New, Nairn based local band, Faded State, talk to invernessGiGs.
Faded State are the latest in a long line of young talent in the area currently. So we were glad that the band chose invernessGiGs to give their first interview to.
How did the band Faded State came about?
The band first came about in the summer of 2011. Findlay and Richard had wanted to form a band for a long time and they finally decided to do it. Richard asked his friend Will if he wanted to play drums for them, Findlay and Richard played guitar. They then started out playing a few covers and some of their own material without a singer or bassist. They had also decided on a name, which was originally ‘Made in Mexico’ but they then decided to change it to ‘Faded State’. There was no real meaning behind the title, it was just an idea that eventually stuck. The 3 then started advertising for a singer on facebook and that’s when I (Steven) joined the band. I decided to go along to one of their band practices and have a little jam. I already had written some of my own material which I then played to them and we added them to the set. The search for a bass player was quite long and hard. Findlay had a friend, Craig, who had played guitar in other bands and was looking to join another. We then came to the decision that Richard was to play Bass and Craig take his place as rhythm guitarist.
Can you tell us a bit about the main influences on Faded State?
The band has many influences from a wide range of genre’s, but the one that stood out the most for us was Blink 182. Faded State started off as a pop-punk band and we play a lot of song by Blink. However the band now has gotten slightly heavier and the influences of this change were InMe, A Day to Remember and Young Guns. Each member of the band had different music tastes but we have managed to reach an agreement that we will play some pop-punk stuff and some heavier punk rock songs.
Your set currently includes covers and original material, taking one from each, which is your favourite and why?
It is hard to single out one of our own songs as a favourite to play, but we all decided that ‘Hope’ is the song we love to play. As well as us enjoying to play it, we have gotten a good response from our fans with this song as well. This is one of our heavier songs and each member of the band enjoys playing it.
Our favourite cover that we enjoy playing is an acoustic song, A Day to Remember ‘If It means a lot to You’. This band is one of our main influences and we really enjoy playing this as it is a nice chilled out song. Despite the lack of drums for the majority of the song even our drummer loves this song, the song is quite and it helps build it up for the big finish when the drums join in.
Can you tell us about the challenges for being a young band coming onto the scene?
We are finding it quite hard being a young band coming onto the scene as we are finding it hard to get gig’s. However Findlay and I (Steven) have been able to play some acoustic sets at the youth cafe in our local community centre which we played some our own songs but acoustic. And I (Steven) currently play the Caledonian bar with my brother Mark who also plays guitar, but again we only play acoustic stuff.
We have asked a few of the local establishments if we could play gigs at their venues but a lot of them have refused us because they do not approve to the ‘rock scene’. Our music is available on our You Tube and Facebook account and we have received a good response from our fans. The school we all go to, Nairn Academy, has allowed us to come in on Mondays after school and use their practice rooms. Also being young and still in school we find it hard to come across money to be able to buy the best equipment available. It is also hard to try and get followers because we live in a small town and not many people like our kind of music. it has been challenging so far but hopefully gig opportunities will arise for us.
What are you planning for 2012 ?
For 2012 we plan on getting ourselves into a recording studio and to release an EP. We don’t have any gig’s booked yet but we plan on trying to get some for the summer. Hopefully we can get a local event organised for everyone in the area. We plan to try and get ourselves and to gain a good fan base for 2012 so listen out for us!
They are still looking for that first gig, interested in giving them an opportunity please email us at admin@igi.gs and we will make sure that they get back to you.
