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One of the
hottest unsigned rock bands out there at the minute is The Xenith Sound.
We caught up with the newest member of the band and lead guitarist Tom
Flanagan after their gig at Trillians Rock Bar.
'How long have you been with the band now'?
'Since about July last year.
'Have you been
in any other bands prior to joining The Xenith Sound?'.
'Yes I've been in a few bands in the past but I was in between bands
when I saw an advert on a Leeds website advertising for a guitarist and
I thought I would check it out. I went for an audition and it was really
good and I enjoyed it. I listened to what they were doing at the time
and although it wasn't exactly what I wanted to do, I spoke to them and
said that if I was to join the band then things might go in a different
direction'.
'Toff the lead singer said that was OK because he wanted to experiment
and although we have still maintained the melody from before, we have
also experimented with different styles. Whereas before it was more
melodic, we've picked up on a few different things and since December
time we have developed a more mature sound. It's moved more towards the
Indie scene, more Cooper Temple Pilot. We've moved away from Melodic and
more towards Rock with Indie influences. On a couple of songs we've
really concentrated on the sound and reworked them until we got a more
atmospheric sound.'
'We're recording our new CD next month. We'll probably put on four songs
in total. We've already decided on two of the songs but we keep changing
out minds on what the other two will be. It's because different people
like different songs'.
'We're playing a gig next week in Leeds where you can do live recordings
straight off the sound desk. So we'll take a live recording and if the
mix is alright it might come in useful'. 'The Studio at
Hartlepool is really good for that kind of thing'.
'Yeh I'd heard that, I've never played there but would love to some
time. I'm from Northallerton which is just about an hour down the road
and so in my time playing, I've played Middlesbrough quite a few times
and a number of times people have said to me that we should play The
Studio, but I've never been yet'.
What's the scene like in Hartlepool?'
'It's alright, I always enjoy
watching bands performing at there, it's a great little venue'. 'What
did you think of the sound here tonight because we never can tell when
we're up on stage?'. 'Well
it was good, but not as good as the last time we saw you. I think it was
more to do with the mix than the band though.'
'Yeh, we're a lot harder to mix now because there's a lot more going on
with the band and the songs and all the effects we use so it is a lot
more harder for the sound guys to mix us.'
'A lot of people who were here tonight hadn't seen you perform before
and told me they were well impressed with the set'.
'That's good to hear. We noticed a few faces off the last time we came
and also some people said they'd been on to our website to check us out
before the gig. That's how it's starting to progress now. When I first
joined the band we had the same set of people who would come to all the
gigs but we didn't really get any new fans. Now word is spreading about
our music and we're starting to develop a wider crowd. People are
starting to check us out and then come back to check us out another time
so they must like what they saw the first time to make that effort to
come back out a second time'.
'This is only the third time I've been to Newcastle because all my
friends are Sunderland fans and they don't like me coming over here when
I'm up! (laughs). I really do like this venue though. It was a bit
worrying coming on after the football because if they'd lost and they'd
all had a lot to drink they might have been a bit hostile. But they
weren't and it wasn't too bad in the end'.
'I believe the band's been asked to appear at a few festivals?'
'Yeh, it's been a bit difficult though because the bass player has a
holiday booked at the back end of July, and I was at my family's in York
last weekend and I was looking in the evening press and it said York to
get it's own festival. So I took down all the details and as it was Toff
was already on to it, he's so much quicker than me with that type of
stuff, and so we got offered to do the opening slot at the festival.
I was so excited about it all because it will be like my home town and
this really big festival and everything. Then I found out Phil already
had his holidays booked the same time as the festival. Then the
Wakefield festival offered us the day after that. On top of all that
there's also the Richmond festival which I'd played at on the first year
when there was literally one man and his dog watching. Now they can
guarantee 15,000 people! It's all just been so phenomenal. All this in a
small town like Richmond! They've offered us the weekend after the York
one.
What we've had to do is arrange a stand-in for those gigs, it's actually
Mark who was the guitarist in this band before me. As much as he's
really a guitarist, he's also an excellent bass player and so he's
agreed to help us out while Phil's away. Phil's all for it because these
are all important festivals and so that's what we've managed to arrange.
I'm really pleased because they are three really good festivals and it
would be a shame not to be able to do them. We're very much on the
festival hunt right now.
