Having spent the last few months releasing a batch of fun and upbeat surf-rock-inspired delights, Isle Of Man-based outfit Voodoo Bandits now return with one of their most engaging tracks to date, ‘Backyard Wrestling’.
With its irresistible fuzzy hook and sing-along chorus, ‘Backyard Wrestling’ sees the group return in stellar form. With nods to acts such as Circa Waves and Two Door Cinema Club, this new gem is sure to keep your toes tapping from start to finish.
So with the new single available now, we sat down with them to find out more about their sound and what they have planned for the future.
Words by Chris Bound
Discovered via http://musosoup.com
Photocred: Christoper Brew
Chris) Hi guys, how are you today?
Voodoo Bandits) Things are pretty good right now thanks! Been working on a lot of new stuff recently.
Who would you say have been your biggest influences and how would you define your sound?
We draw inspiration from a lot of places really, sometimes it’s a song, a riff, or just a guitar tone. A few main influences would have to be (early) Circa Waves, Hockey Dad and Wavves.
I’d describe our music as energetic, uplifting and fun. We’re also pretty big on guitar pedals too which have a massive impact on our sound. One of Ben’s boards can double as a stretcher; it's that long! I guess it could also be useful in case one of us gets injured on stage.
You have just released your latest single ‘Backyard Wrestling’. Can you tell us how that came about?
Ben had come up with a chord progression he liked and was experimenting with some different riffs using a loop pedal. He tried out some ideas pairing fuzz with vibrato and voilà, the riffs worked really well together.
And are you pleased with how it turned out?
Yeah we’re really proud of this one! This was the first track we recorded ourselves and was recorded in a home studio built by Ben and Char during lockdown. We’re going to continue recording future tracks in this way from now on because it gave us more control over everything. It meant we could work on it for as long as we liked to get things sounding exactly how we wanted.
It was a bit of a battle getting the main riff to sound the way we wanted it to which was important because it kind of underpins the whole song. We’re really happy with how it’s turned out and have learned a lot doing it.
Do you have any plans to release an EP or even album in the near future?
No immediate plans for an EP or an album right now. We’re going to keep doing what we’re doing and release singles for the time being. We’ll start thinking about releasing something bigger further down the line once we’ve cemented our sound more fully.
Coronavirus has obviously affected the live shows for the moment, but what about your plans for the rest of the year?
We’re in a pretty unique position in the Isle of Man at the moment as we’ve been able to get rid of COVID so we’ve been gigging twice a week for a few months now over here. It’s nice practice and gives us an opportunity to test new songs, but doesn’t quite compare to the crowds in the UK! We’re itching for the borders to reopen so we can get back to over and do our thing.
We’ve got a few UK gigs in the pipeline for later this year including shows at The Deaf Institute, Arts Club Liverpool and a tour of Scotland. Obviously with everything that’s going on things are a bit up in the air at the minute and things are getting cancelled and postponed all over the place so we’ll just have to see what happens. Hopefully it’s pretty soon cause the atmosphere at livestream gigs isn’t really the same.
For now we’re gonna keep writing, recording and polishing up our live shows so that when these gigs do come round, we’re more than ready for them.
And finally, where do you all see yourselves in five years?
In five years time we see ourselves as successful pickle farmers…
Alternatively, in five years time (hopefully we’re not still in lockdown) we’d all like to be able to make a living from our music. We want to make a name for ourselves in the UK and be playing gigs and festivals regularly. By then we’d aim to have released an album or two too!