Bandstock QnA: This Machine treasure rehearsal time
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With band members from Ross-shire and Inverness This Machine has grown out of much earlier bands Dionysus and The Rites. But new music is a constant and they are trying to capture their live sound in recordings ...
Q What has the band been up to so far this year – edited highlights at least for the Bandstock audience coming along next Sunday to the Beaufort Hotel for this new event?
A What have we been up to? So far this year we’ve played the Tooth & Claw mid-April, to a capacity crowd, and we’ve released our first two “DIY” recordings. We’ve had a go at setting up our own studio in our rehearsal room, and we’ve had a fair bit of trial and error with this, since the end of last summer. Which I’m sure will continue, going forward, as we attempt to capture our live sound in a recording. We also filmed a 30-minute set of songs in the Ironworks, at the start of February, just a couple of days before the doors were closed for the last time at the venue.
Q What are the biggest challenges for you in music this year so far – has anything made you change or adapt your original plans for what you wanted to achieve?
A Challenges faced – not really any challenges, apart from the challenge of learning to be music producers instead of performers!! But we would have liked to have been involved in some of this year's more “traditional” style festivals, the Belladrums of the music calendar. But we realise we haven’t really performed very much in the past year, so shouldn’t expect to walk into festival slots, without doing the legwork, so to speak. I suppose we have to try and get ourselves into the conversation to be considered for festivals and bigger gigs.
Q Tell us about your music and what keeps it exciting for you and what gets you being creative and pushing yourself(ves) forward?
A Our music – we are in a different stage of our musical journey than some other, younger bands… we’re not “chasing the dream” like we did 15-odd years ago… so it’s definitely more of a hobby nowadays. However, the band all treasure our Thursday night rehearsals, when we close the door to the outside world and nothing else matters for three or four hours… but I think we feel the music we’ve been writing and performing these past five years, have been the best songs we’ve ever written… and every new song that comes along, almost always becomes my new favourite. A lot of the songwriting duties land on Rory’s lap, as he writes pretty much all the lyrics, so we are at the mercy of his writing “mojo” but as far as I’m concerned (albeit with a biased opinion) he comes up with the goods!! Personally, I just have to focus on writing new guitar solos for every song, whilst trying to hide the fact that I’m basically playing the same solos in a different key!!
