Peachy Magazine talked with the trio Simple Fiction about how the band came to life, their new single Follow, and much more. Read the interview and listen to the single below.
Listen to their new single Follow while reading the interview:
How did you guys come together as a band? What’s the story on how the band Simple Fiction came to life?
James: It’s a not a massively exciting story really! We all went to the same uni in Guildford together, me and Tom (our drummer) started meeting up to play covers with a few people to see who we’d want to be in a band with. When we started playing original songs we decided that maybe our current guitarist wasn’t the best fit, then Carlos came along and smashed it and it’s been the 3 of us ever since.
What’s the story behind your new single “Follow”?
James: ‘Follow’ is quite a personal one for me actually, I wrote it at a time when I was living on my own and I was trying to process a lot of things that had been happening. So the song is reflective of my efforts to avoid processing these personal things, through leaving the house and seeing people to distract myself. Obviously it wasn’t the right thing to do and I knew that at the time, so the track kind of captures the lengths I took to avoid spending time with myself really.
What’s your approach as a band to create music like? Do the three of you have a similar way of approaching the process of writing music, or what is it usually like?
James: We haven’t really changed our writing method since we started as a band! I usually make a rough demo of a track on my own and when I think its good enough to develop, I’ll take it to the band. A lot of the development for the songs comes from rehearsing and playing it live. We like to test the new material at our gigs to see the reaction it gets before we go into the studio to record.
I think individually we all have different ways of writing music but for Simple Fiction we stick to the method we have been using since we started.
What’s a song throughout history from any given artist that you’d wish you had written?
James: I’m sure we all have pretty varied answers for this, but personally I think I would choose something that we could play as Simple Fiction, like the song ‘Elephant’ by Tame Impala. I don’t think I’ve heard many songs that sound like it and I never get bored of hearing it, which is something you always want to achieve as a songwriter. Although throughout history I could have maybe picked something like ‘Yesterday’ by The Beatles which is a bit more sentimental and well known.
“We feel like we have found our direction sonically as a band.”
– Carlos, Simple Fiction
If you had to point out one highlight of yours as a band so far – what would it be and why?
Carlos: Definitely one of our highlights as a band so far was supporting Valeras at Notting Hill Arts Club before Christmas. It was a special gig for us, as it was the first London show we played after releasing our previous single GREY. It was great to play the song live and to see people’s positive reaction. Also, some of the people in our team were there, which was great and made us feel part of a family!
I know that you’re working on new music right now – what can we expect from you guys?
Carlos: We feel like we have found our direction sonically as a band. After FOLLOW, we will be back in the studio working on our most exciting project to date – can’t really reveal what it is yet, but we are certainly buzzing about how the demos are sounding, and can’t wait to share it with everyone. Just need to wait a little longer!
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