Field Dispatch
Loud George | Matt Connarton Unleashed
Speaker 1: I love it. That is such a great track. That
Speaker 1: is Nicole. The band is Loud George. I'll tell you
Speaker 1: that sounds like it's right out of Seattle, but it's
Speaker 1: not there. From the UK. And let's see who we have.
Speaker 1: Via Microsoft Teams, Loud George remembers of Hey, Hey, what's up, guys,
Speaker 1: Welcome to the show. Tell me who each of you
Speaker 1: are and what you do in the band. Please.
Speaker 2: So I'm Eric, I'm the singer and the guitar player.
Speaker 2: I'm I play bass on Shout in the Round.
Speaker 1: Okay, I'm a Nick.
Speaker 3: I played drums, So I am actually the loudest George.
Speaker 3: I think you'll find gotcha?
Speaker 1: Gotcha? Well, welcome guys. So it's just the three of you.
Speaker 1: Are you a three piece?
Speaker 4: Yeah?
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, you guys make a lot of noise for
Speaker 1: three guys. That's amazing. So no, I'm really excited to
Speaker 1: talk to you. Welcome to the show. I do love
Speaker 1: that song, Nicole. We also have Monolith, which we're gonna
Speaker 1: play at the end of our segment. Another great track.
Speaker 1: But where are you guys from exactly?
Speaker 4: We're from?
Speaker 2: Well, we're not from Manchester, New Hampshire, from Manchester, England. Yes,
Speaker 2: I don't know which come first. We can we can
Speaker 2: debate about that.
Speaker 1: Well, No, I think we know which camp we are.
Speaker 1: Not the original Manchester clearly, but uh uh. Part of
Speaker 1: why it's so interesting to me is so obviously you know,
Speaker 1: I made this the Seattle reference of course Seattle, Washington
Speaker 1: here in uh in the United States.
Speaker 3: Uh.
Speaker 1: You guys a very heavy grunge sound. I would assume
Speaker 1: that when that song was plain that our listeners had
Speaker 1: no idea that you guys were from the from Manchester,
Speaker 1: UK as they're hearing that song. So it's very I'm
Speaker 1: really curious about that. Uh, the the grunge influence. It
Speaker 1: sounds like, like I said, it sounds like nineties Uh Seattle.
Speaker 1: Tell us about that and is that kind of I
Speaker 1: did listen to you know, your other songs as well online. Yeah,
Speaker 1: some great some great stuff on band camp, and it
Speaker 1: seems like that's really the vibe with this project.
Speaker 5: Loud George, Yeah, I think originally so when we got
Speaker 5: together whilst we were in Uni and the general consensus
Speaker 5: was that we'd make a band that was like Nirvana
Speaker 5: without the Nirvana.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it was kind of The energy level was definitely
Speaker 3: so like all the guitars were turned up to eleven
Speaker 3: and there was a lot more screaming back then. Yeah,
Speaker 3: but we came back and met up after UNI and stuff,
Speaker 3: and none of us had ever played in a band
Speaker 3: that was as good as what we were doing back then,
Speaker 3: So we sort of retoured all the old songs and
Speaker 3: you can really hear it all there. But on this
Speaker 3: new album that's coming, I think the whole album drops
Speaker 3: on the thirteenth okay, and thirteen tracks of it, and
Speaker 3: we've still got a bit a bit more progue with,
Speaker 3: Like there's tricks, some weird time signatures and stuff going on,
Speaker 3: some mad stuff that Eric's doing on the guitar. We
Speaker 3: were trying to make it as inaccessible to the.
Speaker 4: Inn old age we've got.
Speaker 2: Yeah, as Nick was saying, I think originally we came
Speaker 2: from like that Nirvana, Ben and I think that was
Speaker 2: when we were young and care free. That was what
Speaker 2: we wanted. But yeah, it's definitely less apathetic. I think
Speaker 2: when you think about grunge, it's very apathetic and very
Speaker 2: very young and spirited to a kind of like nihilism.
Speaker 2: And I don't think we're there anymore. I think we're
Speaker 2: a bit older.
