Viva Los Villains | Matt Connarton Unleashed

0:00 Speaker 1: Oh my god, I love that the track has lived fast. The band is Viva los Villains from the album Year of the Villain. And let's see who we have with us via WhatsApp. I think we have Jonathan Ordridge with us.

0:11 Speaker 2: Hello, Yeah, hi Matt.

0:13 Speaker 3: Yeah, you got Johnny here, and I'm joined by the other boys.

0:16 Speaker 2: Oh got all three of you?

0:18 Speaker 3: Yeah.

0:19 Speaker 2: Oh wonderful, wonderful.

0:21 Speaker 1: Okay, So we got Jonathan Ordridge, Tom Marfleet and Aaron Bailey. I'm really glad you guys could join us today. I love that song. I listened to the whole album. Uh, Year of the Villain and it's so good. I love your sound. Who so, who's uh? Who's the guitar player?

0:37 Speaker 4: Well, Aaron does a lot of the lead guitar stuff. Tom does a lot of the rhythm stuff.

0:42 Speaker 1: I will pay yeah, and then uh so, okay, so Aaron does some, Tom does rhythm, and then Jonathan what do you do?

0:53 Speaker 3: So either bass or rhythm?

0:54 Speaker 5: Oh?

0:54 Speaker 2: I got you? I got you? Okay? And who's singing?

0:58 Speaker 3: I sing on that one?

1:00 Speaker 6: Johnny?

1:00 Speaker 3: Yes, so, but Tom sings on quite a few as well.

1:03 Speaker 2: Sot kind of gotcha gotcha?

1:06 Speaker 1: Yeah, that's interesting and obviously you know, for for a trio, you guys got a big sound, but it's also it's just so cool. I have not heard a lot of bands that have that kind of vibe recently that are that are you know, just doing stuff like that? And uh, I love the guitar solo at the end of that. Is it's fantastic.

1:31 Speaker 3: Yeah, well, yeah, thanks, thanks very much.

1:33 Speaker 2: Absolutely, I love that.

1:36 Speaker 3: Yeah.

1:37 Speaker 5: Yeah, so the sound is really we we love classic rock. We're all brought up on classic rock, you know, listening to our parents' records, and so that kind of big, meaty sound of the seventies and eighties is really something that we go for.

1:51 Speaker 2: Yeah.

1:52 Speaker 1: Absolutely, is that something I know, this isn't your first release. Is that something that you've kind of uh strove to sound like from the very beginning? Or has the sound change over changed over time?

2:06 Speaker 4: Sound?

2:06 Speaker 5: The first stuff that we put out was was a bit more poppy but pop orientated. But the sound particularly when Aaron joined us, because it was just me and Johnny as a duo originally and then Aaron joined us, and the sounds got heavier and heavier since then.

2:22 Speaker 1: Ye, So well, let me get the obvious question out of the way. So where does the name come from? Viva Lost Villains or is it Viva Low's Villains or doesn't matter.

2:35 Speaker 5: So we were just sort of kicking about names. In fact, the band originally was called Actung. We wanted something that was kind of really in your face, and then Johnny really fancied he wanted a band with the word villain in it. It was something that you were kind of really into, wasn't it. Yeah, And we just kind of, yeah, worked on the name for a number of weeks, and that's what we landed on.

2:57 Speaker 2: Yeah. No, I like that.

2:59 Speaker 1: Are people surprise? I mean, given given where you're from, uh, to have a name like that? Well, actually, where are you guys from?

3:06 Speaker 2: Exactly? Where where are you in the UK?

3:09 Speaker 3: So like southern England?

3:11 Speaker 5: Okay, we're about hours south of London I suppose.

3:16 Speaker 1: Okay, Okay, are there other bands in that area that sound anything like you guys? Or I would imagine you really stand out?

3:23 Speaker 2: Yeah.

3:23 Speaker 5: I don't think it's heavy as us. There's a we're lucky to be in quite a musical scene down here. Yeah, but certainly, you know, I think guitar bands have been out of fashion for quite a long time and not not that that matters much to us, but certainly I think our sound is pretty heavy for the scene, right.

