Westmoor dropped a video last week and start their tour in the UK… right now! Dates down the bottom. But who are they, where are they from and what wild shenanigans have they got up to on stage? For this and more, read on…
Simple things first – where are you guys from?
Milan, Italy.
How did you meet?
It’s been so long it’s hard to remember! We’ve been close friends since school. Our drummer Mauro is the only newbie. When we had the urge to find a drummer for the Westmoor project, we heard him playing blast beats at 300 bpm in the practice room next door… that’s how we became friends!
How long have you been playing as a band?
As Westmoor, it’s been only five months roughly. But growing up together meant that we had our first gig during our early teenage years.
Before you get sick of being asked… where does the band name come from?
Don’t worry about it; we love explaining this one. Our singer and bass player Marchino lived five years of his life in York, UK. His house was in 1 West Moor Lane and we went there many times to visit him. That place gained a special place in our hearts. We had a casual acoustic gig at a small party he threw one night, and that’s when we realised we had to become a new band, and we had to be called Westmoor.
What are your influences?
Too many, mate; we listen to a bit of everything. So much music we could talk about it for days. We grew up listening to punk-rock, pop-punk and some metal… I think that’s quite evident if you listen to our EP carefully. However, we just try to play what we feel. We don’t like caging our music within genre boundaries.
Describe your music. What makes you unique?
Our uniqueness is in the dynamics we build within a song and in the vivid tonal difference of the two vocals. In the same song there might be very quiet and calm bits and very hard and loud ones. We love this contrast, it gives so much power to the music, especially live. Fabio is strong and rough, Marchino is mellow and calm. This enhances the contrast even more. I think songs like “The Storm” or “A New Dawn” are quite perfect to describe what we were just trying to explain with words. Go check them out and judge yourself.
Do you have any particular lyrical themes?
I think so, yeah. In general, our lyrics tend to be a reflection upon situations and feelings that people encounter in their daily lives. From life choices to love, from struggles to happiness our approach is never desperate and negative, but rather conscious, rational and in the end… positive.
What’s your live show like? How many shows have you played?
Our shows are the core of our activity, we consider them the most important bit. When you create connection to the people, then you know you have made fans… and not just YouTube views. That’s far more important in the long run.
In our shows we do our best to deliver well performed music which is rich of feelings and emotions, with both moments of peace and bits where we want to make your head go up and down.
We’ve played quite a few since the release of our EP in March: a small Italian tour of ten dates, an acoustic set at the International Music Fair (FIM), and recently we played at the IDays opening in the afternoon for Green Day and Rancid… yeah man, that was absolutely wicked. Biggest stage we ever played, by miles!
What’s the wildest thing you’ve seen or done at a live show?
We saw Gnarwolves live in Milan once. Thom, the singer, had some issues with the guitar cable at the beginning of the show. Then, broke a string in the middle of a song. He got so mad… and smashed his beautiful Gibson guitar to the ground. Think about it, it’s like having a thousand pounds cash and doing a bonfire with it. So punk, amazing!
What kit do you use / guitars do you play / etc.?
Mark plays an ESP Eclipse on a Peavey 6506 mini head. Killer rhythmic guitar, modern open tone.
Danny plays a Gibson SG on a Mesa Mark V 25 W. Rich mid-range, lead style.
Marchino plays a Music Man Sting Ray 4 with a VTbass Sansamp pedal. Huge subby sound with a bit of a cling on top, it goes only where the guitars don’t go.
Reverbs are very important to us and we use them extensively. We have the Cathedral by Electro Harmonix and the MXR Reverb. As you can see we have quite a simple rig, with small amplifiers (they are so comfortable to carry around and in most situations we don’t need more volume than what they can provide). We have then taken the choice to perform everything DI, no cabs anymore. Why? Clarity… people want to listen to music, not hear chaos. We like it that way.
What are your plans for the rest of 2017?
A third video, more and more and more shows, writing our first album.
If you were second on a three-band bill, which band would you love to be supporting and which band would you choose to open for you? A chance to plug someone you’ve toured with, or a mate’s band we’ve not heard of before!
We’d absolutely love to open for Biffy Clyro! As an opening band we would have Sittingthesummerout, without a doubt. They are young, talented, unique and have something to say. Go check them out!
From scary (previous BotD) band Yovel: Will you just stand and wait, until the day they seal our fate?
I think we are doing everything but standing and waiting my friend. We barely ever rest or stop at all. We quit our job when it was time to write the EP because we wanted to do things differently and make an impact. Now we are working part time, because well… But our aim is well clear and we are giving all we got to make that happen. We don’t believe much in fate. More than that, we have a plan… so we are trying to make our own fate.
Those tour dates:
- 11th July – Hope And Anchor, London
- 12th July – The Iron Road, Evesham
- 13th July – Sunbird, Darwen
- 14th July – The Basement, York
- 15th July – The Anker Inn, Nuneaton
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