I think we're also going to be playing a bikers festival in June some
time, the details are on our website. That should be quite an
interesting one. They've said they can guarantee 6,000, but that it
might be nearer 10,000. The biggest crowd I've ever played in front of
to date was about 2,000, so I'm really looking forward to playing in
front of bigger crowds. In general you usually find that people who like
their bikes also like their music so it should be a good day'.
'Who do you feel are your influences?'
'Oh that's such a tough one. Obviously I have personal influences with
regards to music, but with regards to song writing I don't really know.
I suppose more recently when we've been trying to develop our style you
can tell that we have been listening to the likes of Cooper Temple Pilot
and bands like that. But then again where they're strong in an
atmospheric kind of way, we've also listened to a lot of other stuff
that has had more powerful influences on us to try and retain that
powerful edge.
I think it's hard to answer that properly because there are just so many
bands that we all listen to individually, or as a group, that it's just
too hard to list them all. One fan came up to us tonight and said they
thought we sounded like a cross between The Black Crowes and another
band which sounded like Queens of the Stone Age, but weren't them.
That's a new description for us I must admit. I don't know much about
The Black Crows so I'm going to have to check them out to see if he was
right. I suppose it's better than before when we were being compared to
bands like Marillion and Def Leppard, which I didn't think was a fair
opinion on how we sound'.
'Well, I would have to say I thought you do sound slightly tinged with
Pink Floyd during your more atmospheric moments'.
'Well that's probably my doing because I'm a massive Floyd fan and every
time I demo songs on our little recorder and put together some material
for Toff to listen to and develop. I always end up putting some massive
Dave Gilmore type solo in which is way over the top. Toff then comes
back and says ... well if we get rid of that solo it would be a cracking
song.
We were just discussing this the other day actually. If Pink Floyd came
out now they just wouldn't be able to cut it. That's the problem now,
not that we are like Pink Floyd really, just perhaps on the atmospheric
side. I'm really pleased when people say that because I want it to still
be in there, only not so obvious and over the top. I don't think if Pink
Floyd came out now that they would be able to get a record deal. In my
opinion they are one of the best bands that's ever happened, but it's
the sad state of the industry now-a-days when it comes to something like
that.
All they are interested in doing is signing bands to make a fast buck.
We'll just have to wait and see what happens. Hopefully we will be able
to retain enough commerciality to get a deal but without having to sell
out totally. We never started out thinking we must sound more commercial
to get a deal though, it's just the way it's all developed.
The band I was in previous to this one, we spoke to a head of A&R
for a major record label and he told us we wanted to try and sound a bit
more like The Police and Elvis Costello because apparently they were
coming back into fashion. He said that sound was coming back this year
and as long as we changed our sound to sound like that we'd be alright.
But that's not the way it works. You can't just go back to the drawing
board and decide you are going to start sounding like The Police or
whatever.
You produce what naturally comes out of you. If you can't do that then I
don't see the point of doing it at all. You have to enjoy what you are
doing after all or else there's just no point to it. As much as I'd love
to get signed I don't want to have to change and sound like Blur or
someone else in order to get signed.
'You'd have been on Pop Idols if you'd wanted to sell out'.
'Yeh exactly, I would have been up there swinging my backside and all
that kind of thing but I certainly don't think I'd have got through very
far mind you if I'd had to do that. Having said that if they did a Rock
Idol and were looking for the next Cooper Temple Pilot or Queens of the
Stone Age then it would be so interesting to see what came out of the
woodwork there. I really don't think I'd want rock music being tainted
by that kind of thing, although it would be interesting. I'd probably
apply!
'So what do you hope to get out of 2003?'
'Ideally a record deal. I finish Uni in May/June time and I've kind of
decided that I would give the band at least a year. I will still get a
job doing something which is reasonably steady going so that I can focus
on the band properly. Toff's unemployed so that's really useful because
if he had a job he wouldn't have the time to sit down and work on all
the songs that he does. It's worked out really useful. Everyone is
really geared up to totally focus on the band now.
At first we were all wanting to get some massive, amazing record deal.
But I'd be prepared to take a stepping-stone deal, you know the kind of
thing where they do one album with you. You don't get a great deal of
money being thrown at you, but it's gives you the chance to fully work
out professionally on an album for a year or whatever. I've very
confident that if we got something like that as a band working full time
at it we'd only get better. That's what we want out of 2003 but if we
don't get it then we'll keep trying for 2004.
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