Interview: Next Stop Olympus

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What got you into music, and if you had not gotten into music what would you be doing today?

Matt: I actually just wanted to learn an instrument when I was about 11 so thought about it and everyone I knew played guitar so I decided I wanted to play bass instead and asked for one for and that’s kind of where it all started for me really. As for if I wasn’t in a band, I actually already do the job I wanted to when I was growing up, I always wanted to be a mechanic and now I want to leave that behind for the music.

Conor: I’ve always liked performing and with music you get to choose and with your part and that’s something you don’t normally get to choose with other performance based arts. If I wasn’t doing music I’d be bored.

What do you like to do when you’re not playing music and how does that influence your creativity?

Conor: I read a lot of fantasy and play a lot of playstation, it doesn’t really influence my music but it’s another form of escapism the same as music.

Matt: I’ve picked up drawing and artwork again a lot more of recent so that’s pretty cool. Other then that I just listen to a lot of music and try to understand the way people have done stuff with their own songs to help it progress our music too.

How long has your band been around?

About 4 years, we started writing our debut EP back in early 2018.

Where are you based out of and how did that influence your music?

We’re based in the Salisbury / Southampton area, it’s not really influenced us to much but Southampton and Bristol always have some incredible gigs going on.

How did you come up with the name of your band and what does it mean to you?

Conor came up with the idea of using Next Stop Olympus as a band name, it’s a quote from Disney’s Hercules and it just stuck out whilst he was watching the film slightly drunk one evening. All it means to us really is that it’s a great film!!

Tell me about the best and worst shows you have played?

Best show we played was on a tour with Chuggaboom in Huddersfield, the  local support band were great and the audience were fantastic from the first note we played and it was a great wrap to the tour with such incredible dudes in Chuggaboom. The worst show we ever played was in a tiny horrible skittles alley where we opened to the couple of friends we brought and the band on after were a local older band where we were genuinely concerned the drummer was going to drop dead any second and they stopped their set because the guitarist got a tiny cut on his finger!

Tell me about your favourite venue to play at, and do you have any places you want to play that you haven’t already?

Favourite venue to play so far is probably suburbia in Southampton because they always nail the sound and the sound guy we’ve got to know and he’s just great at what he does. Places we’d like to play that we haven’t yet is anywhere we haven’t played yet and we’d love to tackle Europe.

If you could play any show with any lineup who would be on the ticket?

Conor: Def Leppard, Motley Crue and Poison, just what a line up!!

Matt: Asking Alexandria, Blessthefall, Chelsea grin and With one last breath because that was the first show I ever went too and fell in love with live music so it would of been awesome to jump on that.

What is some advice that you would give to someone who is just getting into playing in a band?

Just do it, give it a go. Practice like mad and don’t rush it, make sure you’re completely happy with what you’re doing before you try play shows, record etc.

If you could go back in time and give yourselves advice, what would it be?

Matt: Learn drums instead! I’d of loved to have played drums or if not that then just practice more, I wish I’d tried harder from a younger age.

Conor: Stop putting other vocalists up on a pedestal and stop comparing yourself to them because they can’t do what I do and I can’t do what they do.

Of your songs which one means the most to you and why?

Conor: For me, it’s ‘Don’t let go’, it’s the most emotional lyrics I’ve ever written.

Matt: ‘My Affliction’, again I wrote the lyrics about something I hadn’t really discussed with other people before regardless of who was aware of it.

Which songs are your favourite to play and which get requested the most?

Favourite to play is ‘My affliction’ and the most requested track for us is our debut track ‘Home’.

What is the creative process for the band, and what inspires you to write your music?

Creative process is someone usually brings something to the table be it, lyrics, a song skeleton or even just an idea and we work on it and build it together from there. What inspires us to write what we do is what we’ve been through personally especially a lot more of the recent songs.

What kinds of messages do you like to get across in your music?

We don’t really write with the intention of a message, especially with the new EP, we just wrote what we needed to, to get stuff off our chest, but we hope people can use that to their own advantage to help themselves in any way they need to.

Do you ever have disagreements in your band, and how do you get past them?

We have disagreements all the time, we just discuss what we need to so we can get past it, at the end of the day we’re 5 guys who are very passionate about what we do, we’re going to butt heads at some point.

What are your plans for the future, and do you have anything that you want to spotlight that’s coming up?

We’ve just released our brand new EP ‘Heart, Mind & Hell’ so we’re just going to keep pushing that as much as possible and play as many shows to get it out there even more once we can!