The Azurescens | Matt Connarton Unleashed

0:00 Speaker 1: Dance into the Night. Great single from the Azer Resins. I'm gonna have to ask if I'm saying that correctly, but let's see. I think we have uh, I think we have at least gas from the band and we'll see you else, yazz.

0:11 Speaker 2: Are you there?

0:12 Speaker 3: Yeah, go on as well.

0:15 Speaker 2: Oh wonderful, wonderful, welcome. Guys.

0:18 Speaker 1: Love that song, very very very catchy, very positive and uh no, that's great that came out and uh, that came out in May.

0:25 Speaker 3: Correct, Yeah, yeah, it's not me yeah yeah.

0:29 Speaker 1: So relatively new. Yeah yeah, what what's the response been to it? I would imagine you're having some success with it because it's impossible to uh you know not. I mean, it's it's kind of infectious. So the first time I listened to it, it was stuck in my head the entire day.

0:43 Speaker 4: That's a good thing, isn't it.

0:45 Speaker 5: Very wantch inside your head to like actually the.

0:50 Speaker 4: Call of it and play it back.

0:55 Speaker 3: No doubt it's going to do well.

0:57 Speaker 6: It's always been like a favorite, even at it live and chosen it so you get recorded, so did ever people.

1:03 Speaker 2: It's it's been good, yeah, excellent, excellent. You guys have been around for a while.

1:08 Speaker 1: Right, did did you start basically, are you a COVID I would probably hate this term about a COVID band?

1:15 Speaker 2: Did you start during the pandemic?

1:17 Speaker 3: Yeah?

1:18 Speaker 4: Right, we did, but maybe they started anyway.

1:21 Speaker 5: I think we were all at a point in our you know, they were kind of all looking for something like that. I think, Yeah, the COVID just a coincidence that that happened.

1:32 Speaker 4: At the same time.

1:33 Speaker 5: Yeah, you know, gave It's a wee bit of a boost at the beginning because obviously we're able to practice a you know and putting new songs together and stuff like with with a bit of peace and quiet, right with everybody in the world being locked away.

1:49 Speaker 2: Yeah.

1:49 Speaker 1: Yeah, Yeah, it's interesting because we've had a lot of you know, even I mean it's it's you know, quite a few years after now, although it might not seem like it, but in twenty twenty six, even now, we have a lot of guests on the show who will talk about, you know, they've they formed around that time or before them, and then the pandemic happened, and then everything really changed for a while, and it kind of kind of forced people to find new ways to be creative and to work together.

2:14 Speaker 2: And and.

2:17 Speaker 1: But but you guys, you know, starting around that time obviously, because I was reading that, I didn't think. I don't think you played your first live show until a couple of years right later, right in twenty two.

2:27 Speaker 3: Twenty twenty two was the first one.

2:29 Speaker 6: But we wonder what just jump in in to do like a live show when we're only ready for it. So yeah, basically, we took our time and we worked on a set. Go to our songs the way we were wanting them.

2:39 Speaker 5: Nice and tight, next and tight, so that you know, when we're playing people with our music would come across correctly. And if you go out before you've practiced songs properly, or you had them into set too quickly, you're bound to make mistakes, you know.

2:53 Speaker 4: And it's fine making mistakes and everything like that.

2:57 Speaker 5: Right, most people don't notice them, but they do notice that by that's not tight.

3:01 Speaker 1: Oh absolutely, yeah, absolutely, So tell me about the name and well, actually, first let's let's clear this up.

3:09 Speaker 2: Am I saying it correctly? The azuresins? Am? I am? I close?

3:13 Speaker 4: That's that's actually quite good.

3:15 Speaker 5: Yeah, I don't I'm not sure of the definitive way to say it, right, But we're named after a magic mushroom that grows in America, and it's called the Azuris. But I mean I might actually be pronouncing that wrong as well. It might be ever, act, yeah, it's it's like it's called Azuris, and I suspect right, I've never really actually seen the mushroom itself, but it's called a blue minis. I take it it takes its name from azure as.

