Band and Nantwich

It seems like every time I am writing an entry, I have moved to a different part of England. Well, I really think this will be the last time I will have moved. Right now, I live in Nantwich, I got here about 3-4 weeks ago. The reason for that is that it is much closer to my college, and I am also able to take the public bus now, which goes every hour instead of just once a day like the college bus does. This is perfect for if I want to stay in Crewe longer, for band practice or doing something with friends. Here you can see a map that I drew of Crewe and its surroundings. The red dots are where I have stayed so far and my journey through Cheshire:

Nantwich is really nice, there is a town centre with a few shops and a good gym. My new host mom is also a blessing, she is a self acclaimed “crazy cat lady” (she just got her third cat) and is very nice. She lives in a three story part of a house, and I have a room on the ground floor (lucky).

I’m befriending a new cat approximately every two weeks, hahahaha.

Together with her and me there is also a Ukranian refugee girl that works in here, but she is only staying one more month before moving to London.

Band

When I came to England, making a band was a one of my priorities, because I practiced guitar for a while and felt like I was good enough to play in a band and perform for other people. Together with three other guys from college, we eventually decided to become a band last November and started out collecting songs that we would want to play. This is us, from left to right:

Tom W (Lead singer and rythm guitarist)

Me (Lead guitar)

Tom J (Bass and “carrier of the whole band” (citation needed))

Will (Killer on drums)

Picture credit goes to Harrison, one of my best mates and designated band photographer.

The good thing is that the college has a few music rooms that are all equipped with at least mediocre amplifiers and drumsets, so band practice was never really a problem. We are even allowed to go in there after college hours, which is what enabled us to become a band in the first place. We settled on songs that are mostly grunge, alt and post-hardcore metal from the 90s and 2000s, the best songs in our current setlist are (in my opinion) the Title Fight and Hum entries. The setlist is about 40 minutes long and I think we have a really good mix going for us. We have been practicing these songs until now and also recently started working on original songs, that are greatly inspired by the Title Fight sound. Lots of distortion, loud drums and weird chords with underlying melodies. We make heavy guitar riffs and it sounds awesome, but we are struggling with text.

The only problem we are facing is that this type of music is not as popular at the moment, and playing in pubs is virtually impossible for a band like us. Our tone is way too heavy to play at most pubs, especially because the clientele is used to the classic rock ‘n’ roll sound. We had two gigs lined up already, but the first venue couldn’t fit us in in the end and the second one was so close to bankruptcy that they didn’t know if they would still be open by that time. They said they will postpone the gig, so it is not totally out of the question, but it is less than ideal.

If you have read this far, you should totally click on this button and follow our band on Instagram (do it):

Here are some more band photos:

That was is for this entry, I hope you enjoyed the read. As always, on the bottom of my homepage, you can enter your E-Mail to get a notification when I post something new. See you next time.