What are your Full names and ages?
My name is Henry Green, I am 22 and I play bass.
Then we have our singer, Tony Bignell, who turned 25 the other day,
Joe Devine, our ‘axeman’, who I’m pretty, sure, is 24 (sorry Joe!)
and finally Jamie Byrne. He is 24 and bangs boxes.
What is your band’s Genre?
We play what we love listening to, so it’s a kind of blend of stadium rock with hints of other genres creeping in. We love to experiment a bit, so often our sets are quite varied, but we definitely do have that ‘brand’ without that much effort to be honest.
Give us a little bio of the band and you guys as individual.
Jamie, Joe and I were actually in a band before. However, we decided to go in a new direction and do something much more personal to us. We were looking for a singer for AGES and then Tony pops up on Gumtree. Turns out he lives 5 minutes away from where we rehearse, so that’s a right bonus!
From there we’ve released ‘The Sound EP’ back in May, to great reviews, particularly as we were still finding our feet as a collective. We’ve been overwhelmed by the response really. It’s a massive compliment that we’ve already been featured in articles and magazines from around the world, including a mention in Kerrang! and appearing live on BBC Introducing BHB. We’ve also had a couple of football teams play our songs; how cool is that?!
As for us as individuals, I’ll start off with Joe. Joe is a highly intelligent master of physics, with about as much common sense as a bottle of bleach. He spends his time doing wizard stuff with computers and the like. Tony is our ‘showbiz’ guy; he used to act and has been singing since he climbed out of the womb. Oh he’s also good at impressions, my personal favourite being Terry Tibbs from Facejacker. Jamie is the party animal of the band. He spends most of his time wondering what happened the night before, and is slowly removing his brain, cell by cell. He’s also seen Muse 10 times! Then there is me; I guess I’m the weird one with a ever blossoming love for tea and biscuits.
Where did you get the band name from?
The name is actually a pun. As soon as you play music you ‘Exit the Black’ and ‘Enter the Red’ financially speaking. Basically, every musician is familiar with seeing the old “you have insufficient funds” screen on the ATM on a cold rainy day outside the venue just before a set. This is genuinely the reason we gig; free beer and food.
Who writes the songs?
We write songs in two main ways really. The first is when someone comes to a rehearsal with an idea. They will present it, play through it (however unfinished) and then we will see what happens. The other way is that we just jam and things evolve. As for who writes the songs in particular, we all do. For example, on the EP we all had the initial idea for at least one, and then all put it together to make, well, the EP!
Are You Signed?
Nope, so if you’re listening Warner Records…
What instruments do you play?
We all play a few actually. Tony plays keys as well as singing, Joe comes from a traditional Irish music playing family, so he knows how to fiddle and play banjo, as well as guitar. Other than being a drummer, Jamie is a guitarist too. And finally, I play bass, guitar, very basic piano and tend to sing in the shower a lot.
Who are your influences?
We have a HUGE music collection between the four of us. Most notable are the big powerful bands like Muse, Biffy Clyro, Stereophonics etc, but we also have our own unique influences too. Jamie is the biggest Muse fan I know, and he’s also big into his house, his DJ of choice probably being Porter Robinson. Tony is a big Kelly Jones and Jamie Cullum fan, something you can really hear in his singing and playing. Joe is into his guitar nerds like Guthrie Govan, Joe Satriani and Joe Bonamassa, whilst sharing a recent love of Alt J with me. I am a softie, drawing massive influence from artists like Damien Rice, John Martyn and more recently, Ben Howard. I also like to rock out though, my band of choice at the moment being Wolf Alice. Oh, and we are all absolutely loving Royal Blood at the moment. They are bringing rock to the forefront again, what a band! Oh, and Young Guns, and Kasabian…stop me now.
How did music come in to your lives and when did you start doing it?
From what I understand, Tony came out from the womb singing professionally. You’d have to ask him but he had quite a trophy collection from a very young age. He then won a scholarship to Silvia Young and got into acting. However, singing has always been his true love, so here he is today.
As mentioned earlier, Joe is from a traditional Irish music background. I’m not entirely sure how long he’s been playing, but I know he was pretty young, say about 9 or 10. Since then, he’s been among the first musicians to play traditional Irish music at Buckingham Palace to the Queen. I asked him to get a selfie with her, but Joe’s clearly too classy for those things.
Jamie used to bang things a lot. By which I mean cans, boxes, and pieces of anything he could find really. Then one day his dad bought him a drum kit. He’s never looked back since, playing and destroying many big venues up and down the country.
Then there is me. At the age of fifteen I was introduced to the weird and wonderful world of the bass guitarist. About a year later was my first gig, in the just under two thousand seater Fairfield Halls! Needless to say I was absolutely bricking it. Luckily all was good and from then I realised music was my thing. A bit late to the game but better late than never!
When will you be releasing material?
As mentioned before, we have already released ‘The Sound EP’. We’ve got a live recording coming soon from Tired Moon of our headline set at Bedford Esquires and then the plan is to get back in the studio shortly after the New Year. Exciting!
How do you get inspiration to write songs?
A lot of places! I often get in a nice relaxed state and mess around a bit. The lyrics usually come in the shower or late at night when going to sleep. In terms of the actual subject matter, often they are just attempts at describing myself or my feelings towards things such as society, theories and love (not just in the conventional form). I can’t really speak for the others, but I imagine they aren’t too dissimilar to me.
Where do you see the band in 2-5 years time?
It would be nice to be saying “Hello Glastonbury!” I’m definitely getting that line in somewhere in my life! We seem to be heading in the right direction, so we’ve just got to keep at it and doing what we’re doing.
Where would your dream place be to perform?
For me, it would have to be Wembley Stadium and the major festivals. Imagine having thousands upon thousands singing our lyrics; utter madness!
If you could do collaboration with anyone who would it be?
Anyone who wants to work with us that would potentially have an interesting outcome. Them or Muse for the pure fun of it!
If you wasn’t doing music what would you’s be doing?
Tony would be on X Factor I reckon. He would confuse everyone by being in the over 25s category and looking about 12! Joe would be a geek in a science lab and Jamie would probably be some kind of criminal mastermind. As for me, probably best to leave that to your imagination!
If you got asked by a TV show or film to have your music played on, which show or film would it be?
That’s a good one, not sure really. It’s a computer game but I know the guys would love us to be on FIFA or something. I’d like to be on the Moto GP championship credits. That would be seriously cool. That or on Trainspotting or something, I think that would suit us.
Do you have a website, social media pages and music pages for your fans?
We do indeed, they are as follows:
www.facebook.com/exitblackofficial
www.twitter.com/exitblackonline
www.exitblack.com