3:46 Speaker 4: In you know, the color. So okay, So that's that's the basic thing of it.

3:53 Speaker 5: I mean, the reason for choosing that really is because we're kind of quite a psychedelic like to you know, have nice reverbs and delays and stuff like that going on in our tunes. So it kind of makes the songs, although they're poppy and rocky, you know, at the same time, they're quite psychedelic, so they give somebody something to listen to.

4:16 Speaker 4: Well that's what we hope anyway.

4:18 Speaker 2: Yeah, right, right now, what went into the choice to go with Well, how many? How many?

4:23 Speaker 1: Let me ask it this way, because I'm curious about the choice of dancing to the night for a single, But how many songs do you guys have recorded that that you've released at this point?

4:33 Speaker 6: I think it's sixteen. I think we will maybe a love in singles and we've done a six.

4:40 Speaker 3: Trap okay last year. Okay, I think maybe about fifteen or sixteen that we've got recorded and now okay, yeah, all.

4:51 Speaker 5: The ones we've got one say that we've recorded already, but we've not worked on them yet, as in they they're just a desk mixing.

5:00 Speaker 4: At the moment, you know.

5:01 Speaker 3: So to be back.

5:04 Speaker 4: Another four yeah, and then we're gonna do an album after that.

5:07 Speaker 5: But the problem is that people have a very short attention span nowadays.

5:13 Speaker 4: Most people really really do have a terrible attention span.

5:16 Speaker 5: So it was so like the kind of idea is is that folk like to see things that are.

5:22 Speaker 4: Like short, you know, and whatnot.

5:24 Speaker 5: You know, so when it comes to putting things on the internet, it's all shorts, you know, so very basic brief clips of videos.

5:33 Speaker 4: That's not the way that we work.

5:37 Speaker 5: Our tunes have got a bit of depth in them, you know, they need somebody to have an attention span, unfortunately, right.

5:43 Speaker 1: Right, Yeah, It's interesting. We live in a time where there's so many different ways to release music and you know, I'm old enough to remember when I was growing up. Most most bands or solo artists whomever would release an album, you know, the first single would go to radio ahead of the album, and then the album would come out and then you'd yet, you know, if if all went well, you know, you might get a second single and a third single, et cetera. But now a lot of artists are kind of doing the inverse of that, releasing a series of singles that eventually coalesced to an EP or an album, because you know, you got to feed that algorithm, you know.

6:16 Speaker 4: So that yeah, that's what we're kind of doing.

6:18 Speaker 5: We're just bombarding the internet with lots of singles and then at some point we will re record, you know, a whole album and start to finish and it will be probably a few new songs next, you know, mix of ones that we've previously recorded but obviously have refined over the years. So like some of the things that we've recorded, we're playing them slightly different now obviously.

6:47 Speaker 4: With them being live.

6:48 Speaker 5: Yeah, you know, when you when you play a few you know, gigs and things like that, things change. So

6:57 Speaker 5: so sometimes it's some of the cording that we've done, we feel that we're a lot better that those students now.

7:05 Speaker 3: A lot of genderman go back, get them done better.

7:08 Speaker 2: Yeah.

7:08 Speaker 1: Yeah, and you guys went through you know, speaking of playing live, you guys went through a lineup change last year.

7:14 Speaker 4: Correct, that's correct.

7:17 Speaker 5: Yeah, yeah, yeah, we've actually been through a couple of lineup changes, but not they're they're not. We've lost our drummer on a couple of occasions.

7:28 Speaker 4: The first time was our first drummer was a guy called.

7:33 Speaker 5: Jay, and Jay you know I got his girlfriend pregnant and had to leave the band, you know, because he worked its and things like that, you know, and obviously family is a slightly different thing. Yeah, and then we got we've got another guy and he was sound. It was two years and then he offered a like kind of a dream job for himself. Yeah, so wouldn't have the time to do the band as well. But we've landed on our feet. We've got a really good, a good replacement. It took us about six months so to refine some of the songs and actually they've they've all got better because of that, you know, the change, because it's forced us to rethink how we play things and get you tighter again, you know, and with slightly different melodies within the songs and stuff.

