Interview by Carol Wright | Photos Courtesy of The Backfires
We got to chat with up and coming band The Backfires about their EP Consider the Backfires and what it was like working on the project while in different parts of the world.
Take us back to the beginning. How did The Backfires come to be?
Alex: Well it’s been a few years in the making and there’s always a few starting points that come up. The most obvious is when I (Alex) met Harry in London in October 2018. I was studying abroad for my freshmen year and the program was associated with Harry’s university. We happened to both join the live music society and we met at a “Battle of the Bands” during Freshers week. We got to chatting and I mentioned I wanted to start a band. He agreed and then Qualia Noir was born (aka the dreadful name we called ourselves at the beginning of it all).
Before that though, Matt and I played together in a band in high school. We grew up in the DC area and played with some of our friends. The summer after senior year, and before I went to London, we went to Lollapalooza where we saw Arctic Monkeys, Catfish and the Bottlemen, The Wombats, YUNGBLUD, and other British acts. We also watched the Kooks and the Academic earlier that summer back in DC. We had talked about me going to the UK so we sort of planned out that I would go over and meet some musicians and start a band over there. We loved the British indie scene and that sound.
After a few months of playing with Harry and Max (former drummer) in London, Matt came over and we got to recording some of the first songs we had written— “Before the Sunrise” and “Falling.” We worked with the delightful mix-engineer/producer Ian Flynn (@werkhouse on instagram), for about a week out of a studio in east London. These songs have been part of our catalogue since we first started and ‘Before the Sunrise’ has opened almost every show we have ever played, so we’re thrilled they will finally be on the record.
Then, in the summer of 2019 we played a series of shows along the east coast US and more shows in New York in the Fall. Eventually we came to the realisation that we needed something on Spotify for people coming to the gigs to engage with after the show.
After some planning, we recorded the other four songs on the EP just after New Years 2020 out of a few studios in London. We finished mixing all six songs of the EP remotely over the summer once the pandemic had taken grip of the world. Working with a London based producer the project was finished entirely remotely for Fall 2020. The new name, the Backfires, came to be as part of a rebrand from our old name Qualia Noir. We hated the old name and all our friends thought it was pretentious so we started the fall with a new name, new social media strategy, and a new EP. The EP that we’re about to release has really been a project that has extended over nearly 2 years.
The band is a New York and UK based band. When it came to creating your EP what was it like working on songs while not even being in the same time zone?
Harry: While the songs were all recorded in London in January 2020, the EP was finalised on FaceTime calls in the summer. We worked with a producer, sending notes back and forth, to craft the final sound. It was definitely more difficult than just doing it in person, but it’s definitely not the worst thing about trying to be a band from different countries. The international ‘thing’ is definitely much more cumbersome for rehearsals and gigs. While not being able to play together because of the pandemic has been really frustrating, we don’t want to complain because there are definitely people going through real adversity as a result of the pandemic. Being in this band at all is a privilege.
Walk us through the creation of your song “Falling” as it’s a bit different than the other songs on the EP lyrically and sonically.
Alex: I (Alex) initially wrote “Falling” just a couple of months into living in London. It would have been November 2018…though the bridge was quite different back then. I had actually been sitting on a variation of the progression from the summer. I had been playing a lot of John Mayer songs in my former band with Matt in high school so some of the feel is definitely influenced by his guitar playing. Lyrically, I think I was a bit inspired by writing a song about when you first meet somebody and the longing for getting over a breakup (something I had been doing at the time). I was trying to be rather straightforward because when you want to be with somebody, and you want them to want you back, you sort of just have to be to the point.
Harry: After Alex had initially written the song, the band came together in a rehearsal studio in East London to add layers to the song, with Max writing a tasty drum part that really gives the song it’s nice groove. I remember in the weeks coming up to the recording of the song I hadn’t reality written a part for “Falling” and it was stressing me out. I had a demo of the song from a rehearsal recorded on my phone and I’d listen to it and try and think of ideas. On one of the first sunny days of the year, a rarity in London, I was walking to Camden highstreet to buy a load of spare strings for the studio sessions. The main riff of the song came into my head on the walk when listening to the demo and when I got to the guitar shop I worked it out on one of their strats. Soon after I rushed home and recorded it in Logic on my laptop. I hear my best guitar ideas in my head long before I’ve worked out how to actually play them on guitar.
Consider The Backfires is an EP that tells a coming of age story. Share with us the unique coming of age story it tells and how much you all pulled from personal experience to write the songs on the EP.
Harry: Alex and I wrote “Going Gets Easy” together in London in early 2019. The song was definitely inspired by our experiences of going out in London together that were extremely fun but came to be a bit repetitive. While it was written from the perspective that we were overcoming that teenage desire to go out and get out of it, the pandemic has really flipped that on its head for me, and I can’t wait to get back to it. I suppose I’m regressing my age.
Alex: I think for me, a lot of the songs are kind of about coming into one’s self. ‘The Man’ was the second to last song written for the record and it was kind of about reconciling with these nights of going out and dating and feeling a sense of emptiness. Living in a foreign country, isolated from everyone I grew up with, forced me to grow up a bit, but I’m not sure that I was all that ready to or interested in that. I think “Anything” and “Falling” and “Preoccupied” (a song that Harry primarily wrote) touch on these ideas of youthful romance when the person you’re dating or going out with can consume all of your thoughts. This becomes exaggerated too when that person is in a foreign country and you want to be out having fun with your friends, but you also want to FaceTime or talk on the phone with who you’re with. There’s also a point when you’re getting older and navigating these early relationships that you ask yourself ‘what’s the point?’ and ‘is this going anywhere?’ Those are hard questions to answer at 18, 19, 20, or even older.
“Anything” reminds me of songs by the Arctic Monkeys and the Wallows. Are those bands you’re influenced by?
Harry: When ‘Anything’ was written this may not have been the case, but today Arctic Monkeys have become one of our major influences lyrically. Alex Turner’s lyrics are largely unparalleled in modern rock. His quality of lyricism is definitely something we strive for, especially moving forward beyond this EP. Sonically, the EP was also influenced by Arctic Monkeys AM, particularly with the creation of “The Man.” We wanted a track with the space of AM: a modern rock sound. While I can’t say we have been particularly influenced by the Wallows, we really do enjoy their song “Scrawny,” it’s a delight. The lyrics on this EP definitely took a lot of inspiration from Van McCann’s lyrics (Catfish and the Bottlemen). His compelling one-liners and ability to tell relatable stories with only a few words has always intrigued us.
Alex: It’s interesting to hear these comparisons for “Anything” as it’s a bit hard for me to look at the whole picture sometimes. The song has been through several rewrites to this point and the goal of it has definitely evolved. When it was first written, it was actually intended to be a slow song. Once we started gigging more in London and in the states, we transitioned the song to be faster. The second half of the song was written in Fall 2019 before we entered the studio to record it. The second half was an attempt to thicken the song up a bit and make it more rock à la Arctic Monkeys. Beyond that though we just wanted to make a fun song that people could dance and relate to. If it pulls off Arctic Monkeys or Wallows even halfway then that makes me super proud of the work!
What advice do you have for aspiring musicians?
We all still feel very much like aspiring musicians. You’re not alone.
You can pre-save Consider the Backfires here.
