Interview: The Roadside Bandits Project

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

Someone played Led Zeppelin’s Dazed and Confused with an electric guitar in front of me when I was 13 years old, and that was it!

I would have probably become an architect, I think. 

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

Well, music happens to be my hobby, I actually spend my free time playing guitar or messing around with my studio gear, I guess I just do normal everyday things the rest of the time 

How long has your band been around? 

Three years

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

London, obviously there is so much always going on in London that everything or anything can actually have an influence when you sit down to write music.

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

It’s a bit of a joke really, the “bandits” refers to the people in power (politicians, corporations, banks etc), it feels like we are constantly being robbed by the powers that be as we just try to get on with our lives, so I thought it would be appropriate for them to be mentioned and I added the “project” part as it is, well, a project!

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?

Don’t take it too seriously, it’s meant to be fun! 

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

I shouldn’t have taken it so seriously! 

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

Probably the new single ‘Little Babylon’ means the most to me, its subject is not a light one, it’s about the contempt and incompetence of a government at a time when people are suffering the most, to me is not just a song, it’s a formal complaint about something that it just shouldn’t happen. Musically it has an upbeat tone, but it really isn’t, it’s very serious.  

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

It’s not so much a question of getting a message across but trying to talk about what really is happening and what’s being done to us while we are being distracted with white noise    

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

I’m currently working on the second album and hoping I’ll have it ready for release this year.