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Every Monday we will be bringing you interviews with unsigned UK or Ireland artists for Independent Music Monday. Recently we caught up with Kelly from unsigned Wolverhampton band Crest Glider to find out more…

Who is in the band, how did you meet, where are you from and how did you come up with the band name?
The band consists of Jon Collins (Vocals, Guitar and Keys), Sean Carroll (Bass), Mark Grigg (Drums) and myself, Kelly Bird (Vocals, Guitar and Keys).

Jon, Mark and myself all met at school in the Black Country in the West Midlands and we all played in various bands together.

Some time after university I started living with Jon and we started jamming and writing new material. I think it turned into a competition about who could write the better song and it spiralled from there.

Sean is actually my fiancée! I took him along to a jam session and Jon handed him a bass and said “play that” and he hasn’t looked back since! Mark is a newer addition to the band having joined us earlier in the year – when we needed a new drummer he was the obvious choice.

“Crest Glider” is an Old English expression for a ship from the poem “Beowulf”. I stumbled across it when we were looking for a band name and it seemed fitting for this voyage we were about to embark on (and more importantly the rest of the guys thought it sounded cool!).

Who were your musical influences when you were growing up and who are your influences now?
We each have very different influences. I grew up listening to Bowie and Pulp. Jon has always loved the Pixies, Queens of the Stone Age and Red Hot Chili Peppers whereas Sean was influenced by The Jam and Arctic Monkeys and Mark loves Northern Soul.

Aside from mine and Jon’s current obsession with The Distillers, I think we are currently really influenced by the great diverse bands in the Midlands scene at the moment – the likes of Broozer, The Cosmics, The Jack Fletcher Band and MARC.

We played a gig with Alex Ohm a few weeks ago, and the huge cinematic he creates really inspired us.

How would you describe your sound?
Union Jack Radio described our debut single “Horror” as ‘Spunky’ – I don’t know whether that’s a good or bad thing!

I think it’s hard to peg down our sound, which is probably a result of the band members’ different music tastes. If I had to describe it, I’d say it’s frenetic and dreamlike at the same time.

What is your latest release called and what was the influence behind it?
Our newest release is an EP called “When Sirens Smile”. We’ve tried to make the music that we want to hear and that is trapped in our heads.

We think the 3 tracks on the EP give a great representation of where we are at this moment in time with harmonious melodies against angular guitars and ear-bursting drums.

What’s your local music scene like?
The local scene in the Midlands is thriving at the moment with a lot of great bands. It’s predominantly Birmingham focused at the moment, but there are a great group of Black Country artists (including a number mentioned above) who are really looking to grow the Wolverhampton scene.

We’ve played a couple of big Wolverhampton gigs this past year at The Slade Rooms and The Hummingbird and the turn-out has been really good!

What do you have planned for the next 12 months? Any albums or festivals?
We’ve got a busy calendar running up to Christmas. We are playing in-store and doing a signing at HMV Merry Hill in conjunction with the incredible RawSound TV on 19th October. We’ve got a gig with Glass Ceilings and MARC on 22nd November at the o2 Institute Birmingham and then we are playing with The Jack Fletcher Band and Smokin Eskimo on 7th December at the Sunflower Lounge in Birmingham.

We’ve got another couple of festive-themed gigs that are yet to be announced also – so watch this space!

We will be releasing our next single ‘Queen’s Head’ in December and then we’ll be back in the studio early next year to start work on a new EP.

Is there anyone you’d love to collaborate with?
We’ve become passionate amateur filmmakers in recent times, having self-directed our music videos for our last single “Horror” and the opening track, “Monstrous” from our new EP (both available on our YouTube channel!). So I think we’d love to work with someone like Quentin Tarantino to make a cool video!

Any funny stories surrounding your live performances?
Jon is currently having a run of all of his gear breaking during gigs – he’s had his pedal board stop working the moment we were about to start our set, multiple broken strings, guitars, straps and so on. At our last gig it happened during a cover of the Taylor Swift hit “Shake It Off” – thankfully it’s happened so much at this point he took Tay Tay’s advice and shook it off.

What is the one thing that you want readers to know about you?
That we’d love for them to come down to a gig and have have a sing and dance with us!

You can find out more about Crest Glider on their website or via Facebook, Instagram, SoundCloud, Spotify, Twitter or YouTube.