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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 Liam from Epping band Midnight Repost to find out more…

Who is in the band, how did you meet, where are you from and how did you come up with the name?
I (Liam) started the project in the lockdowns of 2020 as a solo artist. The name came about because in reference to having to post later in the day on social media to catch all of the Americans who would’ve otherwise been asleep. I brought in my childhood best friend Darius as a bassist in mid 2021. Then later in the year, when searching for a drummer, Freddie introduced himself to us and we started playing live shows together.

Who were your musical influences when you were growing up and who are your influences now?
For me (Liam) it’s been a bit of a strange journey musically. I started out by playing drums in a grunge band at 11 years old as I was obsessed with Nirvana and other 90s groups. At some point this transformed in completely the opposite direction as I developed a love for orchestral composition and classical music. So I trained as a film composer through university, and also studying jazz theory in Los Angeles. But all throughout I still harboured a love for rock music and particularly the indie sub-genre. I’ve always taken huge inspiration in my writing from bands like Foo Fighters and The Beatles. But my main recent influences and the direction I’m trying to take the band in are artists such as Half Alive, the Band CAMINO, Nothing But Thieves and Spoon. As a group all three of us have a deep love of heavier stuff too like Rammstein and Bring Me The Horizon but we don’t really write in that sort of style. But we do try to pinch little moments of it in our music when we can.

How would you describe your sound?
We’ve transformed our sound quite a bit over the past year and I’d describe the current sound as a mix of nostalgic noughties pop rock and a modern nu-funk sound. We like to try and challenge the listener a little bit in between our ear candy tunes with something a little bit more bold and polarising.

What is your latest release called and what was the influence behind it?
The latest single which is the first of five is called “Stay” and is the flagship song of our new era. Previously we had relied heavily on a clean polished pop sound but this time we wanted more of a raw and real vibe. The song is about an individual trying to keep a tight grip on a relationship that is slowly slipping away from them but not having the emotional intelligence to be able to fix it. They’re completely oblivious to the fact that they’re the problem and the way that they think is broken and contradictory. It’s amazing how many people out there that simply don’t have the capacity to reflect and have some self-awareness. So the song is an outburst from the perspective of that character and the frustration they feel when they don’t understand what the problem is.

What’s your local music scene like?
Being in the very south of Essex we tend to travel to areas in London for our music scene to play and see shows. Camden is our main favourite but we often go to Shoreditch as well.

What do you have planned for the next 12 months?
We have four more songs to release to finish off our five-track debut EP, and we’ve already started the process of recording our second EP. We have a tour in June planned for three nights, and we’ll also be hosting a release party for the debut EP in London sometime in July. We’ll also be releasing bonus tracks to the debut EP, which will be the five songs reimagined in a way that we’re going to keep secret for now.

Is there anyone you’d love to collaborate with?
I would love to collaborate with a female vocalist as I have a song already written that would be perfect for a feature.

Any funny stories surrounding your live performances?
There’s a story that sticks out in my mind a little more which is we were lined up to play this show and upon arriving to the venue we thought it was a dive and in a ghost town and that no one would show up. We were quite bummed about the vibe so we were kind of moping about, and then when the time came to go on stage the whole room was packed with an audience and we couldn’t believe it. It ended up being one of the best shows we’ve ever played, I think partially because of the lack of expectation, but it was just such a good energy in the room and everybody had a great time. So never judge a book by its cover and never just a venue by it’s location I suppose is the moral of the story.

What is the one thing that you want readers to know about you?
That we have got a LOT of music planned which we’re writing faster than we can even record it, and we plan to be doing this for a very, very long time. We also have a narrative to our EP that we are playing out by working with an animator to create short form content that by the end of the EP’s releasing schedule will have created a cohesive story to the five songs.

Upcoming live dates and performances
Friday 7th June – The Slaughtered Lamb, London
Saturday 8th June – Voodoo Daddy’s, Norwich
Sunday 9th June – Percy’s Penthouse, Nottingham

You can find out more about Midnight Repost on their website or via Apple Music, Facebook, Instagram, Spotify, TikTok or YouTube.