Interview & Review
“From a young age, I was kind of very into sports, such as soccer. And from that stemmed into playing video games like Fifa. And once I played Fifa, I got really into the bands that used to be on the game for the soundtrack so that made me want to learn guitar. So that’s definitely what got me inspired into music.” Jack Murphy's favorite soccer team comes from England, their name is West Ham United. Just for all the reader's knowledge, ManU is in 2nd place and West Ham is in 17th place.... Just saying.....
His songs are about everyday life and whatever affects his life, such as politics. “It’s more about society and the way that everyone’s so divided nowadays. When I was younger, there was definitely a division in politics, but now it seems to be, with social media, it seems to be a lot more, 'you’re either with us or you’re not', you know, left versus right. And I’m kind of sat over here in the middle. Just kind of saying that there are a lot more problems to worry about in society, especially for the younger generation as well. So I’m kind of very interested in millennials as a center, because, you know, being one, we’re blamed for a lot of stuff.”
“We were playing a show in London a few months back and there was a terror attack literally about ten minutes down the road. Yeah, it was scary because as we were playing on stage, the attack happened, and obviously as we come out on stage we’re on top of the world as you are when you play, and then you hear about that happening and it’s very scary and it really does bring you back down to earth.”
Jack says that his fan base, "it’s not, like, particular. We have fans spanning all ages, all genders. It’s just a really strange mix. Because of our sound, we don’t really fit in with a lot of bands, so we’ve kind of had to create our own fanbase. And our fanbase is really up for having a joke and not taking things too seriously really, and we kind of respond to that well because we don’t take things too seriously either. There’s a lot of jokes in our songs. We just go about bringing the fun back to music rather than being something too serious, but doing things in a lighthearted way.”
The set up for Youth Killed It is Jack Murphy (who I was talking to) as rhythm guitar/vocals, a lead guitarist, bass player, and drummer. They sometimes added in a keyboardist, "depending on the show and whether the stage is big enough." Popstar amd You Don't Know uses the keyboard, but more specifically an organ.
“Popstar is kind of a dig at society. It’s a dig at the music industry and it’s a dig at society. When I was younger, I was quite intellectual, but I always found other things more interesting. Like I didn’t like writing, or math, or English. It wasn’t something I was particularly interested in. But when it comes to music, I loved it. I went to college and I dropped out and I was always told, “You should have done this, you should have done that” and when I say the first lyrics, “So it turns out I should have gone Oxford, I should have gone Cambridge”, Oxford and Cambridge are the most prestigious universities we have in the UK, so it’s kind of, turns out I should have done these things, but it wouldn’t have impacted me as much with how happy I am doing what I’m doing now. It’s also kind of a dig at the music industry in the sense that you kind of have to look like One Direction to be successful in music and you have to do all these things, so when I say, “Maybe if I was a little bit better looking I could be a Popstar” that’s kind of like, maybe if I sold my soul, didn’t write songs about what I wanted to write about, wrote songs that would sell records… it’s a dig towards that. Very, like, society driven and what is expected of you as a young adult.”
Popstar is actually not my favorite song of theirs, but it is a close second. For some reason my favorite is Molly, which sounds slightly more up beat than the rest of their songs. This doesn't take away from the great albums like Modern Bollotics and the single Islands. Jack tells me that he is "massively" inspired by the Arctic Monkeys. "The Arctic Monkeys’ early albums were the soundtrack to my teenage years, so they’re a massive inspiration. I love the delivery of the lyrics and the wordplay and the guitarist, just the whole vibe of the music I’m a massive fan of.” That launched a big nerd out section from him, and let me discover the old AM even more, which is one of my favorite bands as well. “I would say [we’re lyrically influenced]. We’re from different areas. We’re from more near London, they’re from up north, which is Sheffield. Not too far from Manchester and Birmingham. So we have different sort of slang as such.They use a lot of northern slang and we use a lot of southern slang, we’ve got similar meanings to songs, but we would say because of the dialect down south and up north being different, that’s where we differentiate.”
“My definition of Britpop would be one word: Oasis. Basically, with Britpop, it’s all about jangly guitar sounds, lyrics that are aimed at common people, and sung with an accent somewhere in Britain.”
In 5 years Jack says they will be “Hopefully still be producing albums, putting albums out, putting songs out. Luckily with the whole Spotify thing it’s easier now to get your music out there and get it heard by different people. So we’ll definitely look into pushing our music that way. Spotify have been very kind to us and put us on playlist to get people hearing of us that would have never heard of us otherwise. So hopefully I’d like to be at the level where we can continue touring, continue writing and putting out songs, and be able to financially rely on itself.” They are hopefully touring America, where his last band toured the States twice. He loved to be going to Japan, and travel Europe.
“Well, we’re currently working on album number two. So we’re very excited to get that out, that’ll be dropping hopefully next year. It’s all in demo stages at the moment but we’re looking to record sometime very soon and put together a new album with a new campaign with our label. They’re more indie this time, you’ll still tell they’re us, but the songs have evolved a bit more, we feel they’ve got stronger. So we touch on a few different subjects this album. We’re looking really forward to see what people think of it.”
The singles are hopefully coming out soon, and a new album will also be coming out middle of 2018.