Speaker 4: Yeah, kids.
Speaker 3: Now everything is fine.
Speaker 1: Everything all as well. You guys have been around for
Speaker 1: a while, right, was it twenty ten when when you
Speaker 1: started originally this project?
Speaker 2: Yeah, twenty ten was when we met up at Uni, okay,
Speaker 2: and then we had a few years and then we
Speaker 2: broke up just after UNI finished and I had to
Speaker 2: work on mc donald's and.
Speaker 3: For a bit.
Speaker 4: Tell us about the Ferris Wheel, Sam, Oh.
Speaker 3: It was lovely.
Speaker 6: He just looked force people to take their picture and
Speaker 6: then take money out of their pockets a basis.
Speaker 1: So how long was the break for you guys? How
Speaker 1: long were you not together?
Speaker 2: Ten years? It basically coincided with COVID. Yeah, COVID happened
Speaker 2: and we I sent a message from both just saying do.
Speaker 4: You want to redo that?
Speaker 2: We basically recorded the album originally ten years ago in Uni.
Speaker 2: Obviously taking it wasn't the greatest recorded thing in the world.
Speaker 4: It was done in like a week age.
Speaker 3: You could hear the alcoholic.
Speaker 5: Oh yeah, so we just saw the COVID.
Speaker 2: I basically I was bored and I said, do you
Speaker 2: guys want to do it again?
Speaker 4: And we'll jump and get together and have a gore.
Speaker 3: And I said no, I don't like you. This is
Speaker 3: why I've been avoiding you.
Speaker 1: So you basically re recorded the album.
Speaker 3: At that point, yeah, hope last album.
Speaker 6: Yeah, well we all had home studios by that point,
Speaker 6: so yeah, kind of remotely, Yeah, redid the bits and
Speaker 6: then start messing around with a rewriting a few little parts.
Speaker 6: I mean, the lyrics from ten years ago when we
Speaker 6: were all twenty are all very much just I'm so
Speaker 6: sad for me.
Speaker 3: And this rhymes with me.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah, but it it's like being able to do it remotely.
Speaker 3: I mean it speaks like we didn't actually meet up
Speaker 3: until we were doing a music video, a music video
Speaker 3: that we never actually used for the first one that
Speaker 3: was off the first album. We ended up doing a
Speaker 3: couple of videos for that. But on this album that's
Speaker 3: coming out now, we've done three or four and it's
Speaker 3: all been again. It's DIY recording.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 3: I just think it speaks out that, like we were
Speaker 3: able to do that first album. We rewrote the lyrics
Speaker 3: over on like meetings with each other. We rewrote everything
Speaker 3: like in band lab and stuff a couple of times,
Speaker 3: use some Midia examples, and then recorded everything ourselves and
Speaker 3: the album was done.
Speaker 2: That first album took us ages because we're doing it
Speaker 2: song by song by song. And what's funny is the
Speaker 2: equipment got better. So when we started out, Nick was
Speaker 2: recording on bin leads, So jelly Bean from the first
Speaker 2: album was recorded on like instead. The symbols were awful.
Speaker 2: They were actual dustin leads. Really, would you call them
Speaker 2: garbage candleads? Garbage candleads? So yeah, they were pretty awful.
Speaker 2: And as it went along, we got better equipment, and
Speaker 2: then we did this album.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you can hear it get better as it as
Speaker 3: it comes out. But I think with this new one,
Speaker 3: like we're all tooled up with the stuff that we needed.
Speaker 3: We're actually in person. I mean, we've been recording loads
Speaker 3: since then, and some stuff hasn't hasn't made it on
Speaker 3: the album, but we've had some really good experiences, like
Speaker 3: just going over to Whales. Have we've got such nice
Speaker 3: countryside out here? Yeah, just going in a cottage, no
Speaker 3: soundproofing or anything, just blasting a load of music out.
Speaker 1: Yeah, the original recordings, I assume the original album that
Speaker 1: you recorded. Is that available anywhere online or have you
Speaker 1: kind of hidden that from from the world.
Speaker 4: Yes, you can find that on Spotify.
