Band of the Day: Panic State

No need to panic! Wednesday is almost over! Also – new music…

Simple things first – where are you guys from?

London, London, and Essex(!)

How did you meet?

We formed properly at the end of 2017. Scott and Daniel were at school together and played in a school band, but kept things going together when they left for uni. They met Tom at a uni party, and got chatting about musical interests, showed Tom their demo album, and he loved it and was keen to get involved. We started rehearsing together and writing a few things, and everything kicked off from there, doing regular shows around London, working with our manager, Ville, and he gave us the tools to record some great songs.

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How long have you been playing as a band?

Too long. A good few years at this point. I’m looking for a new one but don’t tell the others…

Before you get sick of being asked…where does the band name come from?

We spent probably a month when we were about 14 going through countless possible names, some of which were really awful! But we were really into Muse at the time and we took inspiration from a couple of song titles – Panic Station and Liquid State, and we decided that out of all the other options we had, this one was the ‘least bad’.

What are your influences?

Muse was probably our biggest early influence, we loved their music and their live shows, so we drew a lot of inspiration from them. We each try and bring in some of our own influences to our songs and our shows. Freddie Mercury is a big influence for Tom as a frontman, with that self-confident demeanour and ability to control a crowd with such ease. Scott constantly plays Santana licks so we assume he likes him, and Daniel is fairly ambivalent, but said Meg White is a Queen.

It’s difficult to think of non-musical influences, we don’t really write massively political songs – we write mainly on experiences really. Tom got a lot of inspiration from a trip to New Zealand and the sense of escapism, so I suppose that counts. He also loves Emperor Caligula, in that he bathes in gold, declares war on the sea, and proclaims himself to be Jupiter.

Describe your music. What makes you unique?

We love to write songs that are hugely energetic with an upbeat instrumental and catchy lyrics that are designed to be relatable! Something (we love to think is) unique about us is our sense of fun that comes through in our recorded songs and especially our live shows!

Do you have any particular lyrical themes?

We mainly try to focus on writing positive lyrics with upbeat themes. Our most recent release, Turn Around, focuses on promoting self-belief in its listeners through a simple and relatable story about a band attempting to reach its goals.

What’s your live show like? How many shows have you played?

Fun, and a hell of a lot of energy. We like to have a lot of fun on stage so we joke around a bit, but we want to give 100% to each of our shows. As for the number, it’s probably about 100 – we’ve really lost count! There’s definitely a few in our past we don’t count though…

What’s the wildest thing you’ve seen or done at a live show?

A drummer from a well known band we were supporting was drumming while on Facebook Live while someone else was playing his hi hat for him. Not naming any names *eye emoji*

Scott also ate a sandwich on stage once, that was pretty wild. Not quite Ozzy levels, but hey… it was chicken salad.

What kit do you use / guitars do you play / etc.?

Pretty much anything from the Gear4Music own brand range, and always Epiphone. Kit wise, anything from the Nike Spurs range, specifically the third kit as it matches Tom’s eyes.

What are your plans for the next 12 months?

We’ve got some new music that’s just about ready to release, and we’ve been writing some new stuff as well that we’re really excited about. We’ve focussed a lot on our social media with the covers, but we’ve also got some cool ideas of videos that we can upload and release soon, so keep an eye out for those!

We’ve also branched out into the world of merchandise, which we’ll properly unveil on our social media soon – we’ll have the standard bits like phone cases and t shirts and the like, but we’ve gone a bit left field with some items; Panic State bath mats and shower curtains, toothbrushes and maybe even a ladle. We wanted to have some fun.

Other than that, it’s just cut for 4 months, bulk for 4, then cut.

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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!

Support from Nickelback, while we support Nickelband: A Nickelback tribute

Panic State: facebook | twitter | spotify

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