His songs are about everyday life and whatever affects his life, such as politics. “It’s more about society and the way that everyone’s so divided nowadays. When I was younger, there was definitely a division in politics, but now it seems to be, with social media, it seems to be a lot more, 'you’re either with us or you’re not', you know, left versus right. And I’m kind of sat over here in the middle. Just kind of saying that there are a lot more problems to worry about in society, especially for the younger generation as well. So I’m kind of very interested in millennials as a center, because, you know, being one, we’re blamed for a lot of stuff.”
“We were playing a show in London a few months back and there was a terror attack literally about ten minutes down the road. Yeah, it was scary because as we were playing on stage, the attack happened, and obviously as we come out on stage we’re on top of the world as you are when you play, and then you hear about that happening and it’s very scary and it really does bring you back down to earth.”
Jack says that his fan base, "it’s not, like, particular. We have fans spanning all ages, all genders. It’s just a really strange mix. Because of our sound, we don’t really fit in with a lot of bands, so we’ve kind of had to create our own fanbase. And our fanbase is really up for having a joke and not taking things too seriously really, and we kind of respond to that well because we don’t take things too seriously either. There’s a lot of jokes in our songs. We just go about bringing the fun back to music rather than being something too serious, but doing things in a lighthearted way.”
The set up for Youth Killed It is Jack Murphy (who I was talking to) as rhythm guitar/vocals, a lead guitarist, bass player, and drummer. They sometimes added in a keyboardist, "depending on the show and whether the stage is big enough." Popstar amd You Don't Know uses the keyboard, but more specifically an organ.
“Popstar is kind of a dig at society. It’s a dig at the music industry and it’s a dig at society. When I was younger, I was quite intellectual, but I always found other things more interesting. Like I didn’t like writing, or math, or English. It wasn’t something I was particularly interested in. But when it comes to music, I loved it. I went to college and I dropped out and I was always told, “You should have done this, you should have done that” and when I say the first lyrics, “So it turns out I should have gone Oxford, I should have gone Cambridge”, Oxford and Cambridge are the most prestigious universities we have in the UK, so it’s kind of, turns out I should have done these things, but it wouldn’t have impacted me as much with how happy I am doing what I’m doing now. It’s also kind of a dig at the music industry in the sense that you kind of have to look like One Direction to be successful in music and you have to do all these things, so when I say, “Maybe if I was a little bit better looking I could be a Popstar” that’s kind of like, maybe if I sold my soul, didn’t write songs about what I wanted to write about, wrote songs that would sell records… it’s a dig towards that. Very, like, society driven and what is expected of you as a young adult.”
Popstar is actually not my favorite song of theirs, but it is a close second. For some reason my favorite is Molly, which sounds slightly more up beat than the rest of their songs. This doesn't take away from the great albums like Modern Bollotics and the single Islands. Jack tells me that he is "massively" inspired by the Arctic Monkeys. "The Arctic Monkeys’ early albums were the soundtrack to my teenage years, so they’re a massive inspiration. I love the delivery of the lyrics and the wordplay and the guitarist, just the whole vibe of the music I’m a massive fan of.” That launched a big nerd out section from him, and let me discover the old AM even more, which is one of my favorite bands as well. “I would say [we’re lyrically influenced]. We’re from different areas. We’re from more near London, they’re from up north, which is Sheffield. Not too far from Manchester and Birmingham. So we have different sort of slang as such.They use a lot of northern slang and we use a lot of southern slang, we’ve got similar meanings to songs, but we would say because of the dialect down south and up north being different, that’s where we differentiate.”
“My definition of Britpop would be one word: Oasis. Basically, with Britpop, it’s all about jangly guitar sounds, lyrics that are aimed at common people, and sung with an accent somewhere in Britain.”
In 5 years Jack says they will be “Hopefully still be producing albums, putting albums out, putting songs out. Luckily with the whole Spotify thing it’s easier now to get your music out there and get it heard by different people. So we’ll definitely look into pushing our music that way. Spotify have been very kind to us and put us on playlist to get people hearing of us that would have never heard of us otherwise. So hopefully I’d like to be at the level where we can continue touring, continue writing and putting out songs, and be able to financially rely on itself.” They are hopefully touring America, where his last band toured the States twice. He loved to be going to Japan, and travel Europe.
“Well, we’re currently working on album number two. So we’re very excited to get that out, that’ll be dropping hopefully next year. It’s all in demo stages at the moment but we’re looking to record sometime very soon and put together a new album with a new campaign with our label. They’re more indie this time, you’ll still tell they’re us, but the songs have evolved a bit more, we feel they’ve got stronger. So we touch on a few different subjects this album. We’re looking really forward to see what people think of it.”
The singles are hopefully coming out soon, and a new album will also be coming out middle of 2018.
Overview: ★★★★1/2
Modern Bollotics: ★★★★★
Islands: ★★★★1/2
Congrats for all your success and look forward to album 2. I know being near a terrorist attack can be life changing.
ReplyDeleteI'm always looking for new music, and it's great to have some context for the songs. Thanks for sharing!
ReplyDeleteSounds scary to be near an attack. Wishing you success as you move forward in your musical journey.
ReplyDeleteWow Congrats on your journey and success! I love finding music and will definitely be checking the songs out.
ReplyDeleteCongrats on your success and your journey. Just keep moving and keep it up.
ReplyDeleteThis was such a great insight on the journey of this band. I love reading about all the ins and outs, dislikes and likes and of course the successes!
ReplyDelete