Speaker 3: Yeah, there sound Claus, we can't log in. We would
Speaker 3: hide it.
Speaker 1: For real.
Speaker 4: They all have different names.
Speaker 2: But then I think, like, so we really like Lightning now,
Speaker 2: but like Lightning back then was called like some I
Speaker 2: think it's something about four D TV or something.
Speaker 1: I'm yeah, I'm curious because you know, like I said,
Speaker 1: I listened everything that you have on band camp, and
Speaker 1: but it would be interesting, Uh I think just to
Speaker 1: go back, I might, I might check out your SoundCloud
Speaker 1: and just see it. Would it would be interesting to
Speaker 1: hear the original material. You know that the way it
Speaker 1: was originally done, just out of curiosity makes you I'm
Speaker 1: kind of a nerd for that kind of thing. Plus,
Speaker 1: you know, it almost sounds like the original might be
Speaker 1: more considered more of a demo recording, and I love
Speaker 1: listening to that kind of stuff. I think it's really interesting.
Speaker 3: There's a really there's one good one on there, which
Speaker 3: is a cover of sale. These boots are made for walking.
Speaker 6: Oh really like a demo quality cover of that, which
Speaker 6: is quite that was all recorded live, wasn't it.
Speaker 5: Yeah?
Speaker 3: Yeah that was good. Oh wow, Yeah, quite a lot
Speaker 3: of stuff. Back then we used to get about just
Speaker 3: in like a tiny little one lead car. I don't
Speaker 3: know how we fit everything and all the people in there,
Speaker 3: because we had like people that were coming to the
Speaker 3: gigs in the car with us as well, going from
Speaker 3: Manchester's crew like down South and stuff, but doing it
Speaker 3: all in one car. And do you remember we played
Speaker 3: with that Harry Styles. Yeah, you know how.
Speaker 2: We played with Harry Styles original band before he got them.
Speaker 3: Really we didn't realize the night wild, but I think
Speaker 3: we we definitely cover more ground now that like we're
Speaker 3: all driving and yeah, yeah, the stuff that we've got
Speaker 3: on the road with us, that's that's also growing as
Speaker 3: well as the studios, so that's good.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, I'm curious too, you know in terms of
Speaker 1: that classic grunge sound that you guys have, does that
Speaker 1: help you stand out in the scene. Obviously there's a
Speaker 1: lot of bands there in the area that you're in,
Speaker 1: but I assume tell me if I'm wrong, I assume
Speaker 1: there's nobody else there doing exactly what you're doing.
Speaker 3: A huge grunge scene in the UK.
Speaker 1: Is there. Yeah, that's interesting.
Speaker 3: When we went down to Camden last that, like in
Speaker 3: London there there's like there's a band there called Avoid,
Speaker 3: there's a couple of other bands like especially when we
Speaker 3: go down South, isn't it like Yeah? Yeah, like like
Speaker 3: especially like girl rock grunge bands like they sound great.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 4: The only thing that there's a part is that we're old.
Speaker 5: Yeah, we're entering the middle age now old loud George.
Speaker 1: That's see. I wouldn't have expected that that there was
Speaker 1: such a grunge scene there. Has that always been the
Speaker 1: case or has that kind of ebbed and flowed over
Speaker 1: the years, because right here, like in the United States,
Speaker 1: there really is no I mean, there are bands, you know,
Speaker 1: they're indie bands that have that sound, but as far
Speaker 1: as I can't honestly tell you that there are a
Speaker 1: lot of grunge bands around currently in the US, and
Speaker 1: there haven't been for a long time. But has that
Speaker 1: always been the case where you guys are.
Speaker 3: Well, we're very sad and apathetic as a country. Really
Speaker 3: it leans into it. I don't know.
Speaker 6: It's kind of come full circle and I feel like
Speaker 6: I've seen it on the local scene over the last
Speaker 6: five or six years. Yeah, more, more and more bands
Speaker 6: are moving away from a kind of just like general
Speaker 6: oat rock and metal and a lot of the a
Speaker 6: lot of the younger up and Cummings are doing grungey
Speaker 6: sounding stuff.
