Baby got back

Well, who’d have thought it, but we went back to the Barfly!

And it was a whole different experience. That’s not to say the gig we had at the Barfly back in October was bad, it was just dissapointing. This time, though, it was bang on! We had a proper sound check in good time, done by an engineer of absolute quality. That meant we had time to chill before the gig. One of the important things we’ve learnt is that its good to get away from the venue for a bit before the evening starts. Grab a bite to eat and a beer, before heading back to rock out.

Also, we feel that it’s really important to check out the other guys you’re playing with and show some solidarity. At this level, none of us are millionaires yet, so it’s good to offer support when possible. The other bands on the evening were all of a high standard, so everyone who came to the gig got more than their money’s worth!

When it was our time to play, we got up and just rocked out. It was our first gig of the year, and we’ve been told that it was one of the best sets we’ve played, period! It was also Steve’s first time trying out his new PRS guitar live. He was very pleased with how it sounded (his exact words being “Oooooh, GUITARMAKELOUDHEAVYROCKSOUND!!”).

So, that’s the first one of the year down. We’re gonna have a bit of a gig hiatus until April while we work on new material. But then we’re gonna be back, and ready to rock n’ roll!

FTA

Underworld: Here we come

We’ve been building up through some great venues over the course of 2011, and on the 14th December we broke down the doors of The Underworld! (Figuratively speaking of course – we aren’t yet signed so can’t bust places up…for now…)

No denying it’s a big venue – and it was a big deal for us on many levels. Not least because we all know the venue as punters/listeners, so it was great to be able to play a venue where between us we’ve seen the likes of Acid Drinkers, Queens of the Stone Age, Orange Goblin and more. It was a culmination of what we have been working on this year; e.g. new material, better performance, better live sound, more fluidity in our sets, etc.

We were so pleased that so many people could make it along to see us. Hope everyone had a great night!? It was good to catch up before the holiday season fully began, and we all go our separate ways visiting/partying/recovering etc. All four of us had an amazing time playing, and we thought the gig went really well. We were chuffed to work with such a great in-house sound team and use good equipment – it really makes a difference to us – and we hope it showed and was beneficial from the other side of the stage!?

Hope you liked the new song – ‘Fool’s Chain’? There’s some kind of in-joke in there for those in the know btw… It seemed to go down well and we’ve had some great reactions and comments. Hopefully it shows our progression as a band and musicians – it’s pretty diverse in 4 or 5 mins or so – as well as keeping to our subconscious mantra of our music being fun. There’s enough stress in life without having to decipher rock music too! We’ve been refining some of our other tracks along these lines as well, and we were really glad to see the tweaks worked for the better.

We really appreciate all the support we have received this year, and want to thank anyone and everyone who has come to a gig, dropped by to hear a song or two, lent a hand carrying instruments and equipment, made merchandise, helped with promoting, and more. A special thanks to Jess Bryan for not only performing the impressive task of domesticating Steve but also finding the time to make fantastic t-shirts/bags during Surface Festival and often doing flyers/posters for us.

We are not entirely sure what 2012 will bring for FROM THE ASHES – but it will certainly include more new material, more gigs, more venues, more rock and roll, more good times and more friends. Thanks again to everyone who supports us. Peace.

There’s some cool photos from ‘The Photographer of Bands’ who was there on the night here: http://thephotographerofbands.com/from_the_ashes.html.

If you have photos or video from the night, share the love:
mail@fromtheashesband.com
@_fromtheashes_
facebook.com/onlyfromtheashes

“Hey cool, you’re in a band. So what sort of stuff do you play?”

Would you believe that this is the question I dread the most and not for any lack of pride or because I’m in anyway hesitant in telling people about what we do. To be honest, making music is such an intrinsically cool thing to do that I have no reservations about it at all. No, what I really dread is trying to describe music at all. I hate dealing in labels, be it in music or as a way of describing people.

I lack the sub-genre lexicon needed when it comes to describing modern music: I haven’t read a music magazine since I last picked up a copy of Kerrang in the late 90s. It isn’t that I haven’t had an interest in music since then but I prefer to engage with it in a primary fashion, simply put; I love playing the guitar. More than that though I want to be out there seeing bands, and feeling the music, as opposed to reading the reviews of critics and the like. Once, I read a review in a general ‘rock’ mag about a Bryan Adams gig and the guy doing the review was into metal proper (as established in all his other reviews for the magazine), so his review was….well…’dismissive’ to phrase it kindly. It seemed a bewildering mix up of reviewer and subject matter, and was the last time I picked up a magazine.

