I've been speaking with a great PR company out of the UK lately called Inception Press. I've been setting up interviews with so many of the great artists on their roster. Here is a brand new one I just did the other day with five-piece band from Reading by the name of Borderline:FIRE. Check it out here!
How long have you guys known each other, and how long has the band been around?
The band started back in 2010. Jamie, the lead singer basically decided that he wanted to start a band. We just started recruiting people.
Where does the name come from? Where does the spelling come from as well?
I think that the name sort of started by just combining different words together, for us. We kind of put together as a joke, but after awhile we sort of started to find a meaning behind it. The idea of barriers and things like that, and the idea of fire being sort of a passion being destructive. I think the colon got thrown in there as well to make it stand out a little bit more.
What was the recording process like for “This Trojan State”?
We had it in our heads that we wanted to do an EP for awhile. We were playing these songs at shows. As soon as we decided that we were going to go ahead and do an EP, it was just writing songs that worked well with each other. A lot of that was just taking time and making sure it worked well together (in reference to the writing process). The first few songs that were in the process of being written had taken about maybe two years. We went into the studio in May of 2012, and then finished them in December. So that took a period of about six or seven months, popping in and out of the studio, finding a way to make the money to go into the studio in-between our day-to-day jobs. We kind of sat on it for a little while, then.
I think the reason it has taken awhile is that, all the way through, we were pretty insistent on making sure that we didn’t leave anything unturned in terms of quality. We wanted to make sure that everything we did was done with perfection.
You guys covered “ET” by Katy Perry awhile ago. What made you guys decide to go with that song as opposed to any other pop song out there?
To be honest, it was just one of the songs that we felt like we could turn it into something. I don’t think of us genuinely liked the original, but we listened to it and felt that it was kind of dark and had a melody that we could use. We do like taking a song that’s not our genre, mixing it up a bit, and making it our own rather than trying to cover a band that sounds quite similar to us.
What’s the story behind the “This Trojan State” album artwork?
We have a couple of guys that work with us. They’re sort of the creative minds behind it. We pitched all of our lyrics and the meaning behind each song to them. They took the song “Brainwashed”, and the idea of tricks and games, which are big metaphors within the chorus. The way they’ve taken that is a magician and the trick behind the magician. So throughout, we have different pictures for each song. You see how bands have a picture for each single. We have a booklet in the album that has a different picture for each one. There’s a ventriloquist, a magician with his hats. The rabbit comes from the magician’s hat. Clown makeup, stuff like that. There’s all these ideas of magic that come from the idea of tricks and things like that. It gets the concept of the record across pretty well.
Where do you guys take musical inspiration from? I hear this interesting synthesis of heavy and melodic music in a way that I haven’t heard in awhile.
A good way of describing our sound is that the five of us don’t exactly have the same music tastes; there’s a lot that we disagree on. If you could create a circle of our music tastes though, there would be a point in the middle where all five of our tastes agree and overlap a little bit. I definitely prefer being in a band like that though. If we all liked the same two bands, I think we would just sound like those two bands. Having it crossover a little bit like that means that you’ll have different sounds and different angles. It’s all kinds of different music, really.
Would you guys mind explaining the concept behind the “I Wanna Go “ music video a little more?
The start of the video is where you first see the main character and what he’s going through. A quarantine is sort of the effect and backdrop that we wanted to give everything. We had this school child, and plunging him straight into an office job. He’s deciding whether it should be his life. When you see the laptop in front of him, it’s him saying “this isn’t what I want to do”.
What kind of message would you like fans to walk away with after listening to your music?
That’s a great question. We want people to smile a little bit. We want people to not necessarily question everything they’re told, but maybe not believe everything that they’re told. Do anything that you want to do. Don’t just follow the crowd. I think certainly there is a culture, especially in rock music, where a lot of bands have latched onto this kind of movement. They’re really still questioning the nature of modern life and servitude. I think if they can relate to it in that same sort of modern frustration that we have, that would be great.
What does music mean to you?
Everything. (laughs) I can’t really see myself doing anything else, because I’m not very good at anything else. I’ve never really been anywhere near excited or passionate about anything as I am about music.
From that moment that you get influenced by music, and that moment that you get influenced by a band, it makes you just want to play in front of large crowds and tour around the country.
For me, I reckon everything’s pretty boring without music (laughs). Music is around you a lot of the time, whether it’s on in the background, or driving in the car. I can’t drive without having music on in my car.
What are the future plans for Borderline:FIRE at the moment?
We’ve already been writing for the next record, which I think will probably be an album. We’re working on new material. We’ve been looking to get into the studio early next year, and we’re already starting to record demos for it as well.
In terms of this new release that’s coming out now, we’re working on some more videos, going to get some more stuff up on to YouTube, and we’re starting a lot more gigs. We got back from doing a lot of festivals throughout the summer. One month, we did seven in a month, and three festivals in two days. We’re going to be booking some winter shows, and possibly a tour as well.
You can keep up to date on all of the latest music and news from Borderline:FIRE at www.facebook.com/borderlinefire . The new EP "This Trojan State" will be available on September 23!
This has been another shameless promotion.