3:43 Speaker 2: Right, Yeah, no doubt.

3:45 Speaker 1: I mean there's something I mean, forgive me for saying this, I don't know if this is okay to say or not, but there's something very like I would not know that you were not an American band if I didn't already know that, you know, just from listening to you, there's something very sort of American Southwestern about your sound, if that makes sense.

4:02 Speaker 6: Yeah, I think this kind of a bluesy kind of vibe behind it, which we've been sort of exploring a little bit. Yeah, somewhat covered up by the sort of the heavier rock sound, but I think it's still there elements.

4:14 Speaker 3: Of country as well.

4:15 Speaker 5: We've done some kind of I wouldn't say they were country tracks, but definitely some influences of country in there as well. So we're massive bands of American music. And yeah, again it's another thing that's kind of fed the fed the sound.

4:28 Speaker 2: I suppose, Yeah, no doubt, no doubt. Are you guys playing live a lot? Are you touring?

4:35 Speaker 5: Not a huge amount, to be honest with you, We're really focusing on on the studio stuff and kind of getting out good records. But then we've got plans for digging and touring coming up hopefully soon.

4:45 Speaker 1: Part of why I wondered is I just I bet these songs sound incredible live. I can just I'm just kind of imagining it.

4:55 Speaker 3: Down pretty well, especially the heavy ones.

4:56 Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, no doubt, no doubt, And I love it. Okay, So tell me about the album artwork. And by the way, I would encourage anybody, uh to go online and and take a look at the album artwork for this again it's a Viva Loos Villain's Year of the Villain.

5:10 Speaker 2: Did one of you guys do the artwork?

5:13 Speaker 3: Yes, so we we we have.

5:15 Speaker 4: We we love the idea of this kind of smoking skull and we use it a little bit on sort of artwork and stuff around us. And I think we quite like the mascot, like Eddie to Iron Maiden. I think this may be used on like future covers for us in the in the future and in various ways. But yeah, we like kind of brought into the smoking Skull character and can just see it being rolled out.

5:43 Speaker 5: Yeah, it's very much all the stuff we do, the music that the visuals it's a team effort, and we we tend to just knock step backwards and forwards.

5:51 Speaker 3: Some have an idea, you.

5:52 Speaker 5: Know what, how's this for a for an album of an album cover or a single cover. I've got a great photo that I took. Maybe we could we could do something in that. So, you know, really a team effort and getting everything together.

6:04 Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, no, I really I really like the artwork and I like the mascot idea. That makes sense. How long have you guys been around? I mean it, it hasn't been too too long, right.

6:15 Speaker 5: No, Well, so Johnny and I, Johnny and I have known each other for nearly twenty years, oh wow. And Aaron's been part of our friendship group for a long time as well.

6:24 Speaker 3: But so, Johnny and I wrote a lot of stuff, you know, way back in the day, and.

6:31 Speaker 5: But only in the last couple of years kind of got together and started doing stuff a bit more seriously. So we did have kind of a kind of back catalog of stuff we'd written over the years that really helped us kind of drive the early stuff. But you know, we meet up, you know, a few times a month generally writing and recording and rehearsing stuff.

6:53 Speaker 2: So yeah, no, that's great. And then what are your plans after this album?

7:00 Speaker 1: I mean, obviously, right now you're focused on promoting this, but I assume because it sounds like you've got a lot of things in the pipeline that you probably you know, a lot of music written that you haven't necessarily recorded yet. It sounds like you guys are always writing.

7:13 Speaker 5: We've got the label, so they records would would be really angry with us if we didn't mention it. We had single out yesterday called the Devil in Me, which that came out literally yesterday, so listeners are interested, they can look that up and they can find us on all popular streaming platforms.

7:31 Speaker 2: Oh is that not on You're of the Villain?

7:34 Speaker 3: No, this is a standalone single that we released literally yesterday.

7:39 Speaker 2: Oh, very interesting.

