Kicking off another new week, and what better way to start than with another new band? Time to find out a bit more about Between The Lines…
Simple things first – where are you guys from?
We are from all around Bedfordshire, but we like to consider Bedford our home town as it’s where we played our first ever show as a band.
How did you meet?
Alex, Adam, Lewis and Sam all met in school (Lewis and Sam are actually cousins so they met long before then). Tom met Lewis through college and then got introduced to the rest of us when he joined the band.
How long have you been playing as a band?
“Between The Lines” as a project has been going since late February 2017, however after Alex joined in January 2018 there was a bit of a rebrand, a change in musical direction and a redevelopment of the entire project – so as the band is now, we’ve been playing together since late January 2018.
Before you get sick of being asked… where does the band name come from?
This is something we get asked a lot actually, but we don’t mind answering because we’re hoping Chunk! No Captain Chunk! somehow read our answer and contact us (Contact us Chunk!). Our name comes from the Chunk! song “Between Your Lines”. The guys in Chunk! are one of the main reasons we decided to start the project so it’s a little nod to them and their influence on us.
What are your influences?
The influences can really vary from new wave pop punk bands like Neck Deep and WSTR to the heavier bands like Four Year Strong, Trash Boat & Chunk! No Captain Chunk! Mixing up the heavier vocals and guitars with pop-punk melodies works pretty well in our minds.
Describe your music. What makes you unique?
Our music varies quite a lot throughout the set, using heavier guitar riffs and vocals to counter the more poppy elements of other tracks. Having a real mix gives us an appeal to more potential fans. At the moment we’re building a sound that mixes up the instruments with electronic and synthy parts interwoven into the songs and interludes. Think Enter Shikari’s “Take to the Skies” style.
Do you have any particular lyrical themes?
Our lyrics are pretty unique in their themes. Alex (Vocals) does an incredible job with the lyrics in making them personal and touching – the theme changes a lot though which is good. We don’t have a bunch of songs all about getting out of our home town.
What’s your live show like? How many shows have you played?
Our live show is something we’re insanely proud of. We’ve spent the last few months really working on the way we present ourselves on stage; high energy, a lot of movement and fun. We aim to come off stage exhausted and knowing we gave it our all with every show we play, whether it was to one or one hundred people.
What’s the wildest thing you’ve seen or done at a live show?
It’s a bit of a bucket list moment – but we recently played a Battle Of The Bands Semi-Final at The Horn in St Albans and looking out over the crowd to see an entire room full mostly of strangers really enjoying and singing along to songs they were learning on the fly was pretty awesome.
What kit do you use / guitars do you play / etc.?
We’ve really upped our game in terms of gear recently – we’ve switched to In Ear Monitoring rather than stage monitors and we play to a backing track & click track; this is all done through Shure PSM300’s and a Behringer X32 rack. Guitar wise we use a PRS CE24 2017 & a Schecter C-1.. The mix between the crisp and clear PRS tone and the thick heavy tone of the Schecter creates an awesome sound live and in the studio
What, if anything, are you plugging/promoting at the moment?
A couple of things – we’ve recently popped back into the studio to record a few more tracks so we can expand this mini-ep into a full 6 track EP (release date TBD). Our biggest show coming up is the Battle Of The Bands final at The Horn on August 14th – even getting to the final is huge for us, but winning it would be insane. Between now and then we’ve got Bedford River Festival as well which is pretty big. Then late September it’s Castlefest in Luton playing the same stage on the same day as Milk Teeth… which we still can’t believe we’re saying.
What are your plans for 2018?
Our plan is to keep growing, keep improving ourselves as musicians and as a band and just keep making the most of the chances we get. Who knows, there might even be a tour plan in motion..
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!
A band we’d love to support has to be Chunk! No Captain Chunk! or Trash Boat… As for openers? That’s a tough one – over the last year or so we’ve played with some incredible bands so we’re going to give a shout out to Northampton based guys The Young & Restless and Southampton based Slackrr and say they could both open…