Speaker 3: I'm wearing the clothes as well.
Speaker 6: I'm looking at her thinking I was wearing that when
Speaker 6: I was ten.
Speaker 3: It's hard to say, like when like, none of us
Speaker 3: are promoters. We don't put our own shows on and
Speaker 3: see a lot like so we stay pretty much in
Speaker 3: our niche. So we I don't get me wrong, we
Speaker 3: go to a lot of gigs and stuff, but when
Speaker 3: you're that close to the niche, it's kind of hard
Speaker 3: to see. For looking like I've always gone to grunch
Speaker 3: gigs here if I feel like it's something you've always
Speaker 3: been able to go and watch in the UK, like
Speaker 3: we love that over here. Yeah, but with bands like
Speaker 3: Wet Leg and things like that there, they might not
Speaker 3: necessarily be like a four chord power cord thing, gotcha,
Speaker 3: but it's definitely got like a grunge thing. And I
Speaker 3: remember when people were going doing nuts about going to
Speaker 3: see what's that Australian bands the Chats, Yeah, yeah, people
Speaker 3: went nuts to go and see them. They're very punk.
Speaker 2: I do think there's a lot of punky sort of
Speaker 2: stuff coming out of Australia at the moment, like a.
Speaker 3: Muse that comes out of Australia is just incredible. Yeah,
Speaker 3: big and scary and poisonous music.
Speaker 1: Interesting. Interesting, And so tell me about that song Nicole.
Speaker 1: I really love that song. Who is Nicole?
Speaker 3: Nicole is sort of a fictitious, but it's basically all
Speaker 3: of us had had friends that said that a man
Speaker 3: had told them to smile from a very young age.
Speaker 3: Like I remember talking to my friend Kate about this.
Speaker 3: I was like, what about fifteen years old? Do you
Speaker 3: think like there's a bit of patriarchy force forced than
Speaker 3: some girls? And she says, no, way younger, way younger
Speaker 3: than that. And then then we got talking about it.
Speaker 3: We had this mean riff, so we just decided to
Speaker 3: throw that in on the lyrics. So it was a good,
Speaker 3: good lyrical content for us.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, interesting. Yeah, And then I assume that, well,
Speaker 1: is that kind of a theme because it sounds like
Speaker 1: you're going for something like you're not just you know,
Speaker 1: you're not just singing about being sad and whatnot, Like
Speaker 1: there's some real uh content there in terms of those lyrics.
Speaker 1: I mean, you know, you're you're talking about something. It
Speaker 1: sounds like, you know, the patriarchy, repression and things like that.
Speaker 1: Is that a consistent theme in your lyrics because you know,
Speaker 1: like I said, I listened to the other songs and
Speaker 1: they all sound like, you know, there's there's some genuine
Speaker 1: substances the word I think I was looking for in
Speaker 1: terms of your lyrics. It's not just you know, we're grunge,
Speaker 1: we're sad, whatever. It seems like you're really going for
Speaker 1: something there.
Speaker 6: I would say, it's not not really a theme that
Speaker 6: we've hit on that, but we've definitely you're writing saying
Speaker 6: that we've tried to get more substance into this round
Speaker 6: of songs.
Speaker 3: Yeah, where Yeah.
Speaker 6: I think we've really tried to create or start with
Speaker 6: a story or a strong concept. So there's a song,
Speaker 6: the title track sextieth, which is the one that's coming
Speaker 6: out with the album, that's about a man being buried
Speaker 6: alive underground willingly so that he can enjoy the sensation
Speaker 6: of being eating alive by insects because that is his fetish.
Speaker 3: Oh my, yeah, yeah, it's nice and happy this one.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 6: On Animals, there's a song about a butterfly eating and
Speaker 6: and there's a lot.
Speaker 3: Of nature, a lot of death. The whole album revolves
Speaker 3: around that, that sort of rotting.
Speaker 6: Grotesque kind of Ye, it would be the theme of
Speaker 6: the album is grotesque imagery.
Speaker 4: Yeah, we're trying to be gross.