7:40 Speaker 1: Well, because we're going to play something obviously at the end of our conversation as well to bookend the segment, and maybe I will play that.

7:50 Speaker 3: Nice. That'd be greatly cool.

7:52 Speaker 2: Oh, it looks like you have a video for it too, good.

7:55 Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, yeah, so that was us. Yes, we filmed that down at You're near us in Portsmouth.

8:03 Speaker 2: Oh outstanding?

8:04 Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, it's so important, you know, and it's funny in America. I don't know if if you guys run into this over there at all, but there are some people in America who think. Usually it's people not active in the music industry in any way who are under this impression that because you know, MTV has gone away, and people think that there's no more music videos and they don't realize that actually, if you just go on YouTube, there's more music videos than ever.

8:26 Speaker 2: Everybody makes music videos now.

8:27 Speaker 1: It's really become such an essential thing in terms of promoting your music, especially when you have a new single and sharing that out on social media and all of that.

8:37 Speaker 5: Yeah, totally, And you know, I think the trend is actually people more people watching the music videos than streaming the music. You know, people want to they've got their phone in their hands and they're finding new music.

8:51 Speaker 3: It really helps to have a visual with it.

8:53 Speaker 2: Yeah. Absolutely.

8:54 Speaker 1: Now, what went into the decision to release a single outside of that's not on the album? Is there is there any particular strategy about it or was it just something you guys felt like doing.

9:04 Speaker 3: We'll have to talk to the label about that.

9:07 Speaker 2: Interesting, damn.

9:10 Speaker 5: He runs the label as I said, it's Soday Records, and he gives us a schedule.

9:16 Speaker 3: You know, he's very.

9:17 Speaker 5: Good to say, you know, he doesn't put too much pressure on us. He lets us release what we want, but he'll say we're going to have something coming out on the eighth of May, and then the next months on such and such a date.

9:28 Speaker 3: And we kind of worked towards that. Really, I think there was more an element that we were so excited about this particular track.

9:34 Speaker 6: Yeah, we've been very passionate about since we since we sort of created about six months ago, that we were just keen to get it out as soon as we could.

9:44 Speaker 3: Yeah, even just as a free standing single.

9:47 Speaker 1: No, that makes sense. That makes sense in terms of being on a label. Do you guys find it's uh?

9:53 Speaker 2: Is it easier?

9:54 Speaker 1: Does it kind of take that off of your plate? Because I know a lot of artists who don't want to be like some artists and function on a label because they have to be in control of every little thing. I talked to a lot of guests on the show who it's like they're so dialed into every little aspect of what they do that the idea of being on a label, you know, unless it was a major label that offered them a million dollar advance or something, which doesn't even happen anymore. But the idea of being on a label is so anathema to how they operate.

10:21 Speaker 1: But it sounds like for you guys, it's working really well.

10:26 Speaker 3: Yeah, I'd say so.

10:27 Speaker 5: I think it's really nice for us to be able to focus on the music and sounds very good at kind of holding our hand and particularly on the promotional side of stuff, just kind of leading us in the right direction. I think being an artist these days, you have to be everything you have to you know, be able to play the music, write the music, record the music, produce the music, produce content for the music, and it's it's a lot to kind of to handle. So for us it's nice to have some holding our hand on certain aspects of it.

11:00 Speaker 6: I think we have a lot of autonomy as well in terms of being able to produce the kind of music that we want to make.

11:06 Speaker 3: Yeah, for surely.

11:07 Speaker 2: Yeah.

11:08 Speaker 1: So he's obviously not trying to micromanage what your output is, just more what what happens to it when it's out right, And like.

11:16 Speaker 5: We come from a really a diy music background, you know, we are doing, you know, pretty much everything ourselves, which you know a lot of people are doing these days,

11:27 Speaker 5: and Sam just kind of gives us the freedom to be able to do that. I mean, he's never once said I'm not releasing that.

11:35 Speaker 2: That's excellent. That's excellent. By the way.

11:37 Speaker 1: So for the for the album You're of the Villain, I'm curious, is it you have physical Do you have physical copies of it as well?

