Hi Matt, thank you for joining us today, so tell me a bit about yourselves, what have you been up to over the past 12 months?
So the past twelve months, I've just been focusing on The Early Purple project, recording the EP, practicing guitar as much as I could.
Where did the project's name come from?
Right ok, so it's the name of a flower, it's a orchid called the early purple. I just thought it was quite nice and I'm always late so I thought it was quite funny the juxtaposition between the name and my personality.
What has been the biggest highlight of the project so far?
I would say being able to kind of realise my songs, get them recorded and get them out there for people as well. And I've done a few really really nice gigs. One of my favourite bands in the world is a band called Efterklang and my debut gig was supporting them and that's probably a highlight. I recently got some funding from 'Help Musicians' which was really nice validation that I'm kind of on the right track with the music and stuff like that.
How did you first get into making music?
God, I was probably like 10 years old playing guitar in school. I remember playing 'There She Goes' by The La's in art class and my art teacher who was like this really cool hippie lady called Mrs Mitchell, she was like 'oh my god is that The La's?' And I remember the surprise on her face that her little 10 year old student was playing some cool tune. I probably got addicted to it through that someway or another.
What is your latest single 'Big Mistake' about, and what was the process like in recording it?
Big Mistake is kind of like a nod to my hometown, I come from Blyth. And in the most recent election, it had been a labour constituency for as long as I can remember and it recently got turned blue. It's about as political as I'll get with writing songs, I'm not a very political person but I couldn't not say something about it, you know. It is kind of through the eyes of me kind of growing up in there and seeing what this recent change has done the town, and how I feel like people have had the wool pulled over their eyes in that town. It's all apart of the Tory Government plan really isn't it. But the recording process, I put a little demo of me playing it on Instagram, and a bunch of people really liked it. It was just this random idea, it was the back end of last year. It was just me playing guitar and there was a load of comments saying 'ooo this is really nice' so I was like 'Right Will' who is my producer, 'Lets record it'. The people like it, so yeah that's kind of how it happened.
What is the upcoming EP about?
It's a really personal kind of thing, I don't write songs about people as such, I can't help but write songs that come from me one way or another. Maybe I'll kind of dress it up a little bit but usually it's my kind of relationships with people. I've got a few songs that are about my Dad who recently passed away, so I couldn't help but write stuff about that, just some little nods to him and that kind of stuff. It's just ab out my relationships with people and stuff, it's quite a sad EP when you hear it you'll find out.
How would you describe your sound in three words?
Acoustic, folk, sadness.
Do you have any pre-gig rituals and if so, what are they?
I can't eat food before I play a gig, it's 7pm now and we are on at 9:30 and I can't eat anything until afterwards. And I'll do a little vocal warm up perhaps, I don't know, anything to take my mind off the fact I am about to get up on stage in front of loads of people and just try and calm my nerves. Maybe listen to some calming meditation if the support bands aren't too loud.
If 'Big Mistake' could be in any film, what one would it be in?
When I put it up on Instagram, one of the things I thought it sounded like was in this one scene in Game Of Thrones where it's the night before they have to go to battle. And they are completely outnumbered, they are fucked basically and they are all sitting there waiting to be killed in battle and I feel like there's this moment where Big Mistake's guitar line could probably fit over this kind of sombre mood of this impending doom.
What is next for you?
I'm going to take a break from social media, definitely because I'm totally hammered. The EP is released on May 12th so I'm going to do a little bit of promo around that. Have a few little festivals in the summertime and work on the next recording whether it's an EP, single or album.
By - Katie Graham
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