Tuesday 22 March 2016

Arcade Fortress Q&A

Your name: 
Gavin Connolly.

Where are you from?
London, United Kingdom.

Name of band:
Arcade Fortress.

Who is in your band?
Gavin Connolly: Vocals, guitar, colourful sock fancier.
Richard Fox: Lead guitar, artwork, Grant’s chauffer.
Bill Sim: Bass guitar, pizza acquisition.
Grant Salmon: Drums, pizza consumer, misplaced sense of entitlement.

How would you describe yourselves and your music?
Our band functions on a strict diet of beer and banter. A phenomenon we call ‘the shark tank’. No space for shrinking violets here. Underneath a veneer of general debauchery, there is a great deal of commitment that goes into creating music that we’d want to listen to ourselves. Every practice results in the beginnings of new material, as well as honing our existing set. We’ve been together since June 2015 and have around three albums worth of quality material, with more being added all the time.

Who are your main influences musically?
Musical influences across the band are varied and eclectic. We all love Foo Fighters and Biffy Clyro. I’m a Led Zeppelin fan. Richard likes Avenged Sevenfold. Bill is mildly obsessed with Metallica. Grant loves Abba and The Beatles. Varied, to say the least.

What do you hope to achieve in music?
I feel there’s space in the market for a new British rock band. We all have day jobs, but what we aspire to is to be paid to make music for a living. I realise nobody is going to hand us success on a plate, so we’re working hard to try and make that happen. It’s not enough just to have good songs these days, everything on social media has to be spot on too, so when we’re not performing, I’m usually making sure everything is kept up to date. On the music front, I try to write songs that stand the test of time, songs that I’d like to hear and buy myself. Some albums are simply timeless; I still listen to Physical Graffiti (Led Zeppelin), Dookie (Green Day) and Ten (Pearl Jam) regularly. I aspire to write albums of that calibre. My dream is to be standing on a festival stage with the crowd singing my lyrics back to me. That would be a major bucket list tick for sure.

What has been the highlight of your career so far, and why?
We’ve been lucky enough to play at some legendary venues such as The Dublin Castle (a past favourite of The Libertines & Amy Winehouse) and The Water Rats (where Bob Dylan played his first UK show, and Oasis made their London debut) but my best band moment so far was recording ‘Tinder’ at Ventura Soundhouse Studio. I was laying down one of the guitar tracks and had a moment where I realised we were creating something special. I may have had a small lump in my throat. In a very manly and rock ’n’ roll way of course.

And what’s the moment you want to forget?
On stage, at The Angel in Hayes. We’d just finished playing our last song ‘Overdrive’. Grant gets really excited during that one. At the very end he launched his drum sticks into the audience. One of them split a guys head open. There was a fair amount of blood. He’d had a good night though, so he was cool with it. We bought him a beer.

If you had to pick just one of your songs to represent your music, what would it be and why?
Tinder. It’s an anthem. I could imagine playing it on a festival stage.

Where can we listen to it?

Where can we find out more about your music?

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