11:46 Speaker 5: At the moment though, just just just just the digital you know, it's it's it's one of it's a difficult one because you know the cost of getting getting vinyl or CDs out there is pretty high. You know, it can be a high.

12:00 Speaker 3: Risk strategy for.

12:02 Speaker 5: Sorry, it's a pretty high risk strategy for kind of investment.

12:09 Speaker 3: Investment wise.

12:10 Speaker 5: We're kind of happy building our you know, our following and presence online, but definitely be interested in doing some some physical releases in the future.

12:18 Speaker 2: It would be wonderful to see that. You guys have probably thought of this too.

12:21 Speaker 1: It would be wonderful to see that artwork, which I just love so much from here The Villain on a on a big vinyl record, you know what I mean.

12:30 Speaker 2: But but it is very expensive to do that absolutely, absolutely great.

12:36 Speaker 1: Well, so, what uh, what should people know about where to find you guys online for people who want to keep up with everything that you're doing with all things Vivolos Villains.

12:45 Speaker 3: Yeah, so we're pretty.

12:46 Speaker 5: Busy on on Instagram and on on Facebook, Sam and the record label product of pushing it on TikTok YouTube. So yeah, mostly social media channels. You search for Villains on Google, you'll probably find us.

13:03 Speaker 1: Yeah, you're very googleable, certainly a word that I like to use, which is extremely important in the times that we live in. So very easy to find you. So I love it. I love the album again. I encourage everybody please go check out the album Viva Last Villain's Year of the Villain, And we are about to play the new single Devil and Me. We'll give that a spin as soon as we wrap up with you guys. Anything else we should know about this track Devil and Me? Is it kind of the same I mean, we'll hear it in a moment, but is it kind of the same vibe as the album or is this truly a separate piece.

13:35 Speaker 4: Yes, so it is a separate piece, but I think it's you know, it's pretty slightly more.

13:42 Speaker 3: I think it would fit a dance floor more than the album would.

13:45 Speaker 2: Interesting.

13:47 Speaker 4: Yeah, it's it's a bit more funky, but it's still rocking, still catchy.

13:52 Speaker 3: We were writing, we wrote it back in November.

13:54 Speaker 5: We had a kind of band away weekend writing weekend, and we started writing.

13:58 Speaker 3: Some came up with the chords and then.

14:01 Speaker 5: Someone said, do you know what this will sound amazing with a just go kind of on the floor beat on it, and we put it on the We all just went, yeah, that's it.

14:08 Speaker 3: That's fantastic.

14:09 Speaker 5: So yeah, it's it's it's kind of upbeat but still heavy and yeah, I hope you and your listeners like him.

14:16 Speaker 2: Matt Oh, very cool. I cannot wait to listen to this. Okay. So, by the way, has this been played anywhere on the radio?

14:23 Speaker 3: No?

14:24 Speaker 5: Literally, come out literally yesterday, so I'd be surprised.

14:27 Speaker 3: I think it's exclusive.

14:29 Speaker 1: So this is a world we love the World radio premieres here, so I get to use the world premiere bumper.

14:35 Speaker 2: So that's great. I love it.

14:38 Speaker 1: I love it well, guys, thank you all three of you for joining us here today, Johnny, Tom and Aaron.

14:44 Speaker 2: Wonderful to speak with you.

14:46 Speaker 1: We'll definitely do it again in the future, especially as you're releasing new music, because it sounds like you've got a lot of stuff coming up.

14:50 Speaker 2: So but yeah, like I said, I love the album. I encourage everyone to check it out.

14:56 Speaker 1: So we will let you guys go and we will hit this track, brand new Devil in Me, and guys, thank you again so much, thanks my pleasure.

15:06 Speaker 2: You got it, Take care, bye bye, cheers.

15:09 Speaker 1: All right, that is the guys from Viva Los Villains and right now this is spontaneous, but we're gonna do the world radio premiere of the brand new single from Viva Los Villains, Devil in Me.