Interview: Seek Harbour

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

What got me personally into music was a "music man" visiting my school when I was around 11 years old and he brought loads of brass instruments with him, after showcasing them he asked whoever wanted a go could queue up with their own mouthpiece and give it a try!

I queued for the woodwind- the saxophone and played that for 6 years! I played in a street band. From there? Anything musical I wanted to do my mum didn't mind supporting me all the way. I went from bass to electric to then acoustic guitar. I then found I loved singing, as we all do, and started to find my voice from then!

I would probably be honing my barskills as I am a barman but I've always wanted to do a travelling workaway most young people do, I never have done that and although I have been on a fair few holidays I have never just... travelled! I'd probably be abroad being a barman.

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

I like to hangout socially with friends, not implying just the pub! Although there's not much else round here haha! I do tend to love my outdoors, my walks, coffee, finding cute eateries and seeing new cities and towns. I play games not nearly as much as I did growing up but every so often, I am on YouTube quite a lot too.

Listening to music whilst running or walking helps influence me big-time. Otherwise I have the odd idea appear sometimes but it is rare!

How long has your band been around?

We have been around since the late summer of 2019.

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

We are based out of a lovely quaint seaside-town called Deal in the South East of Kent, England. This helped us base our theme almost on a nautical sense as to "Seek Harbour" is to seek home which is comfort and safety.

We liked the ideas behind our songs to have a feel of this every so often as to not veer from our theme as our second single "Sleepless Water" is about alcohol but we've used the imagery of the ocean and named it as such.

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

When we first formed our WhatsApp chat was blank for ages when it came to naming the band! Every so often the chat about "come on guys, back to band name!" kept cropping up and after lots of fails to keep on subject one day CeeJay our guitarist wrote a load of names in and one of them was simply "Seek Harbour"!

I tried my best to convince the other guys to go with that one, it has a ring to it and sort of stuck out. I've always found with band names they lose their meaning the more you get used to seeing it around, you think of the members when you hear/read it. My most favourable example is when I say The Red Hot Chilli peppers you've thought of a lot of things but the first probably wasn't a vegetable!

Tell me about your most memorable shows.

We have only played thus far 3 shows to date. They've all been memorable for sure. The first stays in my heart as it was for a cancer charity with 4 bands who all played for free for a good cause that all started with my best friends band reforming to put on the show, sadly he is no longer with us. So that stays with me for sure. Great night.

We played a recent show at a local venue in our hometown that I used to work at, and that was an almighty crowd. They chanted our name, knew our lyrics, danced their hearts out and made us feel completely welcome and loved. What a show! (and the sound was absolutely fantastic!)

What is your favorite venue to play at, and do you have any places you want to play that you have not already?

By far as I have always wanted to play the stage, it has to be The Lighthouse Music & Arts Pub in Deal, our hometown.

There are a plethora of places we want to conquer, there are many I'm sure we're not even sure exist of yet we'd want to return to, but, there would be a bittersweet irony that we play at an Impericon Fest as seeing "Being As An Ocean" play there was the reason the guitarist wanted to form (after originally turning it down!).

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

Ooh, it'd have to be Being As An Ocean - which was our guitarists inspo to start the band after coming back from one of their shows at Impericon Fest - with support from our friends in Nevertell.

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

Some advice I would give is don't be bummed out when things feel they aren't making tracks and gaining traction, it takes time to build, start with the first brick and go from there. We have been "in the making" for about 2 years and we're now ready to start gigging and getting ourselves out there. Never give up- staying positive you'll be surprised what'll fall onto your lap, work hard and stay positive and you'll never know unless you open your arms and embrace it.

My younger self? Stop looking for a happy medium- reach for the maximum, you deserve it. We all do!

Also- you don't "need this piece of equipment" or "this software" to start writing. You can

write with the basics.

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

If we could go back in time and offer ourselves advice... We wouldn't go back in time and offer the younger version of ourselves advice because we think that actually, as adults, you lose that free will and that lack of fear, not ignorance, but just the care-free nature you have when you're younger. So we would actually go back and we'd take advice off of our younger selves, we could remind ourselves that it's okay to follow your dreams- you only get one chance at life.

We'd look at what we're like then and we'd try and take an element of that and we wouldn't change anything because otherwise we wouldn't be where we are together on this journey as friends.

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

To me personally it is probably the 4th track of our upcoming E.P and I can't disclose anymore haha! I'm sorry!

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

My favourite songs, ooh! I love singing Sleepless Water, I get to sing Tom Byrne's middle-8 in his obvious absence and he's such a good singer I really like performing what he wrote!

I also enjoy our upcoming title track of our E.P, man that's a fun one. Stay tuned!

By far our most requested is our debut single! "Ghost & Shadow"

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

The process is our guitarist and programmer CeeJay writing lots of layers and midi-parts, he then sends it off to Simon our drummer who puts his own spin and feel onto it, Loz and myself add/takeaway notes and work with CeeJay to see if he likes the way we've sang something or what we've added and if so it stays in, we also pitch in new ideas, Loz and myself work behind the scenes talking about lyrics and once we've come up with a concept CeeJay works with us to compile them into the finishing lyrics.

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

Our songs have all been written from personal experiences within our band, Ghost & Shadow about co-parenting, Sleepless Water about alcohol, alone>lonely about feeling isolated from close friends and family, Dagger Like Eyes about having a toxic relationship with someone, but with all our lyrics they are written subtley so the listener can have their own feel on what they get from the lyrics, we are never too specific so that people can relate in their own personal way making the songs pretty much universal for scenarios you may be in.

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

We are actually very respective of each other and our reasonings behind decisions, we will back down if there's a majority vote and even when doing 1 on 1 if someone really doesn't like an idea we won't do it, if there is good reasoning behind the idea we are open to listening. We are all very fair with each other, there hasn't been a big disagreement as of yet! (fingers crossed, eh!)

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

Our plans are to finish this E.P we are releasing and once we have we want to gig and perhaps even tour in the future and start getting our music out there to a wider audience, we would like to travel around and make ourselves a bit more known.

As I say we have a couple songs left for our upcoming E.P that is worth keeping an eye-out for.

I may have even heard CeeJay once mutter the phrase "album?" once...

Thanks for taking the time to reach out to us, it's been a pleasure to answer curiosities. :-)

Edwin