BRIXTONS RELEASE ‘NOW YOU’RE GONE’
Emerging onto the new UK music scene is indie rock band, Brixtons. The four piece, forged from teenage boredom and a shared passion of music originated in Wantage, Oxford (now based in Guildford) in 2017; ever since then they have released a string of explosive, gutsy singles, progressing from strength to strength. They have successfully managed to build up an impressive name for themselves across the UK – with support slots for bands such as The Blinders and Airways, multiple sold out shows across their hometown and more recently playing to a packed out crowd on the BBC Introducing stage at Truck festival in 2019.
Below – Brixtons performing at Truck Festival.
Consisting of Will Heason, Ollie Roberts, Will Allen and Ed Hampson, the quartet’s style mostly follows heavy guitar and bass lines tied together with Heason’s effortless vocals..
Their latest single, Now you’re gone is no exception – opening, the band immediately launch into a perfectly interwoven punchy drum beat and a memorable guitar riff that carries the song along throughout it’s three minute duration. It’s purely anthemic, a song that you can imagine being played live in the future whilst massive sold out crowds dance around.
Above, the cover art for Brixtons latest release.
Ahead of the release of Now you’re gone today, I spoke to Ollie about how the band have been coping in lockdown and about the process of recording their latest single.
1. Hiya lads, how’re you doing? How is your quarantine going so far?
As hard as it is not being able to be together as a band, it has been great to spend this time with the family. We’re still keeping busy with the new single and writing new stuff, we’re just really excited to finally get it released!
2. So, you’re releasing your fourth single really soon. Can you tell me a little bit about the writing/recording process?
I think our best stuff comes from when we’re all together. One of us may bring some chords or a riff to practice and we all build on it from there. With three of us living together at uni, a lot of our songs are written from the experiences we share but I’ve got to say the songs closest to our hearts are the ones written when all four of us are back home together in Wantage.
With regards to recording, we’ve got to give a shout to Ryan and Luke at RML Studios in Wolverhampton. It’s not the closest to home but the boys there are absolutely brilliant, such a laugh, made some good memories out on the town in Wolves.
3. Does ‘Now You’re Gone’ fit in with your normal writing themes?
For sure, we wrote it not long after we moved to Guildford, came from our experiences in the infamous wreck that is Casino nightclub. It’s an energetic depiction of youthful affection and solidarity, it’s full of Libertines style guitar riffs and honest, gutsy vocals. I think someone once described us as ‘carefully controlled chaos’ which is brilliant and definitely sums up this single. It’s all about the romantic tragedies we’ve experienced on nights out and the ability to pick each other up afterwards.
4. You’re heading out on a debut tour of the UK in September, are you looking forward to getting back out there once this is all over?
Well… that’s if it’s safe to do so of course. We were properly excited for the original April tour and the cancellation was devastating but the last thing we want to do is go ahead in September if it isn’t safe yet. However, we are pleased to have it rearranged and in place, ready to go if all is safe by then and of course we are really looking forward to it. Hopefully by then we will have some more content released, a brand new setlist, and some merch/physicals for people to get their hands on. It’s going to be a proper laugh going up and down the country and we can’t wait to meet the fans, the bands, and all those involved. Who knows, we might even get a couple more songs out of it.
5. You’re still a relatively young band, so if we were to fast forward five years time, where do you see yourselves?
With everything that is happening at the moment, we just don’t know what the future will look like. We’re all really hard working and writing new tunes comes naturally to us, so we’re itching to get back out there. In five years time we’d love to have a debut album out and have some more tours under our belt. I think it’s hard to know where we might end up with the way things are looking but we’ll want to do whatever we can to help the industry as it means so much to us and many others.
Coinciding with the release, Brixtons had already announced a debut UK tour, made up of 13 dates across the country which has unfortunately been pushed to September due to the current Corona Virus outbreak. Rescheduled dates will be announced in the near future. To keep up to date with any news regarding the future tour dates and any upcoming releases, you can follow Brixtons on Instagram and twitter here: https://www.instagram.com/brixtonsofficial/
‘Now you’re gone’ by Brixtons is now available on all major streaming platforms.