8:25 Speaker 4: So yeah, it's all learning process, isn't it. You know.

8:31 Speaker 1: I don't know if it's the same there, but here, you know, when you lose a drummer that that can be a death noell, because drummers are very hard to find here. I have a theory about it. I think it's because when when you're growing up and you want to learn to play a musical instrument, and you have to have the conversation with the parents. If you tell them you want to play drums, they're gonna either that or the tuba. They might try to talk you out of it, you know.

8:53 Speaker 5: But yeah, yeah, anything that's hellish to listen to you, they're going to want to.

8:57 Speaker 4: Get rid of that ideas. It's kind of like that.

9:02 Speaker 5: Yeah, it's it's definitely down to the parents and not wanting it.

9:06 Speaker 4: But you still do have good drummers. It just happens to be that.

9:11 Speaker 5: I kind of knew a guy that was saying, you know, in between bands at the time anyway, and he's had a really good drummer. So, you know, if we were to lose a member of the band, is it's devastating because you lose a certain dynamic you know that the band brings. You know, it's not the band's never about one person. It can't be about one person, you know, It's about I'm a collaborative, you know, venture I suppose you know, and the minute you take one part, it just changed. But you know, luckily we've just grin and you know, grit our teeth and just grind bear it and just got on with it.

9:50 Speaker 5: And on this occasion we came out the other other ends smelling the roses, I suppose. So our new drummer is really really good. He's really entertaining to watch as well.

10:01 Speaker 2: Excellent, excellent.

10:02 Speaker 3: We added a.

10:02 Speaker 6: Keyboard player as well, Vote further and playing keyboard and extra guitar as well, so the band expanded our sound as well. With that, we've always wanted to get the keys involved in our sound. Don't rote further, and he's he's added a lot to the band as well.

10:18 Speaker 5: No, excellent, Yeah, I mean like we've we've always wanted to sort of make our sound looser and bigger, and that's not always the case by adding extra instruments. But then if you're a musician, you'll understand that the more that you can add the more space can be creative if people are tasteful. You know, it's all about being tasteful and not overdoing things, you know. So you know it's given every single instrument a space within the music.

10:49 Speaker 1: I suppose yeah right, well said, yeah absolutely.

10:54 Speaker 2: Did did you guys open? Is this correct? You guys open for.

10:58 Speaker 3: Oh?

10:59 Speaker 2: Definitely? Away Sis? Is that a is?

11:00 Speaker 3: Like?

11:01 Speaker 2: Is that an Oasis tribute band?

11:03 Speaker 3: Yeah?

11:03 Speaker 6: Yeah, that's one of the travel in the world or one of the one.

11:07 Speaker 4: Of the premieer ones.

11:09 Speaker 1: Yeah.

11:10 Speaker 5: Yeah, we were opened for them at the Electrotrons say big Benjy and Edinburgh say nice. Yeah, but like obviously yeah, that was a really nice gig for us.

11:21 Speaker 3: It was yeah, one of the best one. Yeah, that was that was top that top night.

11:26 Speaker 4: No, it was absolutely rammed.

11:31 Speaker 5: You've got to do like you know, you probably know the way Scotts people are like to party, you know, you know, the gigs themselves are really really charged, like you'll have an audience that's right up for it, you know, yeah, every one of them. So yeah, it's it's quite entertaining that a little stick in your head for a while.

11:53 Speaker 4: That guy.

11:56 Speaker 1: Yeah, that's the second time in the show today that Oasis is come up because with with our our previous guests, we were the radio addicts.

12:03 Speaker 2: We were talking about Oasis.

12:05 Speaker 3: Is that?

12:06 Speaker 1: Is that a band that's an influence on you guys? They're one of my favorite bands. But I've noticed when I talked.