Speaker 3: We're being profound all the time. Signatures were gross, so like, yeah,
Speaker 3: why not make everything else minging. There was a four
Speaker 3: minute track of just audio of lyrics. Throwing up was
Speaker 3: the song that was originally seven minutes long, that it's
Speaker 3: not a single. We played it live once the full
Speaker 3: seven minutes set over. We don't have more time. No
Speaker 3: one enjoyed that we did.
Speaker 2: It was like the job was Spinal Tap, the jazz
Speaker 2: odesty we made a jazz obviously was.
Speaker 1: I was thinking about Spinal Tap when you know, when
Speaker 1: you were saying, you know, the songs about you know, death,
Speaker 1: I was thinking about Sir denisat and Hog when he says,
Speaker 1: you know, every every film and every cinema is about death,
Speaker 1: death cells.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it does. Well.
Speaker 2: That's why today we were discussing writing a new album,
Speaker 2: but we're all all going to be on bass, and
Speaker 2: then we were discussing the Spinal Tap.
Speaker 1: This is Spinal Tap is my favorite movie of all time,
Speaker 1: by the way, So.
Speaker 3: There's another one that's just come out, you know.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Jenny, Jenny and I did watch the sequel. It's
Speaker 1: all right. I mean it doesn't have the magic of
Speaker 1: the original, but it's okay. But I've seen the original
Speaker 1: a thousand times. I don't think we're gonna watch the
Speaker 1: sequel again. But okay, here's the obvious question. Where does
Speaker 1: the name loud George come from?
Speaker 3: Oh?
Speaker 6: My my girlfriend at the time ex girlfriend now said
Speaker 6: it in her sleep at two o'clock in the morning.
Speaker 3: Just woke up and said, oh, George, really, that's quite good.
Speaker 3: It's healthy that that was your thought. It wasn't like it.
Speaker 3: That was my second right, right. No one called George
Speaker 3: apart from whoever she was seeing.
Speaker 1: My goodness. Well, whoever whoever George is, I hope he
Speaker 1: knows that there's a band named after him.
Speaker 3: Did we find another, like a company called loud George?
Speaker 2: Well that was when you When we designed the logo,
Speaker 2: Nick wrote the LG logo.
Speaker 3: Do you remember that?
Speaker 4: It was like the L inside the G.
Speaker 3: I don't think do you have LG over there? Life's
Speaker 3: good the tech brand LG.
Speaker 1: We have LGE.
Speaker 2: When we were making the logo for it, Nick described
Speaker 2: the LG logo, it was like we should have the
Speaker 2: L inside.
Speaker 3: That my brain was suped.
Speaker 1: So so is that like, have you used that actual logo?
Speaker 6: Okay, there have been a few logos over the years,
Speaker 6: but no, we didn't just completely rip off.
Speaker 1: I was gonna say, there might be a season desist
Speaker 1: letter in your future if you did.
Speaker 3: But yeah, they shout that down straight away, those two
Speaker 3: they didn't like my logo.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, well that's all right. Well it's a cool name.
Speaker 1: So so what's so refresh our memories again? So the
Speaker 1: it's not in a full album, right, it's an EP
Speaker 1: Sex Teeth, No, it's.
Speaker 4: It's a thirteen tracker year.
Speaker 1: Oh it is.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think about seven of them have come out
Speaker 3: and oh, the latest to being Nicole and Monolith. Okay,
Speaker 3: and then on the thirteenth of March, we've got a
Speaker 3: thirteen track album coming out, so there'll be what like
Speaker 3: four or five songs that people haven't heard.
Speaker 1: Oh fantastic.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it was a blast to record it, honestly, excellent,
Speaker 3: very weird, weird time signature is very fun. Listen.
Speaker 1: Yeah, oh that's fantastic. Okay, So that's coming out March thirteenth. Excellent, excellent.
Speaker 1: I can't wait to hear that. So, guys, where's the
Speaker 1: best place to go online for people to keep up
Speaker 1: with everything that you're doing. Where should they go to
Speaker 1: keep up with loud George in Instagram?
