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29 April 2024

Every Monday I will be bringing you an interview with an independent band, duo or music artist. This week, I caught up with Michael from Kent based duo Martyrs to find out more…

Who is in the duo, how did you meet, where are you from and how did you come up with the name?
We’re Jon and Michael (that’s me). We grew up together in Merthyr Tydfil, South Wales and started our first band together with some school friends. We parted ways for a long time but started making music together again a few years ago. We’re both living in Kent now. The name is based on the English translation of our home town: Tydfil the Martyr. She was a 5th century princess who was killed in that region. We’ve got very strong ties to where we came from, so we thought it was perfect to serve as a constant reminder to us of where we first met and started making music.

Who were your musical influences when you were growing up and who are your influences now?
Jon and I bonded over REM, Nirvana, Suede, Manic Street Preachers when we were kids. I think we both still love those bands now. Personally, my tastes changed over time and I got more interested in other kinds of music. The Blue Nile, Aztec Camera, Prefab Sprout really opened my eyes to what you can achieve with pop music. Then Aphex Twin, Oneohtrix Point Never, The Caretaker really opened my eyes to electronic music. We’ve both been listening to a lot of classic singer-songwriters like Billy Joel, Springsteen, someone like Christopher Cross who people kind of make fun of but his songs are incredible. Most recently I’m listening to recent soul stuff Jalen Ngonda and classics like Curtis Mayfield a lot, but I still have a real soft spot for a lot of “alt-rock”, a lot of guitar bands, punk bands. Jon has an incredible ear for production so while I’m listening for hooks I can steal, he’s listening more to what works sonically on a Madonna or Cyndi Lauper or Hall & Oates album. I’m the luddite just listening to the tunes, Jon’s the smart one understanding how you put it all together.

How would you describe your sound?
I’m trying to make “Post-Yacht” stick, but it’s not happening. Our first album ‘Un Diavolo In Casa’ from 2022 was very lo-fi, quite brutal in parts. It was written and recorded during consecutive lockdowns and it reflects the darkness of that time. There were vocal parts recorded on an iPhone and we wrote most of it going back and forth by text. This new one ‘Luminism’ is a brighter, shinier thing altogether. It’s waking up to a sunrise after the long, dark night of the first record. It’s a cautiously optimistic sound that hopefully will fill people not just with nostalgia and warmth, but with a sense of hope that we have for the future too. Someone said it was “Luxury pop” which is funny, particularly when we’re so DIY in our approach, but not inaccurate.

What is your latest release called and what was the influence behind it?
The last single ‘Sunset Thinking’, which came out on April 12th, was a very personal song; it’s my attempt to depict the experience of someone who finds themselves in the role of carer, in a situation where they believed they were a partner, a friend, or family member. It’s a song about dealing with the frustration which arises from trying to help someone suffering with mental health issues. It’s about the strain of attempting to show someone the value in the small, beautiful moments in life. It’s about the tiny victories these wonderful people achieve when they can show you the light coming in through the cracks, if only for a moment. Sonically it’s quite beautiful, Jon has given it this ’80s shine that accentuates the emotion rather than detracting from it.

This new single ‘Where Did You Go?’, out May 3rd is a disco tune about a haunted music box. Nothing deeper than that. I like ghost stories and I like songs with unconventional subject matter.

‘Luminism’ is the album, out May 10th.
We asked the frankly very stupid question “What would yacht rock sound like if we just made it at home instead of in a multi-million dollar studio?”
The answer we came up with is what you hear on Luminism. It delves into a deeply personal swirl of nostalgia and reminiscence on a wave of bright, shiny synth and ‘80s guitar: We revisit a lost New York on the rose-tinted ‘One Mile House’, recall our reckless youth with the pure pop of ‘We Were In Gold’ and remember the heyday of the Minneapolis pro wrestling scene on piano ballad ‘Death of the Territories’. Elsewhere there’s the soul-inspired sound of optimistic protest on ‘Shadows’ and a disco depiction of addiction on ‘Get Out Of My Head’. It’s a weird album now that I’m seeing it all written down, but we think it’s pretty good. It’s as much influenced by The Blue Nile as Billy Joel, as much Deerhunter as Donna Summer, and attempts a pirouette along the bizarre, fine line between Bruce Springsteen and New Order. Does it succeed? No idea. We hope in these songs you’ll hear the hum of old TV station idents, the buzz of FM radio; see the light reflecting off a new CD, the first flickering images of a late night horror movie: and feel the joy of the first day of a childhood summer. So, nothing too ambitious then. Lyrically a lot of it was inspired by moving away from London and to the coast, and the kind of positive impact that had on my mental and physical health. Well, that and pro wrestling podcasts.

What’s your local music scene like?
There’s a tiny venue about two minutes from my front door that puts on touring bands, local bands, and it’s a great place, always a good crowd, great sound, great atmosphere. Ramsgate Music Hall. It’s one of my favourite music venues anywhere in the UK. As a band we’re quite separate from the local scene as we don’t really play live and I don’t get out to pubs and bars and catch bands any more.

What do you have planned for the next 12 months?
Hopefully we’ll get some people to hear this album. Or, at least, more than the four people that heard the first one. Then we’ll be on to the next. There are a lot of demos recorded, so we might do something with them. Or just try something completely different. I’d quite like to make a metal album, but we’ll see how that goes. Our “ambition” with Martyrs is to make music and have people hear it, nothing more than that.

Is there anyone you’d love to collaborate with?
I’m very happy collaborating with Jon to be honest. There’s a Californian singer called Carol Martini I’d like to record a song with, and some friends we could theoretically get on board but we work best left to our own devices I think.

Any funny stories surrounding your live performances?
Well, we’ve never played live. I don’t think we could recreate our stuff without putting a full band together, and after many years playing in rock bands that’s not something either of us is keen to do. A radio station recently asked us to record an acoustic session for them, which was very kind of them, but we were talking about it, like, “Where would we even start? None of these songs have ever been played in that context!”

What is the one thing that you want readers to know about you?
Our proceeds from the sales of our singles and the album on our Bandcamp go to Trussell Trust: Help Stop UK Hunger, which we believe is something worth making money for. Even if people only give us a spin on streaming, it would be lovely if they could just put a quid their way.

You can find out more about Martyrs via Bandcamp, Facebook, Instagram, SoundCloud, Spotify or YouTube.