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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 Louis from unsigned Belfast based band Gnarkats 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?
We are a three-piece Belfast based band called Gnarkats, consisting of Jordan Evans on guitar, Stuart Robinson on drums & vocals and myself, Louis Nelson on bass & vocals. Stuart and Jordan met whilst studying an HND music course and quite organically found a natural chemistry that worked well, all that was needed was a bassist. Through knowing mutual friends, my name came up, and that was that. Me and Stuart are both from a town called Bangor and Jordan is from Magherafelt. The name ‘Gnarkats’ wasn’t actually our first band name, it was ‘New Age Gnarly’, but we soon thought after playing our first gig that we should change it to something a bit more catchier before committing, and so the name ‘Gnarkats’ was tossed around one night and it stuck.

Who were your musical influences when you were growing up and who are your influences now?
Growing up, a lot of Oasis, Aerosmith, QOTSA, David Bowie and The Who was played between us, which impacted a lot on our initial influences growing up, but now the three of us have influenced each other to listen to similar sort of stuff such as The Strokes, Phoebe Bridgers and And So I Watch You From Afar.

How would you describe your sound?
We’ve experimented a fair bit when it comes to trying to find our ‘sound’. I really believe our upcoming EP is definitely our most polished and refined ‘sound’ as we’ve learnt a lot since the release of our initial EP back in late 2016 to now. I think we’re going back to our roots a bit with this new EP, with fun dynamic changes in one song with punchy chorus’.

What is your latest release called and what was the influence behind it?
The title ‘Volume Up’ from an inside joke we had with Paul Mahon (producer and mixer of song) during the making of the EP when I stupidly forgot to turn the volume knob up when I was doing a take on bass, we were stuck for a title and so we opted to call it that in memory of fun times we had recording. The song talks about the pressure of knowing what you want in life, how to get there, getting to know yourself and loosely, about how much this matters in a relationship, life is a journey and it is important to experience it with someone.

What’s your local music scene like?
I think I speak for us all when I say we all have a deep love for the local music scene. I personally think a fair handful of my favourite band’s/musician’s come from here in Northern Ireland. It constantly amazes me when I listen to a track that comes from where we are from, and it motivates us, it’s almost like a constant source of inspiration and drive to create ourselves. It’s great going to events like Culture Night in Cathedral Quarter, where it showcases this music scene in one night, making it almost impossible to decide who to go see because often the set times would overlap with someone else you want to see. I’m looking forward to going to local gigs once they start again.

What do you have planned for the next 12 months?
It’s obviously quite hard to even say what the reality of live gigs is going to be in 12 months, but we do intend to release a five-track EP with accompanying music videos that we are very proud of. At the minute we’re writing new songs, and would ideally like to get recording again come the end of the year or start of next.

Is there anyone you’d love to collaborate with?
Anyone? Well The Strokes would be an absolute dream for us all, but maybe that’s one of those scenarios that you don’t want to meet your heroes in case it ends up badly. To be honest, it would be really interesting to collaborate with an artist who maybe wouldn’t suit the genre we play in, but just interesting to see what would come of it, jazz or something haha.

Any funny stories surrounding your live performances?
Our last gig is actually a very memorable one. Last August we were asked to play Open House Festival last year, which is a month-long festival during in a seaside town called Bangor. The stage we were playing on just about had enough room for everything, and we thought we were in the clear. But soon after we started playing and people started coming in, we realised the bass drum kept moving forward towards the edge of the stage despite our efforts to try and stop it from moving. Right when we thought we’d have to stop in the middle of a song and try and properly fix the problem, this elderly gentleman came to the rescue, knelt down and with a pint in one hand he held the bass drum with the other… for the ENTIRE gig! We must have played for well over an hour, with this hero at the front of the stage. We spoke to him throughout the gig, saying that we didn’t want him to potentially injure himself, but he persisted stayed there. We spoke after, and had a Guinness with him. Definitely a gig we won’t forget.

What is the one thing that you want readers to know about you?
We just want our message to relate to others and to share these emotions and feelings in a live gig scenario, which I believe is the best way we convey our songs. We’re here to have a good time and to express ourselves creatively, so come and join us!

You can find out more about Gnarkats via Bandcamp, Facebook, Instagram, SoundCloud, Spotify, Twitter or YouTube.