you guys as individual.

“The Falling shimmer with all the joy and tunes that made Manchester the genuine capital of post punk.”

Our record label said that about us, so we’ll go with that.

 

Where did you get the band name from?

We’d love to be able to give an interesting story about where we plucked the name from but its not really the case. It just came about in discussion, a few different names were banded about but The Falling sounded right and seemed to encapsulate something we couldn’t quite put our fingers on.

 

Who does what in the band?

I.e. who does the vocals, who plays what, who writes the songs

John and Brian are both on lead vocal and guitar duties, Andy plays the bass guitar, James is our drummer. Everyone gets in on the harmonies as well both in the studio and live.

 

The writing process is really organic. Everyone brings something to the table, whether its a hook, a melody, a phrase to use as lyrics, a beat or a chord sequence. On the whole Brian is our chief lyricist but everyone contributes to the writing process. It’s not in any way authoritarian and what one person says goes. Things wouldn’t ever get done if that was the case; everybody has to be satisfied with what we’re doing.

 

Are You Signed?

We’re currently signed with Ugly Man Records. An apt name.

 

What instruments do you play?

John plays a Gibson Flying V, Brian has two Gretsch guitars: a Silver Jet and a hollowbody Electromatic, Andy plays a vintage 1950s Fender Precision and James’ kit is Mapex with  Zildjian cymbals.

 

How did the band come about?

Are you sitting comfortably? Long story coming up here. John and Andy put down some demo tracks, rehashing songs from previous bands John and Brian had played in, and began to write some new stuff. It was guitars, bass and a drum machine with some rough guide vocals over the top. Brian swung by one night and after he’d heard them, and wanted in on it. John, Brian and Andy had been at a bit of a loose with previous bands so it made sense to start something out of nothing, which is really exactly what happened. There wasn’t a drummer at this point, and everyone wanted to work with someone completely new who we hadn’t worked with before, just to keep if fresh and interesting. Someone who could bring something brand new.

 

Brian contacted James and basically told him that he was The Falling’s new drummer, he didn’t get much of a choice. First rehearsals were really difficult. The sound wasn’t clean or defined, everyone was getting used to playing something so vastly different to things we’d done before and there was a point where no-one said it, but everyone thought it wasn’t going to work out; the sound just wasn’t there. Tempo was in and out, harmonies weren’t even on the horizon and it was hard work just to learn and rehearse three songs.

 

One day it clicked though. Not sure why but it did. Whether that was just getting familiar with each other and how we play or just sheer determination, but at that point we never looked back. We began to get a feel for the songs and the writing process became a lot easier. The rest is history as they say.

 

How did you guys meet?

John and Brian have played in bands for years previously and go back a long way. Andy is John’s daughter’s other half and James knew John and Brian from past events. Not just your usual back story I suppose.

 

Who are your influences?

There’s so many. The punk sensibilities will always be there; The Clash, The Stooges, The Sex Pistols. Stick The Freshies in there along with Joy Division, the Manchester influence you could say. David Bowie is a massive, massive influence. Definitely. Not just because his music is astounding, but because of the whole image and scene that he cultivated. His ability to reinvent himself, his image and his music is unparalleled. Only U2 can get near that. Bowie was, and still is a genius. It’s not just artists and musicians that are necessarily and influence either. We create all our own imagery for promotion. There’s punk, gothic and pop art influences in there. For the very first photo shoot we did, we went to open spaces, a huge woods and a cemetery. There was this giant angel headstone there and there’s a few pictures of the four of us stood by it. Its dark, its a little bit gothic and its really fucking cool.

 

What are your backgrounds whether it’s in music or not?

Would it be too boring and not rock and roll to tell you that we’re pretty much slaves to the wage? We love our jobs but its not been a musician full time, is it? Music is obviously our salvation and we love that. James has performed as an Elvis impersonator previously. You’ve never seen anything like it. Its uncanny how well he takes it off, serious talent. He’s got the suits, the moves and he can sing as well. Because he plays the drums, he’d dodged having a microphone for ages but we roped him into it to get on some four-part harmonies and there’s no going back now.

 

How did music come in to your lives and when did you start doing it?

Music has seemingly always been there for us. Its always difficult to pinpoint what the first contact with music was. For us, its always been a huge part of our lives and its difficult to know any different. We all started playing and performing in our teenage years. That seems to be the usual age where you get the urge to play an instrument and be your hero who you’ve seen on the television and heard on the radio.

 

When will you be releasing material?

We released a 3 track EP in April. Since then we’ve been back into the studio and we had the tracks remastered and remixed. The mixes were good but they were done on the fly and there were bits that we weren’t 100% satisfied with.

 

So we’re going to re-release two of the tracks (Just So You Know & Library) as an old-school Double A Side within the next 4-6 weeks and our other recorded track (These Hands) is being given to the White Ribbon Campaign as a soundtrack for the campaign to end domestic violence against women.

 

How do you get inspiration to write songs?

Inspiration for us comes in so many different ways. It could be hearing another artists’ music and that spurring you on, a moment where a melody or words pop into your mind and you jot it down. We all live and breathe music away from the band so when we’re in the rehearsal space the juices kind of flow straight away and we don’t particularly think anything of it.

 

A lot of our inspiration comes from topical subjects as well. The references in songs may not be glaringly obvious and explicit but there are a lot of nods to the current political climate in there for example. We don’t write blatantly obvious protest songs really, but there are things in there that people who keep their ear close to the ground can relate to.

 

Where do you see the band in 2-5 years time?

In 2-5 years time ideally The Falling will still be doing what we’re doing now, just on a larger scale. We’re still going to be enjoying writing and performing the music we love, that will never ever change. We don’t want to roll out the “we’re waiting for our big break line” because everyone has heard that, but we’d like to make what we can out of this. That’s not money, that’s enjoyment and relative success.

 

Where would your dream place be to perform?

It’s got to be Glastonbury Festival. The prestige, the vibe and the audience is just appealing on so many levels.

 

If you could do collaboration with anyone who would it be?

There are so many people we could name. Elvis Presley, David Bowie, The Clash spring to mind immediately. We mentioned all of those before, but it would be great to collaborate with a modern artist, someone massively different to us, just to see what comes out in the mix. Like Britney Spears or Rihanna. How fucked up would that be? Elvis Presley has to be high on the list. Elvis was a pioneer and is obviously still an icon to this day. You would never ever associate his music with our music but surely that’s where things would get interesting?

 

If you wasn’t doing music what would you’s be doing?

Do we have to answer that? The thought of not writing, playing, performing and recording is utterly terrifying! It would be a nightmare scenario not having music as that huge thing in our lives.

 

Do you have a website, social media pages and music pages for your fans?

 

We certainly do:

 

www.facebook.com/TheFallingUKMusic

 

Twitter: @TheFallingUK

 

www.soundcloud.com/thefalling

Comments (1):

  1. Richard McCann

    September 5, 2014 at 1:33 pm

    Nice interview with a great band heard them at night and day and they sounded great.

    Reply

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