Every Monday we will be bringing you interviews with unsigned UK or Ireland artists for Independent Music Monday. Recently we caught up with unsigned Peterborough band Call to the Faithful to find out more…
Who is in the band, how did you meet and where are you from?
We are Call to the Faithful from Peterborough and we are made up of Matt (vocals), Ethan (bass), Will (drums), Joycee and Oscar (guitars). Joycee and Matt are old Uni mates and the rest of the guys know each other from school. From the ashes of a previous band, Ethan and Will were not ready to throw in the towel and enlisted a former colleague, Matt, to jump in and do some vocals for them. It started out just the three of us doing some Royal Blood covers before we started to fill out the sound adding Joycee on guitar and started experimenting with writing our own original material. Then we worked our way through a couple of second guitarists which just didn’t work out for one reason or another before we managed to poach Oscar from his various other successful projects.
How did you come up with the band name?
We came up with the name when we were going through somewhat of a rebirth as a band – we wanted to set a marker to draw the line between the older version of the band that was not really progressing and a newer invigorated version of us which was determined to start putting our music out there both in live shows and through the studio. Around that time, Don Broco had just released the song ‘Come Out to L.A.’ and there is this line “It’s my call to the faithful” and that just really resonated with us – we want our music to be a rallying cry for our increasingly disillusioned brothers and sisters. They are the faithful and we are calling out to them – together, we can make a difference.
Who were your musical influences when you were growing up and who are your influences now?
Growing up we were all listening to anything we could bang our head to, be it classic rock or metal like Guns N’ Roses, Metallica and Slipknot then along came nu-metal and Matt in particular got caught up in the wave with the likes of Papa Roach, Linkin Park, Limp Bizkit and Bullet For My Valentine which we think can be heard in his vocal style, intertwining melodies between spitting bars and rounding off with a touch of screaming. Joycee has some roots in the DnB scene and that influence can’t be denied – he produces all of our live intro and midtracks between songs as well as throwing some synthy sounds into the mix of our songs. More recently we have been drawing inspiration from bands such as Architects and Mongol Horde on our heavier sound and we’re really into what Sleep Token are putting out and that is helping inspire and shape us into what we ultimately want to become which is a band that can take you on a ride exploring your deepest, darkest emotions one moment and then kick you in the face and make you want to mosh, the next. Stylistically we also have a deep respect for Frank Carter and what he is doing with his band the Rattlesnakes – they pour so much energy into their live set and we want to try and emulate that, but not only that, what they are doing to try and raise awareness to make gigs safer for women and the way they stick up for the vulnerable and those with mental health problems – these are the kind of issues we want to fight for.
How would you describe your sound?
We pride ourselves on sounding different – we’re yet to find a lineup that we’ve truly fitted on, but we quite like that. We do a show with a mostly metal lineup and we hold our own but the slower, emotional ‘Demons’ or the fast-paced toe-tapper ‘The Way You Taste’ might turn a few heads, or conversely we do a show with a mostly Indy lineup and we’re going to melt some faces off when the breakdown of ‘Ultraviolet Wasteland’ drops, but we always stand out and we firmly believe our varied and energetic live show is our strongest asset and it doesn’t matter who you are, we are going to get you tapping your feet or nodding your head before the night is out. We’ve been compared to everything from Avenged Sevenfold to EMF and lots in-between, but in truth… we are just Call to the Faithful.
What is your latest release called and what was the influence behind it?
Our latest release is a single called ‘Sin City’ which we put out in September. This is a tale of a hedonistic place where all your wildest dreams can come true but your worst fears are one short misstep away. This is our second single and follows on from where we left off with our debut single ‘Ultraviolet Wasteland’ – our protagonist, having escaped the desolate post-apocalyptic wasteland, stumbles upon the first signs of civilisation and proceeds to spend their time in this place, unaware that it’s just as dangerous as the place they have just left behind. Sin City was influenced heavily by Matt’s recent trip to Las Vegas and draws inspiration from Hunter S Thompson’s Fear & Loathing in Las Vegas to depict the rotten underbelly of a place with such a notoriously glamorous reputation.
What’s your local music scene like?
The Cambridgeshire music scene is thriving right now, there is so much good music coming out of the region and we’re really happy to play our own little part in that. We’re really into some of the great Cambs bands coming through like LeBrock, Dead Reynolds, A Story To Tell, Tom Lumley & The Brave Liaison, Endeavour, Lonesome and Sages of the Subway to name just a few (check them all out, you won’t regret it). We have a strong connection with some of the venues around Peterborough and love to play shows at the Met Lounge or Mama Liz’s in Stamford and we are really trying to branch out to do more shows in and around Cambridge now that we were given our first opportunity to play there by the great team at Local Distortion – we’ve got a taste for it now and we want to be back experiencing the areas many venues in the near future.
What do you have planned for the next 12 months? Any albums or festivals?
The next 12 months will see the release of our third single ‘Demons’, possibly before the end of the year, and we will want to be back in the studio pretty soon after to record the next round of releases, be it an EP or a collection of singles. We have a live show in Peterborough at the Met Lounge with A Story To Tell and Dead Reynolds on Friday October 18th and a couple more shows before the end of the year that are yet to be announced. We’re in talks exploring some possible opportunities to jump on some wider-reaching tours, which is something we are super keen to do, so fingers crossed we can work something out there. We were not lucky enough to feature on the festival circuit in 2019 as we were just cutting our teeth at live shows but we hope that will be different in 2020 now that we have established what we are capable of and people are starting to sit up and take note.
Is there anyone you’d love to collaborate with?
I think we would love to collaborate with any of the artists we mentioned earlier, either those that have influenced us or those that we admire on the local scene. We would love to write a song that features a female vocalist so they and Matt can bounce off each other with some harmonies – some of his favourite songs utilise that to great effect and we could see ourselves experimenting with that at some point – someone like Lynn Gunn from Pvris would be perfect.
Any funny stories surrounding your live performances?
Very few that we could share, including an impassioned and well-intended speech which went awry thanks to one mispronounced word or the countless stories of parts of band members anatomies ending up on each other’s possessions. But if we are keeping it PG-rated then there was one time that we were (mostly) all on stage ready for a set to start when we realised we were missing one member who shall remain unnamed. After a few minutes of mild confusion and just before the onset of full panic, said member arrived fresh from the toilet and ready to rock. When you gotta go, you gotta go!
What is the one thing that you want readers to know about you?
We’re all really passionate individuals and when we put our heads together we firmly believe that we can create a platform and help give a voice to those less fortunate than us. Expect us to tackle and explore difficult issues through our music and the causes which we will speak up for. If our music inspires just one person in a positive way, by helping them through a dark time or inspiring them to be the change they want to see in the world, then we have done what we set out to achieve. Be nice to each other. Check in on your friends. After all, this IS a wasteland but maybe, just maybe… we CAN be in control!
You can find out more about Call to the Faithful via Facebook, Instagram, SoundCloud, Spotify, Twitter or YouTube.
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