HOME

Every Monday we will be bringing you interviews with unsigned UK or Ireland artists for Independent Music Monday. Recently we caught up with Mark from unsigned Manchester band Rosellas 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 name?
There’s 5 of us in the band, Drew Selby the frontman and lead guitarist, Euan Mail on rhythm guitar, Luis Sullivan on keys and backing vocals, me (Mark Zanker) on the pots and pans and Ollie Appleby on Bass. We all met over the course of about half a year… Drew and Ollie knew each other early on from school. Drew and Luis met on a whim whilst playing in a youth music project involving the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra. Drew approached Luis and they both realised they had the same vision for being in a band. Euan was a few years above Ollie and Drew at school so they knew of each other but Euan properly met Drew on a train back from a Blossoms gig. I came in to the band when I met Luis at music uni, perfectly timed as the boys were looking for a drummer and quite evidently they couldn’t resist getting me in on it.

Who were your musical influences when you were growing up and who are your influences now?
We’ve all had pretty similar influences our whole lives. Mainly coming from our parents playing absolutely class music to us from a young age. Bands such as The Verve, Stone Roses, The Beatles, and Oasis and this definitely feeds into our sound. As time goes on we’ve all got into newer bands and artists such as Sam Fender, Catfish and the Bottlemen, and The Night Cafe, to name a few. Some of us have delved into other genres which properly benefits us as well. Luis listening to more production heavy tunes and electronic music allows us to add next level stuff into the tunes and live sets such as the Common Ground intro and Ollie being into bands such has RHCP gives us some lucid bass tones. It just allows our sound to evolve and stand out from the crowd. We just listen to all sorts man and take in everything we can which is key.

How would you describe your sound?
Definitely loud. There’s a bit of everything in there, bit of psych, rock, Indie, all the good stuff. When you listen to our tunes like ‘Common Ground’ for example which is dead rocky and just sounds massive, and then listen to B Sides like ‘The Edge’ or ‘Inside’, they’re two totally different sounds, whilst still sounding like us. ‘The Edge’ is more chill and laid back, whilst ‘Inside’ includes some of those psychedelc elements with a belter of a solo by Peter Daniel. We like to be more experimental with the B Sides with next to no limits.

We’re lucky enough to be working with a class producer called Oliver Shillito. He just brings our tunes to the next level. The production is crisp, powerful and just refreshing.

What is your latest release called and what was the influence behind it?
Our very latest release was in fact a remix of Born Under a Cloud by our very own Luis which is inspired by the likes of Bicep. It’s something we’ve never released before but it’s actually mint.

The last full band release is Common Ground. To us it’s a very old song, written a couple of years ago. We always knew that this song would be very impactful and when we headed into the studio, it sounded bigger than we imagined. We tend not to tell people the exact meaning behind the lyrics we write because the beauty of songwriting for us is the fact that anyone, anywhere in the world, can apply their own personal meaning to a certain phrase. For them it then transcends anything we could ever say it means as it conjured up a specific emotion in just themselves.

Songs that stand the test of time are ones like that where listeners put it in a place so close to their heart, that if the writer was to tell them what it was really about it could shatter their connection to the tune and be a complete 180 on what they first imagined.

What’s your local music scene like?
Manchester music scene is the best. Home to many of the greatest bands. Before Covid hit, there were gigs left right and centre. We really started to build up momentum across the north and I’d say that’s due to the atmosphere of the crowds that never disappoint in Manchester.

What do you have planned for the next 12 months?
We’ve been super busy and have lots planned. Gigs in Leeds, Liverpool, Sheffield, Y Not fest (if the festival can go ahead) and a few special shows in Manchester. There’s plenty we can’t announce yet as it’s still in the works but there will be loads of chances for you to see a show in a city near you. New music is being finished almost every month, we get final mixes sent a lot and we’re all proper excited to get it out there. Keep on the socials and you’ll be the first to see the announcements.

Is there anyone you’d love to collaborate with?
We’ve already been very lucky to have been able to collaborate with Saul Davies from the band James which was crazy. Listening to them as we all grew up, to then working with the guitarist was pretty surreal. He played Violin on one of our acoustic tracks ‘When This Has All Blown Over’. When we heard it, it just blew us all away so we can’t thank him enough for that. At the moment we’re very content with putting our tunes out there and growing our fanbase, but in the future we’d love to collaborate with some of our heroes.

Any funny stories surrounding your live performances?
We havent been able to do much live work over the past year, the same as most people in bands. Euan once drank 4 other band’s riders on one of our first gigs back in January 2019 and played pretty much every note barr the ones he needed to. We’ve been kicked off stage before for playing the Comfortably Numb solo for about 10 minutes at the end of our set because Drew fancies himself but other than that the stories are yet to be written.

It’s funny to us to look back on our early gigs and see the progression we’ve achieved since then. Before we all got locked down we were gaining quick momentum throughout the north, every time we’d gig we’d see a new bunch of people down so we’re buzzing to get back to it and see a lot of new people down at the front.

What is the one thing that you want readers to know about you?
We’re bringing guitars back into the forefront of the British music scene where they belong. We have a load of T-Shirts that come with a free demo CD, and other bits of Merch on our website.

You can find out more about Rosellas on their website or via Bandcamp, Facebook, Instagram, SoundCloud, Spotify, TikTok, Twitter or YouTube.