Winners of Storm Breakers in 2018 (and blowing the roof off Bathgate’s Dreadnought), Everyday Heroes are finally tackling our Band of the Day questions to tell us what’s new since we got to know them on our #RoadToStormBreakers series.
Simple things first – where are you guys from?
We’re from the valleys just north of Newport in South Wales.
How did you meet?
Luke, Jay and Dan all knew each other from school, then we were introduced to Lewis a little later when we needed a new bass player.
How long have you been playing as a band?
We’ve been together in some capacity playing music for a lot longer, but in terms of taking it seriously and really focusing on progressing, we’d say about 5 years.
Before you get sick of being asked… where does the band name come from?
We wish we had a good story for you! Honestly I think we appropriated it from a mate who used ‘Everyday Hero’ as his online handle when we were younger. We thought it sounded cool in our mid-teens so it’s just stuck to this day.
What are your influences?
Our influences are actually fairly broad. We bonded over a shared appreciation for bands like Alter Bridge, Black Stone Cherry and Nickelback, but if you we’re to ask us individually you’d probably get some wildly different answers. Everything from Chris Stapleton and James Taylor to Extreme and Devin Townsend.
Describe your music. What makes you unique?
I think this links back to your last question in a way. We are very aware that we all have wildly different tastes despite all having a shared love for the core sound that we build from. We’re not shy about leaning into any one band member’s influences and trying to pull things out that we feel benefit our core sound in some way. We think we’ve found some pretty cool musical ideas by keeping an open mind rather than trying to shepherd all our sounds towards one particular genre.
Do you have any particular lyrical themes?
When we first started writing we didn’t stray too far from the classic rock cliches, but since bringing Dan on board as the primary lyricist it’s really allowed us to expand what we were able to talk about in a meaningful way. We were pretty ambitious with the new album, leaning more into abstract storytelling to focus on themes of self-reflection and redemption.
What’s your live show like? How many shows have you played?
We don’t rely on the more gimmicky aspects of playing live if we can help it and often let our music speak for itself. We’ve really tried over the years to cultivate the performance aspect of playing. At the end of the day if you don’t look like you’re enjoying your music then why should the audience? It’s a fine line to keep the music tight while also enjoying yourself, but finding that sweet spot I think is why we get so many positive responses to our live shows. In terms of a number, that’s a tough question, in 2017 alone we gigged multiple times nearly every weekend…it’s a lot.
What’s the wildest thing you’ve seen or done at a live show?
It’s still early days in our career so plenty of time to get some wild moments in! For now what springs to mind is a show early in our career where Lewis made a friend with a venue regular in Llanelli. He wasn’t shy about buying young Lewis plenty of drinks before our set, and by the time we got to the stage Lewis was on a different planet. Bear in mind at this point Lewis wasn’t really contributing vocally. Despite this he went on to sing every single word of the set in what we like to call experimental keys. There’s no subtle way to ask your paralytic bassist to stop singing so we just had to run with it. We monitor his pre-show drinking very heavily now.
What kit do you use / guitars do you play / etc.?
Luke primarily plays a Gibson SG through a Marshall JVM 410H and Marshall cabinet.
Dan uses both a Brent Hinds Signature Epiphone Flying V and a 7 string Ibanez RG Series through a Peavey 6505 head and YAMAHA J 100-S cabinet.
Jay plays a Mapex Armory drum kit with DW hardware and Zildijian cymbals, all with Collision 5a sticks.
Lewis uses a few bases, either a Music Man Sterling, Ibanez SR800LE or his LTD Surveyor-400 through a TC Electronic BQ500 head and Marshall BC410 cabinet.
What are you plugging/promoting at the moment?
At the moment all our attention is on getting the word out there about our debut album A Tale of Sin & Sorrow, releasing on June 5th. We just put out a single called Standing Stones taken from it and it’s doing really well so we hope people will continue to check it out!
What are your plans for 2020 and beyond?
This year is all up in the air at the moment, the horrible COVID-19 pandemic has put a lot of things on hold and rightfully so. It’s frustrating but that pales in comparison to the awful situation the world finds itself in. Thankfully everything we need to get the album out is in the pipeline so we have no issues there, but we have no idea when we’ll be out playing again. Hopefully sooner rather than later, we’ve all got itchy feet!
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 a band like Alter Bridge, between us they’re probably the band we all cite as one of our biggest influences so to support them would be a dream. As for kicking off the show? We’re gonna shout out Foreigners Son, we’ve shared the stage with Jack and Sam countless times, people may know them for their other projects but we love what they’re doing in their 3-piece with Katy Dear at the minute and think they’d complete a killer show!
