THE SIGHS OF MONSTERS
BIRD SHOT
Medway, United Kingdom
What would be your ultimate achievement for your latest single? Is there a particular vision that you had when putting the song together?
As the world once again is forced to confront the possibility of another world war provoked by another mad tyrant with crazy goals, we wanted to say something - hopefully profound - about the nature of the tyrannical mindset and how it wishes to shape history while at the same time seeming to ignore it. We’ve seen these leaders throughout history - Putin is the latest - and it felt like it was something worth talking about. Usually our songs deal more with the personal, but at the end of the day this too is more an existential song than a political one. Our aim, as with any music we put out, is that people listen to it, appreciate it, and enjoy it. It is as modest as that. We don’t have any illusions that we’re making music for the pop charts, we’re making music for people who are also interested in music and lyrics, but who want to listen to something for today, rather than clinging to old Beatles or Smiths albums because “no one makes music like that anymore”. They do. We do.
If you could define music in one short sentence (no cheating) what would you say?
“A good time or a bad time” depending on what you want from it or who’s on the stereo.
When did you first realise that you had the potential to be an artist? Is there a memory that has stuck in your mind as the turning point for you?
As a band, there is no one answer to this question. The common experience is hearing music that spoke some truth to our personal experiences and realising we could express ourselves through music. All of us write lyrics which we hope will connect with listeners the way songs connected with us when we were growing up.
How would you define your sound?
When asked we say “Art Rock”, but honestly, we play with all sorts of genres. Musicians tend to be less concerned with genres than some audiences. We love any music made with passion and sincerity, and incorporate anything we find interesting into our own music. Someone might hear one track and conclude we’re a reggae band, and then another and think we’re an EDM band, and then we’re doing heavy rock. The trick we pull off is to make it all work in the giant melting pot of our attic studio. But we’re equally focused on lyrics, so it is as much about what we say as how we sound.
Cubase, Protools, or neither?
Neither. We use Reason. We like that “Propellerheads aesthetic” of an analogue workflow in a digital space.
This might be a tricky one but Studio vs Live - Which do you prefer and why?
We’re primarily a studio band. Our objective is to create albums like the classic albums people think of: Dark Side of the Moon, Graceland, Rumours, Sgt Pepper, Siamese Dream, Nevermind, and so on… from a time when an album was an actual artistic statement on its own, a bit like a novel or a painting. It’s a cliche, but it is true: the studio is our canvas. That said, on the occasion when we do play live, we always enjoy it. We’re aiming to do more “live in the studio” events in the coming year. If the 2020 pandemic did anything positive for musicians perhaps it was the growing acceptance of ‘virtual concerts’ by music fans, because good music venues - particularly for smaller, independent bands - were vanishing before Covid closed many clubs.
How do you collaborate with vocalists and other artists?
Dean Sobers is our singer and guitarist and also writes a lot of our songs, so we don’t really work with outside vocalists because Dean is so versatile. We have done a few ‘collaborations’ in which we have set poetry to music working with the poet, or in one case, the poet’s estate - check out the songs ‘Drawing’ (working with a poem by the late celebrated poet Ingrid Jonker) and ‘More Than Blue’ (working with contemporary poet David Chislett). But generally speaking, the band itself is a collaboration between its creative members, so we’re fairly self-contained.
If you had the opportunity to work with one of your favourite musical artists, who would you most like to collaborate with and why?
That’s a tough one. There is a huge difference between loving an artist's work and wanting to work with them. We’d probably opt to work with a producer who understood what we wanted to achieve artistically but who also understood the new terrain musicians have to traverse. Perhaps someone like Rick Beato would be a good fit for us.
What are your future plans? What can we look forward to for the rest of 2022?
We’re working on our 4th album. We’re trying a new approach in which we get back to the ethos of recording to tape while still using Reason - but the emphasis is on not using conveniences like cut/paste, quantise, virtual instruments and that sort of thing. We’re using real instruments and effects, including some vintage gear, and keeping everything as ‘live’ feeling as possible.
Where can we find the track? Links to socials and distribution handles
and of course we’re on Facebook, Instagram and other popular social and streaming platforms.