21 October 2024
Every Monday I will be bringing you an interview with an independent band, duo or music artist. This week, I caught up with Glasgow band The Crollas 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?
The band is made up of Adam, Alex aka Al, Charlotte, Euan, and Alex aka Leven. We come from a mix of places: the Lakes, Lanarkshire, East Lothian and in and around London. We all met naturally through friends at university, with the band forming organically around that.
We came up with the name in a brainstorm after band practice one day – we threw out the idea of naming ourselves after a chippy, there’s a Pizza Crolla on the corner of George Square… it stuck from then on.
Who were your musical influences when you were growing up and who are your influences now?
Growing up we all had pretty different music tastes, with artists like ABBA, Feeder, Razorlight, Guns N’ Roses, and Kendrick Lamar comprising each of our 5 catalogues. As a band, we think we draw influence from the likes of Catfish and the Bottleman, Sam Fender, The Strokes, and The Libertines, but it really does vary.
How would you describe your sound?
Something like guitar-indie-rock; our tracks often straddle a few genres, with bits of folk, 70s rock, and punk here and there, centred around indie. We all tend to write a bit like hopeless romantics, not that any of us are…
What is your latest release called and what was the influence behind it?
Our latest single is called Too Many Times. It’s an aggressive, punky track about the trials and tribulations of both relationships and single life, with the hook being a sort of warning against not repeating the same behaviours even when your emotions might tell you to. It wasn’t really influenced by anything in particular; I was listening to a lot of Radiohead when I wrote it, specifically The Bends, and I think the mood and guitar tone on the track reflects that. Weirdly, bits of the chord progression accidentally line up with Buena Vista Social Club’s song “Chan Chan”; not a conscious influence for sure!
What’s your local music scene like?
Glasgow’s an amazing place for grassroots indie-rock. There’s tons of great people in the scene from bands to promoters to venues. The only downside being it feels really hard to get your name out there in such a busy, saturated city. Still, we count ourselves lucky to be in such an active music scene.
What do you have planned for the next 12 months?
We have a few gigs booked over the next few months, including one we’re throwing together ourselves (stay tuned for that). We hope to continue bringing out singles, more merch designs, and building our way towards an album in 2025. We also want to play a bit more outside of Glasgow – playing in Manchester this summer was an absolute blast so we’re excited to travel more across the UK and spread our sound!
Is there anyone you’d love to collaborate with?
Since our debut earlier in 2024 we’ve met some great bands and made some good friends across the Glasgow music scene. Mainly we want to keep on building these bridges and playing on bills with likeminded people. That said, we love the sounds of Hardwicke Circus, German Radio, and Straid.
Any funny stories surrounding your live performances?
We’ve had a couple mishaps from amps blowing to cymbals going for a walk-about mid-song, but the funniest was probably at our debut gig headlining King Tut’s. For a super-intimate ballad with just one guitar and piano, we had to restart the song one chord in as Adam’s acoustic had gone out of tune in the 15 minutes we’d been on-stage. Grabbed the electric, all fine. Then, as the song built, his guitar strap decided to give up, forcing Leven to run on-stage and improvise some DIY to get it sorted, all whilst Al kept playing and Adam kept singing. Definitely a humbling lesson about live performing for our debut!
What is the one thing that you want readers to know about you?
We are very fresh on the scene but are very happy with the progress we’ve made so far. As 5 students it can be tough to balance work, uni, and music, but we’re glad we have the chance to. The main thing we want to get across is that there’s more on the way! Space and Too Many Times are just the tip of the iceberg for The Crollas and we hope to showcase more of what we have to offer in the near future.
Upcoming live dates and performances
Performing an acoustic set on Thursday 21st November at The Record Factory, Glasgow with BlackBird Music! You can get tickets here.
You can find out more about The Crollas via Apple Music, Instagram, Spotify, TikTok, X (Twitter) or YouTube.
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