12:10 Speaker 3: About over the band as well.

12:11 Speaker 6: Yeah, well, but like everybody in the band is all different sort of influences as well. They're like, h like, I love them, but I love people and they I think they're all right right, So.

12:28 Speaker 5: You know, I'm more into city like where they got their influences from, like sort of grew up listening the led Zeppelin and you know, the beat Oats and the Stones and things like that, you know, and and even more obscure ones. Gas is in the ivy bit and tease and stuff like that, you know. And then Brian's right, and he's indy, but he's kind of like, you know, a bit like me as really like some of the older bands. And then everybody's got their own and only thing, and we actually laugh at each other's influences.

12:57 Speaker 3: You know.

12:58 Speaker 5: It creates quite a good but ban within the band because yeah, Brian can't stand country music. Yeah, it's not here to unfortunate, right.

13:12 Speaker 1: Yeah, Scottish as far as Scottish bands too, you know, because I'm curious about that. Simple Minds is what was one of my favorite bands growing up. They're the first ones I think of when I think of Scottish bands.

13:24 Speaker 2: But I mean, like, what what is the scene like?

13:28 Speaker 1: There are there a lot of bands that sound like what you guys are doing or do you kind of.

13:34 Speaker 4: No, definitely not. We do have a quite unique sound as e since.

13:39 Speaker 5: But no, don't get me wrong, the Scottish music scene is absolutely bustling. Yeah that was you know, and I really cracking scene here. But it's just really hard to to get gigs in venues now.

13:54 Speaker 4: And that's not because of the lack of talent.

13:57 Speaker 5: It's actually just because the price of actually running a gig now is tripled or something in the last six years. So when you go into a venue, they you know, it's expensive. You have to charge more for tickets. Everybody's getting paid a wee bit more, and that there isn't much left for the musicians. So we're all struggling. We're all struggling in Scotland, but we don't care about that. It's not that that's not an.

14:24 Speaker 4: Issue, you know.

14:25 Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, absolutely, yeah, you just gotta got to keep going. But I mean it sounds like you guys have a lot of have a lot of momentum. And by the way, the EP we we kind of alluded to it earlier. But Common Bond that that came out last year, right, mm hmm, yeah.

14:40 Speaker 6: Yeah, last October. I think of this. Yeah, six tracks on that one a Common Bond. The sort of the main one that done well for that was one host Down that was another week cat to s three minute radio friendly song. But we recorded our first two singles Middle of Nowhere and like from.

15:00 Speaker 5: That and then but they were posted onto the EP we to give folk an EP, you know. But that that was a WEE test in the ground, wasn't it. And I think from that we realized that we actually need to split the songs up, you know, and release them and individually they each get like what sort of attention if you like the songs each Yeah, we all believe right that every one of our songs has got like, you know, potential greatness, you know, and it's just I suppose finding the right people. But with the short attention span that was talking about, we released the E p and most people, well there will be folks that did listen to the whole thing, but the majority folks were only really listening to the first chart, and that's just not what it's about, you know, see, So unless you can give them a physical copy, you know, which is rare nowadays people get physical copies.

16:03 Speaker 5: It's a lot a lot of it's just digital download and stuff like that. So you know, like they'll just press skip, won't listen to the first churn and then that's it.

16:13 Speaker 4: So yeah, that's what we're struggling against.

16:17 Speaker 5: Sure, people's attention span. But then again, it's just you need to keep just doing it, keeping putting the music out there and let you know, and then you never know. We've had some really interesting things happen. We animations and stuff made for us, and quite a lot of nice attention on the radio and things like that, so we hope to build from that moving on.

16:42 Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, excellent. Well you're definitely on a positive trajectory, no doubt about it. At the end of our conversation, when we let you guys go in a couple of minutes, we're gonna play this this song, Light from Dark.

16:54 Speaker 2: I really like this a lot is there is.

