This website uses cookies so that we can provide you with the best user experience possible. Cookie information is stored in your browser and performs functions such as recognising you when you return to our website and helping our team to understand which sections of the website you find most interesting and useful.
Artist Interviews
Q&A: eaststrikewest
By CMU Editorial | Published on Tuesday 20 October 2009
Forming in late 2007, Essex six-piece eaststrikewest came together after the fragmentation of former project threemovements (who were awesome, incidentally). After building a strong following, the sextet were snapped up by UK hardcore label Thirty Days Of Night Records, who boast early releases from artists such as Bring Me The Horizon and Gallows. With influences coming from a multitude of genres, eaststrikewest’s music has been described as anthemic-indie-shoegaze-pop and has caught the attention of the likes of Radio One’s Steve Lamacq; who named them as his band to watch for 2009 after the release of their debut EP, ‘Rosa’. The band have just released their debut mini-album, ‘Wolvves’, and are set to play London’s Underworld on 21 Oct. We spoke to guitarist Jim Saddington to ask our Same Six Questions.
Q1 How did you start out making music?
One of us owned a guitar but didn’t know how to play it. Another had a ‘how to play guitar’ video but didn’t have a guitar. It seemed only logical that we should get together. Upon getting together we preceded to steal the best musicians from the best bands around. Ten keyboard players, four singers and four guitarists later, we are settled as eaststrikewest.
Q2 What inspired your latest album?
There is no overarching meaning or throughline, really. It’s a ambitious pack of songs that have come together over a long time. The only thing we really wanted for this record is for it to sound big, like an orchestra playing pop songs. It’s been created to prove that we have come a long way from previous projects, we have the ability to do more than people have given us credit for in the past.
Q3 How do you go about creating a track?
It varies. I have a limited technical knowledge, so if I get bored and can’t write I mess about with tunings to find different sounds. From there I work it back into something we can play on our usual tunings (A,E,A,E,E). That’s how the first track on the mini-album, ‘God Can’t Take His Eyes Off Me’, began. The song ‘Welcoming The Ghosts’ started as a piece of tapping on guitar which was transposed onto keys, then reassigned as midi harp, then had the tunings shifted down for a ‘bass harp’ sound then had cut up beats added underneath it.
Q4 Which artists influence your work?
Because there are six of us, influences are varied, personal and rarely agreed upon. It seems to be specific elements of songs we are inspired by, rather than an artist’s back catalogue: the drums of ‘In Utero’, Sonic Youth’s unconventional approach to guitars and tuning alongside the low end noises of Cult Of Luna, the choral sound and orchestration of Spiritualized and the ‘wall of sound’ heard on ‘Pet Sounds’.
Q5 What would you say to someone experiencing your music for the first time?
Believe the hype. Everything you’ve either heard or read about us is true, both good and bad.
We must also insist on the bass and treble positions of 2 and 5 respectively.
Q6 What are your ambitions for your latest album, and for the future?
For this album… as a foot up into the spotlight. This mini-album is a calling card, or a promotional trailer for what is to come next. For the future… to be bigger and better than everything and everyone else.
MORE>> www.myspace.com/eaststrikewestband
