Band of the Day: Sidelines

We like our music loud, and they don’t come much louder than Sidelines…

Simple things first – where are you guys from?

We’re from South East London!

How did you meet?

We met each other pretty naturally. Kiran and Josh met while in an old band and when that ended decided to do their own thing together. When we realised we needed a drummer Fraser was the first person Kiran thought of and once we were all in a room together we just clicked.

How long have you been playing as a band?

We’ve been playing together as a band for about five years. The first iteration of the band actually hadn’t played together as a group until the shooting of our first music video, “Drowning In Smoke”. Which was a pretty cool moment to capture.

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

“Sidelines” came to Joshua one night while he was working on some demos, he wanted something he could identify with while also being easy to remember and easy to design around. He came up with Sidelines out of a feeling of not wanting to remain on the musical sidelines and wanting to breakout into new places. He made the Sidelines S and we’ve used it ever since.

What are your influences?

It kind of depends who you ask in the band, Josh has a lot of influence from Emo and Post Hardcore while Kiran has a lot of Metalcore and Fraser loves Progressive Metal and early Nu-Metal

Describe your music. What makes you unique?

We’ve always had trouble pinning our sound down because we like bouncing all around genre wise. I think the most accurate way to describe ourselves would be as a band full of riffs and feels. No matter how heavy our music turns out you can guarantee there will be riffs and feels.

Do you have any particular lyrical themes?

We always draw from life experiences, whether it’s a personal song or a political song we always try to keep the music true to us. The themes that tend to pop up the most usually revolve around mental health and how it affects your life.

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

We’re really proud of our live shows, we like to throw ourselves at it 100% and really give the crowd a night to remember. Josh has barely ever stuck on a stage for more than 5 minutes and tends to be in the face of the crowd from the start. Since our music tends to have pretty emotional themes the show tends to be a huge form of catharsis for everyone involved. We probably couldn’t count how many shows we’ve played which is how we like it!

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

I think when you’ve been playing shows for a few years your scale of wild things kind of goes out the window. We’ve brought everyone off stage into the crowd, Josh has been hit by countless hardcore dancers, we’ve had the whole room going crazy. The main goal isn’t to really be wild, we try to make a good, safe atmosphere for people to be themselves and to enjoy the music, whether that’s going crazy or just chilling on the edges of the pit.

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

We don’t have a specific brand we use above all else, Kiran mainly uses an Ibanez guitar with an ENGL amp head. Fraser loves Meinl cymbals, particularly his Meinl dark classics custom 18” crash. Josh will use any mic that’s at the venue, not picky, just wants to yell how sad he is at people.

What, if anything, are you plugging/promoting at the moment?

We released a new single on the 4th of September called “Hangman”. It explores a lot of political themes such as class inequality, the hypocritical nature of conservatism and a loss of faith in the systems of government that govern us. It’s also a banger.

What are your plans for the next 6 months or so?

With COVID and two members of the band that come under shielding we plan on focusing on new music since we can do that over a distance and without the risk of things getting worse. However once things get back to normal we plan on throwing ourselves into shows up and down the country.

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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!

We’ve played with so many amazing bands it’s hard to pick between them all. If you haven’t already then check out El Moono, a great band from Brighton who are killing it right now, MTXS who have gone from opening for us to touring up and down the country and getting better with every show, Human Hell who are releasing new music all the time, and Broken Calling who are a great band to watch live with loads of energy.

Sidelines: facebook | spotify

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