16:56 Speaker 1: There any kind of a particular story behind this song or uh? And you know, and again I like the I like the positivity, which seems to be definitely a theme with you guys.

17:06 Speaker 2: But anything we should know about this song, well, that one.

17:10 Speaker 3: That's an old song that I went and wrote.

17:12 Speaker 6: I don't know, maybe close to twelve year ago, maybe really yeah, but I'd always like before I joined the band, it's the first band I've ever been in, so I would I wrote just loaded songs just for playing on the acoustic guitar in the house, But that one I wrote. My message was going for a bit a a hard time, so that was kind of like it was a wee song for her. But I just basically kept it to myself. And then I went and played it to Andy and Brian when we were first thought of getting live together, and as soon as they heard it, they were like, wow, like, let's work on that till we worked it and I did the way as and I it's phenomenal.

17:55 Speaker 6: I such a proud moment when we're playing that tune because it's say, it's very emotional, because it's it's obviously it's describing to somebody that's having psychological issues that there's all light at the you know the end of the tunnel.

18:09 Speaker 4: It's not all done included.

18:10 Speaker 5: You know, it's trying to positive and that's what you know, I.

18:14 Speaker 4: Mean, set aside.

18:15 Speaker 5: You know, Gas is a brilliant songwriter, you know, And whether or not the songs are about depression, yeah, I often, quite often the music behind it's quite positive. So we try to balance it, you know, So if the message is really dark, right, the music will be sculpting around it to be really beautiful and hopefully positive. And I'm glad you're playing light for dark because it's it needs to be heard more from more people.

18:45 Speaker 6: Do you even me that one there is a message and again that there is hope, there is like that is basically there is, like say the end of tunnel yard.

18:54 Speaker 5: Too many people get stuck in a rut, you know, we were you know, bad, bad psychological issue and stuff like that, when they could just share it with somebody, I mean, you share it, you know, it makes things a whole lot easier. I mean, I do realize there's folks that are out there that you know, just can't get away from the problems they have. But you know, it's good to share them with folk gay and you never know when you share things what will happen. You know, sometimes a right positive thing comes out of it, like.

19:24 Speaker 4: For that being a good change.

19:27 Speaker 3: Yeah.

19:27 Speaker 1: No, As someone who struggles with depression, I can really appreciate all that. Maybe that's why the song connects with me the way that it does. But yeah, absolutely absolutely, guys. This has been wonderful guys and Andy. I really enjoyed talking with you guys, and we'll have you back. We'll definitely do this again in the future as you're releasing on more music. Yeah, sounds like you got a lot of good stuff coming up.

19:47 Speaker 3: So I've got another one coming soon as well.

19:51 Speaker 2: Oh perfect, perfect, not long.

19:56 Speaker 1: Where where's the before we let you guys go and we're going to hit that track light from Dark? But where's the best place to go online? To keep up with everything that you guys are doing, the the azuresence as as I the appreciation that I'm going with.

20:11 Speaker 6: We'll go like all social media. We're on Instagram and Facebook, tech Talk, and our music is on like every Spotify, Apple Music.

20:22 Speaker 4: If you type in our name, you'll find it. You know it's there.

20:27 Speaker 5: It's sometimes think we've got it in too many to many.

20:31 Speaker 4: Spotify seems to be the thing where we getting nat.

20:35 Speaker 2: Really.

20:36 Speaker 1: Yeah, but yeah, it's helpful that you have a name that's not a common word. So yes, it's it's very you're you're very google doable. As I like to say, it's if you google, if you google that, it comes right up.

20:49 Speaker 2: Guys, thank you again. We'll let you go and we'll hit that track.

20:51 Speaker 1: But thank you both again so much for joining us conversation.

20:56 Speaker 4: It's been interesting.

20:57 Speaker 3: Thank you.

20:57 Speaker 2: Oh thanks guys.

20:58 Speaker 1: All right, take care bye bye. All right. That is Gazz and Andy from the band the Azusins, and let's play this song. Like I said, this really connects with me. This is called Light from Dark