Speaker 4: We're very active on Instagram.
Speaker 2: We do want to promote the band camp ever get
Speaker 2: on the bank, Yes, we love go to the bank, cap.
Speaker 3: T shirt on the.
Speaker 4: Don't order a medium with now.
Speaker 1: Okay, I'm a big I'm a big proponent of band
Speaker 1: camp because the thing that people might not realize about
Speaker 1: band camp too is that you get a very high
Speaker 1: quality file. You know. It's it's much better to get
Speaker 1: your music from band Camp than to say, you know,
Speaker 1: if you're streaming it on YouTube, which a lot of
Speaker 1: people do, you know, because it's so easy, or or
Speaker 1: even Spotify. If you get it from band camp, you're
Speaker 1: getting the highest quality file that is available typically, And
Speaker 1: so I'm a big proponent of band camp.
Speaker 3: Yeah, everything that we've got up on there is like
Speaker 3: it's all webs like it's the highest we could bounce
Speaker 3: ours and we do all ourselves as well. So that's
Speaker 3: that's the great thing. Like when when Eric finished master
Speaker 3: and everything, and we just make sure that we've got
Speaker 3: all the tags done, but like the whole first CD
Speaker 3: the things that we saw our gigs and there are
Speaker 3: all WAPs. It is as much as we can get.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, no, that's excellent, excellent. Well, guys, thank you
Speaker 1: so much for joining us in a moment. We're going
Speaker 1: to hit this track Monolith. What should we know about
Speaker 1: this is there? You know we talked about Nicole. Is
Speaker 1: there a story with Monolith or what? What should our
Speaker 1: listeners know about this before they hear it?
Speaker 2: Well, this is so this is Eric again. So what
Speaker 2: happened was his Nick had wrote four thousand songs.
Speaker 4: And we're trying to contribute songs to it.
Speaker 2: I bashed it out in my garage in like a
Speaker 2: few hours and then sent it and was.
Speaker 3: Like, is this is this weird enough?
Speaker 4: Yeah?
Speaker 3: So yeah, we then workshopped it.
Speaker 4: Yeah, but yeah, this is this.
Speaker 3: This song was like basically Eric having a panic, a panic.
Speaker 2: And I really love it. It's it's great, it's weird.
Speaker 2: It's Monolith is one of my favorites.
Speaker 1: Okay, it was.
Speaker 3: It very nearly ended up on the fridge. No all,
Speaker 3: Eric is a great no, great song though, and again
Speaker 3: weird time signatures, but like I feel like what me
Speaker 3: and Sam are bouncing around with you can you can
Speaker 3: still like move to it even though it's in an
Speaker 3: odd number. Yeah yeah, really really weird vocals though from
Speaker 3: from from our Eric. In terms of what the actual
Speaker 3: lyrical content is, I think it's just just a synopsis
Speaker 3: of what the whole album is about again, just the
Speaker 3: whole death and weird things that we wanted to write about.
Speaker 1: Right right, very good, very good. So we're gonna play this,
Speaker 1: but we'll let you guys go in the meantime. But
Speaker 1: I really want to thank you all three of you
Speaker 1: for being with us today. This has been a lot
Speaker 1: of fun. Like I said, I listen to everything that
Speaker 1: you have available on band camp and I really like it.
Speaker 1: Can't wait to hear the full album and we will
Speaker 1: definitely do this again as you guys are releasing new music.
Speaker 1: We'd love to have you back in the future. Brilliant
Speaker 1: absolutely all right, we're gonna play this track, so we'll
Speaker 1: let you guys go. But again, guys, loud George, thank
Speaker 1: you so much for joining us today and we'll talk
Speaker 1: to you soon. All right, guys, take care. All right.
Speaker 1: That is all three members of loud George and check
Speaker 1: this out. This is called Monolith, and I really like
Speaker 1: this a lot. And remember sex Teeth coming out on
Speaker 1: thinking about what the song's about, coming out on March thirteenth,
Speaker 1: so very very soon next week. But here it is loud, George.
Speaker 1: This is called Monolith
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