Only Shadows [unedited]

Only Shadows on Spotify

Only Shadows

Interview & Review

1. What member are you?

“I’m Nick, the singer/guitarist for Only Shadows.”

2. Are you the songwriter?

“Yeah, I dominantly write the songs. I work with Alex, the bassist, and he comes in on that. And then after he looks at it we sit down with everyone else and try to make it our sound.”

3. What inspired you to start making music?

“I’ve always loved music at an early age, I think my dad has always had his guitar. He was always playing the guitar. And then probably the few albums that made me think I want to do this myself, and I want to get into this myself….. Muse, White Stripes, Elephant… Great album…. Queens of the Stone Age, and probably Radiohead as well. They are probably the reason why I got into music, you know the rocky pop albums really got me into it. I just love the guitar, I love music as you can tell from the music (influences). I was never into sports and music was what I wanted to do, I got obsessed with it.”

4. What kind of White Stripes songs did you listen to?

“So I love the ‘Elephant’ album, so the classics ‘Seven Nation Army’, ‘Black Math’, ‘Bird to Bird’. And the one that always got me was ‘Ball or Whiskey’. I just loved how the last verse there’s no vocals at all, there’s just guitar and it goes through it completely and there’s just a solo. Stuff like that, things that go outside the box as well.”

5. What influences your songs?

“We all live a quiet authentic work life, so we all have our own jobs. So we all have our own look at things. We all find our own stresses and we all find our difficulties month-to-month. That feeds into the creation and kind of keeps it online because it’s clean and we just empty it all out in our band. It kind of the probably shows in our music. For instance, Fight Milk. The video we want to say is a lot more aggressive, which kind of feeds into the experience and the past. It’s all actual and raw, we never sit down and go like ‘let’s pretend.’”   

6. What kind of jobs do you guys work at?

“They’re not very exciting. I do insurance, Paul the drummer he works for Jaguar the car company, Riley works for the bank, and Mofitt works for kind of insurance as well as benefits and stuff…. It’s such a far contrast from our jobs to what we do when we go on tour and things like that.”

7. Where have you toured?

“A couple of tours, but they all have been the UK. Our first tour, we toured with a band called Young Undertaker. Which went really really well, and it kind of got us hyped so we quickly bounced on that hype and did it again. And we did our own tour, and our first highlight tour we sold out most of our venues. It all paid for itself in a way. We were proper and bowled over by how many people were there as you can probably believe it. And then we got this mini-tour at the end of November in the UK as well.” 

8. What is your fan-base like?

“They’re full on, they love it, really involved, and they’re loyal as well. They always (listening) to our new songs, we know a lot of them face-to-face and by name, so it’s always good to see them. (We always bump into them at gigs) and they all love us. We tend to attract others as well, and the kind of fans that just stick with us so it’s really appreciated.”

9. On your about page for Spotify, it says that you had immediate success with “Be Still”. What kind of success did you have?

“Be Still did really well for us, it jumped up 100k in like a couple of months. We didn’t expect it at all. I think the video for it went better than we thought it would of. We did it in one take. So that went well as well. And I suppose that Be Still was in my mind was the first song we wrote together, and it was the only song we had at the time. And it attracted the crowds we had for the first headline tour….. We owe a lot to Be Still. And it was a lot to it because we made it.” 

What’s it like to play for a sold-out show?

“(There are) times when you look up during the show and you get a bit lost. It is odd to think that you’re doing something at home that can take you anywhere. And people want to come see it…. It kind of makes you feel proud, it kind of feels like there’s a purpose to it…. It’s the best feeling in the world.”

10. What kind of venues have you sold out at?

“So our average show is about 250. That tour that we did we were kind of like 80 to 100 average with about 7 dates we played at shows for a bit. We had about a good year off of playing now ready for the next songs and the next tour. We are just really excited to get on the next tour and see everyone that we haven’t seen in awhile.”

11. Are you having similar success with Fight Milk?

“Yes again like Fight Milk is a lot like Be Still in a way, we recorded 4 new songs to kind of show the world. And to be honest Fight Milk isn’t the strongest of the 4, but it’s the one that is different. It had something to say about itself and it could carry itself the best. I think that's going to shows so far, it’s number 6 in the indie charts for Holland. It’s on two huge Spotify playlists now, the video is going (great)... It’s really really really good. It’s my personally my favorite ones to play live and I think the video is a true representation of how it is. I love everything about it. I’m glad it’s getting the kind of success it’s getting.” (THE VIDEO IS NOW OUT!)

12. What’s your favorite song, other than Be Still and Fight Milk, that you have made?

“So there’s a new song that will come out I want to say next year, and it’s called Stay Close Me. That kind characterizes our band the best it can; it got epic choruses, it’s got a nice bit where it brings itself down, and out of all the 4 songs it’s the most we have put it together. So if you had to split the song up you could probably say that’s the 25% one we all had. We all love it, we all feel good about it, we all have a role to play in it…. That’s my favorite.”

13. Do you see yourself performing in America?

“Oh, I would love to! We got a booking label called CAA and they’re based in LA. If we get an offer out there, then we would (definitely jump on it). And I believe Fight Milk got a lot of listens in America. It’s doing better over there it’s doing over in the UK. There are some complications with equipment, but yeah we would snap anyone’s hand off with a festival spot or anything like that.”

14. Where do you see your band in 5 years?

“I think it’s hard to tell because you do it for the love… Don’t you? And if people jumping on board with it that’s great, if not then we still will be plugging away and writing songs. Times are changing, there’s less of the scene for Indie music…. More focus on like Pop and House.”

15. Do yourself dropping your day jobs and working full time on your band?

“Yeah, that’s certainly the end game. That’s what we are working towards, you put your heart into it (and it hopefully pays off).”

Overview:★★★★1/4

Escape: ★★★★★

Fight Milk: ★★★★★

Too Late: ★★★★1/2

We Go Further: ★★★★1/2

Be Still: ★★★★★