Exit Calm Interview

Here at Rapture we liked to keep you updated with what is going on in band life so here is a quick interview that we did with Scott the drummer from Exit Calm

It is hard to believe that the first album came out three years ago, what has been going on in the Exit Calm camp since ten? 

Yes, we know it's been a little while but we're all very happy with the new album, so we think it will have been worth the wait.  As well as writing and getting the album ready we parted company with our old management and have a new manager, who is doing a great job for us.  

Your self-titled debut album was released in May 2010 and your new album is coming out in September 2013, was there a different process for this album? Or did you just want to go into the studio and smash it out?

We never really go in the studio to mess about or experiment, even if we only have the bones of a song, we usually know specifically where we to end up by the time we're actually in the studio. The songs are more direct on this album and as a result it's a bit more 'lean', in our opinion anyway. The band is a total democracy so the process hasn't changed massively; it’s more the efficiency of the way we do things that's changed this time around. 

V festival in August is coming up anything special planned for that? 

As always we want the live shows to be as good as they can be. We will be hammering rehearsals up until the gig so we can be as relaxed as possible when the weekend comes. Once you get on a stage at a festival, you've just got to hammer it and hope all the toil has paid off. 

Is the artwork on records important to you or not? 

I'm rubbish with artwork but I know what I like to see so I try to give my opinion as best I can. Sime's more the man behind our artwork,

with Jamie Briggs who does the majority of the work and did all the artwork for this album. It's important that the record looks good, but I don’t think we are solely into suggesting it as a symbol of what's inside. 

Every band gets labeled as sounding like someone else, do you see this as a good thing or does it pigeon hole you? 

Depends who says it really doesn’t it? When fans are into your band you can only take it as a compliment and likewise with reviews. It's no shock when we do get compared to bands and we are usually into them anyway. I just think sometimes when people use it as a weapon against you it's a bit lazy and sometimes it assumes that somehow to compare us to a band in that way would hurt us. It doesn't - we're flattered, they reference good, successful bands. 

Where has been the best place you guys have played? 

We can’t get a question like that and not mention Tokyo. We were lucky enough to go out to Japan early on in the bands life, and it was everything you would expect it to be. We also played Barrowlands in Scotland, which again is an amazing venue and also the Roundhouse in London. We also played the Astoria twice before they knocked it down. They were great gigs.

You have a reputation of being a raucous band live on stage, do you pay attention to where each of you are, or do you just go for it anyway? 

I'm always aware of where the other three are on stage and they obviously know where I am on the drums. We all go for it when we get onstage but I think to make the wall of sound work there has to be contact between us and a level of togetherness otherwise 'every man for himself' would come across in the music. 

If you could collaborate with anyone who would it be?

Tough question, I'm not sure how that would work in our band, as in another musician.

  

Where do you see the band in five years time?

I don't think there’s any point in being involved in something like this if you’re not going to push it as far as you possibly can. I want the band to be massive; it's all about getting your music to the people, so why not get it to as many as you can.

 Scott Pemberton - Drums