See Roots & Wings, Mother Shipton, Hudson and Future Calls on Wednesday the 10th of June.
Reading Indie Life love new music, and we love a bargain! You can get both at The Facebar this Wednesday with bands from Reading and Portsmouth for less than the cost of a matcha bubble tea! We chatted to three of the bands ahead of the big day.
Roots & Wings
A proper indie-rock band based right here in Reading!
Reading Indie Life: How did Roots & Wings come together?
Alessio: It was 2023 when myself, the lead singer and guitarist, put the band together with a bunch of university mates. After ending studies at ACM I moved to Reading and had a roster change and met Toby (drums)and Costa (bass). Since 2023 we’ve been making music together and gigging around London and Reading trying to make a name for ourselves.
RIL: Where does the band name come from?
Alessio: It comes from the aspirations of the band and the journey it took to get to where we currently are, to where we want to be one day. Roots meaning never forgetting where you’ve come from, and Wings having the sky as the limit of achievement!
RIL: Who are your biggest influences, or the bands you look up to?
Alessio: Foo Fighters, Oasis, Green Day, Muse etc.
RIL: You have a new single out at the end of June, what is it about?
Alessio: The Single is called ‘No Idea’ and it’s about making mistakes in life and upsetting the people close to you. Not knowing how to redeem yourself and trying to improve all the while having “No Idea” where to start .
RIL: Can we expect any more new music this year?
Alessio: Absolutely! We’ve got some more music ready for release having collaborated with one of the top studios in the country, Salvation Music Studios. We’ve got plenty more tunes ready for the world!
Looking forward to a Reading gig?
Alessio: We are buzzing as always when a gig comes around, but for a gig in your hometown, we always feel a little more excited because we get to play for the people we love and create a local fan base that can call us their own! As always it will be an explosive show, full of rock and roll energy with lots of unreleased new tunes.
Mother Shipton
A slightly heavier rock outfit from Portsmouth who clearly have some real talent and exude confidence. Check out ‘Non Believer.’ Their next track to be released, ‘People Walk Different In a Suit’ is one of the best singles Reading Indie Life have heard this year.
Reading Indie Life: How did Mother Shipton start and how long have you been playing together?
Jake (singer): We met through music and each of us have independent musical portfolios and backgrounds, we all respected and admired each other’s work and due to us being best mates (Jake, Jack and Jordan) we went to the studio and wrote 5 songs in a 2 hour session. Charlie joined and we realised this is a band and a sound that we really felt needed to be shared. We got our Joey in and We’ve have been together now as a band for 18 months, but playing together literally forever.
RIL: Where does the band name come from?
JACK (bass, singer) : Every part of our process is done in Pompey, we all live a stone throw away from each-other and we wanted to capture the most Pompey place we could think of. The Mother Shipton pub was once featured as one of the toughest pubs in England. You don’t get more Pompey than that.
Jake : Yeah and I lived above the Coop and my front window used to face the pub’s front door around that time, so the name made sense for me too
RIL: Where do you get inspiration from?
Jack : I think the best thing about us is that because we all write for the band, there’s moments of everybody! While still remaining uniquely us. I’d probably say we’re somewhere between The Clash having a bar fight with The Strokes, while the Queens Of The Stone Age are watching and getting smashed with the Viagra Boys. It’s weird but it works.
RIL: What is the Portsmouth music scene like?
Jake: Yeah, there’s some great little bands that we’ve seen recently in Pompey. I personally really like a band called Hudson and my mate Frankie moved to Oz and started a mental band called Happy Fucxing Family that i’m fond of.
To be honest i think most of the shit people are releasing is soulless pop drivel and I’m personally bored of it. That’s why we started Mother Shipton.
Jack: If you haven’t got something to say, why say anything?
RIL: You are releasing one song a month at the moment, how long are you planning on doing that for?
Jack: We can’t stop writing songs and they’re only getting better. We’ve got 8 finished and 6 more in production. So we’ll keep going until we run out. We’ve got a creative force behind us in Samhain Carter-Brazier and Martyna Madej. They are creating a visual platform and our content is going to keep getting better.
So who knows, we’ve got enough for 14 months and we don’t intend on stopping.
RIL: What are the songs you have released so far about?
Jake: i wrote ‘Collider’ for my niece who was going through some tough times. It’s a message of despair and the acceptance that people do fucked up things, but there is hope.
Jack : Non Believer was written by me, the second Charlie hit the riff, it turned into our sort of “Anthem of the Dead”. Jake actually wrote the chorus line. I suppose it’s about questioning faith in some capacity and being devoted to something that you’re not sure even exists. Deep shit.
Jake : Yeah, Jack’s tone on this one’s unreal and i was hypnotised on my first listen. I feel like, this was the song that shaped the sound.
RIL: You are playing The Facebar next week, are you looking forward to it and what can we expect?
Jack: Yeah damn straight. This is our first show for a Reading crowd and we’re gonna tear the roof off. Can’t wait to play a few of the new ones. We’ve got three singers and the best guitarist in England in Charlie and we’ve the best songs you’ve heard in years.
Jake: I don’t think you can compare our show to anyone else. We’re raw, chaotic and tender all at the same time. If you like real guitar music and you want to follow a real band just as we’re kicking off – come see us.
Future Calls
Reading Indie Life: How did Future Calls come together?
Lou: Future Calls was originally a duo consisting of just me and Matt (drummer) which started in around 2017 when we were in college and we were under the name Indigo Child. This band name was then copyrighted by a band over in the US so we had to think fast and change our name! This is when Tom (my brother and bassist) joined in 2023 and we renamed the band Future Calls.
RIL: Where does the band name come from?
Matt: The name came when I had a phone call from an unknown number in the early hours of one morning and they had left a voicemail, but the voicemail on my phone was dated from the afternoon of the next day and I said to myself “oh a future call!” and that’s how our band name came about.
RIL: Who are your biggest influences?
Future Calls: Collectively as a band our biggest influences are Black Sabbath, Zakk Wylde, Paramore, McFly, Lucy Spraggan and Rory Gallagher.
RIL: Your only release, ‘Lies,’ was four years ago. Can we expect any new music this year?
Lou: ‘Lies’ was released when we were still under the name Indigo Child and before Tom joined. We are very excited to be going into the recording studio at the end of July as a trio to record our 4 track EP that should be released towards the end of this year!
Are you excited for the gig next week?
Future Calls: We are very excited to be playing Facebar next week! You can expect high energy and some new songs that we have been working on!
Tickets:
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