Bristolian alternative metal quartet Liquid State recently dropped their new single “Dirty Little Preachers” from their upcoming EP Save Yourself so we threw them our Band of the Day questions. Vocalist Keren Ashley nicely threw them back with the matching answers. So read on to find out what makes them tick…
Simple things first – where are you guys from?
Hey! We are all from the city of Bristol!
How did you meet?
Kray and I were already in a relationship before the band started and were in the same year at college. Kray produced some music for Harry’s old band and so that’s how them two knew each other. We didn’t meet Ben until Kray and Harry started uni, Harry vaguely knew him as a friend of his friends, so he contacted him and asked him to be our bass player.
How long have you been playing as a band?
Kray and I started out as a two-piece back in 2015, the band added drums and bass in 2016 but only added permanent members Harry and Ben in 2017! If anyone asks us we usually say 2017, as that’s the year that we started as the four of us!
Before you get sick of being asked… where does the band name come from?
The band name came from a song title idea that I randomly thought of, though Kray suggested that we used it as our band name as we were still unnamed at the time! We thought it was quite an original choice, so thus Liquid State was born!
What are your influences?
Vocally, I take influences from Marmozets’ Becca and Dream State’s CJ; I think they’re both incredible vocalists! Kray takes his inspiration from Periphery’s Mark Holcombe and the cool chord and melodic sections he writes. For Harry, he takes a lot of inspiration from Arcane Roots and the way that all of the instrumentation fits together, he fully digs how they sound like they’ve thought about every single element of every track that they create.
Describe your music. What makes you unique?
We’re loud, unapologetic and heavy. There are many things that we incorporate into our songs that make us unique, including my distinctive vocals and Kray’s picking technique. Kray had to develop his own playing style to compensate for the lack of movement in his wrist, due to having a stroke when he was younger. Kray tries to create new chords, melodies and rhythms with our main goal for our songs being huge choruses, every time!
Do you have any particular lyrical themes?
Our lyrical themes cover anything that is slightly morbid and taboo. I watch a lot of crime documentaries and horror films in my spare time, so 99% of my lyrics are about subjects of abuse, prostitution, murder and anything else that’s a little offensive.
What’s your live show like? How many shows have you played?
Our live shows? They’re loud, sweaty and aggressive. We feel that our live shows, and we’ve played around 40, are much more than just the music, so we aim to capture everybody’s attention and create the same feeling that is felt when watching bands like Marmozets and Arcane Roots. We know what it’s like to watch a band with sick tracks but look miserable as hell on stage and don’t move from their own little spots; and there is just nothing worse to watch! We promise to not be those guys, ever.
What’s the wildest thing you’ve seen or done at a live show?
I’m not sure if its wild or weird, but we went to watch a band play once and the lead vocalist stripped to his sweaty Y-fronts and grinded against a pole in the middle of the venue followed by him then pretending to fit out on the floor whilst people were just looking at him in disbelief. It was very entertaining, that’s for sure. However, I can’t say that we’ll be reproducing that stunt anytime soon. It was a very “what the hell is happening” moment.
What kit do you use / guitars do you play / etc.?
Kray has an array of guitars and amps but his main go-to’s are his Fender Tele and Strat which he uses with his Victory VX Kraken amp. He also uses a lot of pedals which includes a Strymon Timeline, Stonedeaf PDF2 and Fulltone OCD.
Ben uses either his Ibanez 6 string bass or his Fender Jazz bass and is always equipped with his Darkglass Alpha Omega pedal.
Harry uses the DW Performance Series drum kit with a DW Collectors Series black Nickel over Brass Snare.
What, if anything, are you plugging/promoting at the moment?
So, at the moment we are plugging our “Dirty Little Preachers” single and music video that was released at the start of the month and are currently pushing the release of our EP on 6th July and our launch gig that’s being held on 7th July!
What are your plans for 2018?
We have lots of things in the pipeline for 2018! You can definitely expect more music and videos, a small UK tour and plenty of new content hitting our socials. We have some other ideas planned out too although we can’t speak of them until we have some dates arranged! Be sure to follow us on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook and sign up to our mailing list on our website to keep in the loop!
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 love to support Dream State, they’re an absolutely sick band and we all fully rate them so playing with them would be incredible! The other band we’d love to play with is our mates from Winchester; also a great band that will definitely make it in the industry! They’re top boys and have already played with Dream State, lucky as hell!
From previous Band of the Day, Ruben Hultman: what phase of the creation process do you find most difficult and how do you cope with that?
Kray finds the hardest part of creating music to be the inspiration. He finds it super easy to listen to music and get a sense of direction from that artist, so feels that the music he writes after listening to someone else’s music doesn’t come from within, so therefore tends to not listen to music at all whilst suffering with writer’s block. He tries to draw inspiration from within himself as it makes our music way more organic.
From previous Band of the Day, Shooting Guns: do you have a band van, and if so tell us more!
No we don’t have a band van, although we would love one in the future! For the time being we have a little Renault Clio and Fiat Qubo to get us from A to B!
From King Bison (UK): if you could join any band on stage for one song, who would it be and what track would you play?
We would have to say Arcane Roots and probably their song Everything (All At Once), as it is an absolute banger of a song!
And from Absolute Hero: what do you like to do on your down time on tour?
We haven’t been on tour yet, but I can imagine for myself it would consist of sleeping, as I do love a good nap. A game of PUBG for Ben and I’m not sure what Harry and Kray would do, they’re workaholics so they’d more than likely start writing a new track or something!
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