A TRIO MADE UP OF TWO BROTHERS AND A FRIEND MAKING THEIR OWN SOUNDS AND READY TO BE HEARD ‘NARROW PLAINS’ ARE BAND TO CHECK OUT NOW

NP

 

 

 

What are your Full names and ages?

 

Charlie Ferriday (guitar/vocals),

Stuart Connick (drums/back-up vocals) and

Roger Connick (bass/back-up vocals).

 

Rog: Charlie and Stu are 24 and I am 26.

 

 

What is your band’s Genre?

 

Rog: We combine many genres and styles in our music but on the whole, we are an alternative folk/rock band.

 

 

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

Charlie: Rog and Stu are brothers and they were born and lived near London.

 

Stuart: Charlie spent a lot of his early years in the USA, living near New York. Eventually, we all went to the same school in Caterham, which is just south of London.

 

Rog: At school, we all played in different rock and punk cover bands but we never all played together during that time, although Charlie and Stu did play together in a rock band, “Empty Search”, for a while. After school we all went to different universities. Charlie was performing as a singer/songwriter and Stu was guesting with a few different bands while I took a break from playing.

Charlie and Stu played gigs together as a two-piece acoustic band during vacations.

Charlie and Stu had been performing a number of original songs together for quite a while and even made a few live vids. However, they always thought the songs sounded better live than when they recorded them. They decided that they really needed a good bassist – and I was looking to get back into music so I joined them.

 

Where did you get the band name from?

Rog: We discovered that we needed a new name because Charlie and Stu had been using a name that had already been taken by an older band. We liked “The Narrows” and “The Plains” because we felt they suited our stripped-down acoustic style, but they had also gone. One of us suggested putting them together instead and so we came up with Narrow Plains.

 

Who does what in the band?

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

 

Charlie:  I am  lead vocalist and play acoustic guitar.

 

Stuart: I play drums and sing back-up vocals

 

Roger: I plays bass and sings back-up vocals. We also feature harmonica in some songs.

 

Stu: On our EP, “Somewhere In Between”, Charlie was the main writer as he had already written the basic songs for acoustic guitar while he was a singer/songwriter.

 

Charlie: Stu and Rog helped to re-shape and rearrange them to fit the band format. However, all our newer songs, including the single, “So Rewind/Keep You Anyway”, are joint collaborative efforts.

 

 

Are You Signed?

 

Stu: Not currently although we have had some interest.

 

 

What instruments do you play?

 

Ernie: ( Manager of the band ) : Basically, Charlie plays acoustic guitar, Stuart plays drums and Roger plays bass. We can all play other instruments too; Stu and Rog both play guitar; Charlie plays a bit of piano.

 

How did the band come about?

Charlie: Me  and Stu persuaded Rog to join us so we all went to Dorset for a week and transformed, Stu and Rog’s Gran’s house into a temporary recording studio. We spent all day and most of the nights rearranging the songs that I had already written at university and then recorded them. The recording process was a great experience for us all so we have been playing together ever since.

 

 

 

Who are your influences?

 

Rog: They are really diverse although we all respect the new acoustic/folk movement and we are all fans of bands like Mumford & Sons, Ben Howard, Noah and the Whale and Bon Iver. We also really like Newton Faulkner, and his style of songwriting and guitar playing has definitely influenced Charlie – particularly in the slap technique he uses. We were all influenced by modern American rock music as we were growing up and were (and still are) into bands like Jimmy Eat World, Blink-182 and Foo Fighters.

 

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

 

Charlie: We all went to the same school, and played in different bands there. Unfortunately we ended up at different universities but managed to keep playing music whenever we could. We are all interested in music tech, I’m really into video production, Roger likes to keep up to date with environmental issues, and Stuart is a bit of a politics geek!

 

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

 

Charlie: Rog and Stu’s Mum worked at a centre for performing arts for disabled people. There was a recording studio there and so they we’re always in and around music.

Rog: Charlie and Stuart started playing together whilst at school. We have all always loved playing to live audiences and we were all in various bands from about 13 onwards.

 

 

When will you be releasing material?

 

Stu: We have just released a two-track, double A-side single, called ‘So Rewind/Keep You Anyway’. We think this the single shows the changes in our musical style as a band since our debut EP, “Somewhere In Between”.

 

We have written a lot of new songs since the release of the EP with an album in mind. We aim to record the new album at the end of this year/early next year and we are hopeful of securing a recording contract. At our last session, we calculated that we now have at least 18 original songs (including the ones on the EP). We have been playing many of these live at gigs for quite a while. In fact, some of them, like Take Me Back and Let It Die, have become firm favorites at live gigs. Some of the newer ones still need some work though.

 

How do you get inspiration to write songs?

 

Stu: The themes in our songs revolve mainly around relationships, past and present – usually girlfriends or friendships.

Rog: Charlie will usually come up with a basic structure for a song idea, which we then develop and arrange together.

 

Charlie: We really believe in keeping music simple and genuine. Music for us is about just getting up there and playing so we try to play live as often as possible. We feel our songs reflect this as they are simple and can (hopefully) always be played live almost exactly as they were recorded.

 

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

Rog: Hopefully we’ll have signed a deal with a record label and eventually be able to tour our music properly.

Stu: We would hope that we have recorded the best music that we are capable of writing and playing; have filmed some great videos; and have reached as wide and diverse an audience as possible.

 

Where would your dream place be to perform?

 

We would really love to do a world tour and meet some of the people who have been following us on social media, like Twitter. However, we all love Glastonbury! We all watch it every year on TV and Stu and Charlie were lucky enough to attend in 2012 when bands like Haim, Mumford and Sons and Ben Howard were playing.

 

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

 

Charlie: There are so many excellent musicians that we could learn so much from but we all love the music of Newton Faulkner, who would be a great guy to work with. We used to see his early gigs as he is from the same part of London as us. He also writes quite similar music so I think we’d have a lot in common

 

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

 

Stu: When we’re not doing music, we all have full-time jobs so let’s hope we can stick with music!

 

 

If you got asked by a TV show or film to have your music played on, which show or film would it be?

 

Stu: We’re all big fans of Top Gear and we have been told by some of our followers that our songs are enjoyable to listen to whilst driving. Charlie and Rog are also really into their football, so Match of the Day would be another strong contender.

 

Otherwise, it would be brilliant to hear our music in a Quentin Tarantino film!

 

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

 

Our website is www.narrowplains.com but we are on most social and music media, like Twitter, Facebook, Reverbnation, Soundcloud, Bandcamp and lots more. Our music is available on iTunes, Spotify and most music media. Our videos are available on YouTube – http://www.youtube.com/user/narrowplains

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