What makes the ‘Age of Information’ we live in so interesting is that now one wouldn’t have to make do with one review from that gig, instead there a whole host of different viewpoints out there, from magazines to blogs to twitter to Myface to music review sites. The technology available to us today has created fantastic accessibility to art: of course the bad thing about this ‘age’ is the same as the good, namely that EVERYONE can get their stuff out there. Therefore, just like Andy Dufrane, you have to wade through an awful lot of shit to find that nugget of gold.

Then again that’s part of the fun; the attempt to get your stuff out ‘there’. This is part of the reason why I put this band together, because I enjoy writing new music and creating something. Yet the absolute favourite part of it is playing live, with the people you know, the people you don’t, and the people that just wanna have a good time. And then there’s the exhilaration of playing as loud and heavy as humanly possible..

I love creating new material that doesn’t sound like everyone else. I love writing songs in different structures, fusing the disparate styles of those of us in FTA, creating the dynamic shifts in songs, all of which give us our sound. I think what makes a band interesting is the group dynamic. You bring together a bunch of people, stick them in a studio and let them get on with it. The end results will be different if you swap even one of those people out and that’s what makes it unique and different: each different group of people brings different influences and abilities, creating a style that, while it can be copied, can never be replicated.

With FTA I got lucky in bringing together an awesome group of guys who just have a dizzying array of talent and ability and I can’t think of a better group of guys to share a stage with.

See ya out there,
Steve

Unfortunately there were some issues on the night at the organiser’s end, which meant we didn’t get a sound check, and only the most cursory of line checks. We still played well, and had a great time, but we weren’t quite able to provide the best live show we pride ourselves on. First and foremost, we’re a live band and we love getting up in front of everybody and cutting loose, and making it something to enjoy for everyone there, not just those who have come to support.

The next gig is possibly even more exciting…The Underworld in Camden on December 14th.

This is our Electronic Press Kit, an introduction to FROM THE ASHES shot by the ever-fantastic Mr Chris Rowe of Midnight Crow Pictures. He came down to the studio when we were recording our first track ‘Slipshod Blues’. For three of us, it was the first time in the recording studio since we were teenagers. Although recording your first single as a band feels a little different to recording a school assignment! The excitement was palpable as we started laying down the track, though, as you can tell from the video above, we stayed highly professional all the way through…

More about our later experience recording the full EP here.

“This is your first gig? Really?”

We were pretty much taken aback by that comment after we first got off stage at Tommy Flynn’s, Camden in September 2010, but put it down to the hard work and intense preparation we had made since Steve finally cobbled us together in August 2009. You could say we have steadily been climbing the gigging scene since then, with appearances at The Enterprise, The Water Rats, The Barfly, and come the 14th of December, The Underworld in Camden Town.

Yet we have also had some amazing times in between, including down and around the rest of Greater London. The New Year began with The Water Rats, where although one of seven bands on the night (hectic to say the least!), we proved we had tightened our set since only a few months previous, including a much acclaimed cowbell solo from our good friend and supporter B to the R to the A girl-Hassett!

February saw us mooch on down to the South-East London Rock scene at the Birdsnest a pub of good vibes, good alcohol and good sound of which you can see a clip of in the video section. This was our first tailor made promoter flyer (see below), one of which is now stuck in our gigging journal (or Gids’ for that matter as he would probably be the one to write a memoir when we are famous): and it looked awesome.

The following months entailed much focus and energy into deciding, recording and mastering our EP, which with the brilliant assistance of Pete at Zed One Studios and McCartney’s Boys down at Abbey Road, produced our pride and joy that was our first release! iTunes went crazy and Amazon couldn’t get enough of it, rising from #64 in the MP3 Rock download chart to #1 in a matter of a week! Needless to say it was the power of our fans that pushed it up there and we hope to replicate the same success in the future.

As May came around we joined among 500 other bands across Europe to compete for some awesome prizes in the Surface Festival and we entertained several venues including 229 The Venue, The Purple Turtle and finally O2 Islington Academy for the Semi-Finals. During this time our promotion became a well oiled machine selling around 70 tickets per performance and our stage craft improved tenfold, giving us more confidence as a whole and with each other. It ended up in us dropping out of these stages but this gave us a huge release from consistently practicing and playing 20min sets and allowed a fresh stream of ideas, music and lyrics between the whole band that has seen us creating, crafting and fine tuning our ‘sound’.

How important is a sound engineer? Damn important for sure, as was testified this August when we we re-visited the SE London rock scene to play the New Cross Inn. The guy was terrific and gave us a real good setup from which we learnt that plying sound guys with alcohol is definitely a sure way to success. We also met some great guys called the Reckoning and we realise that we wanna replicate this for the future finding other bands with a penchant for loud and good harmonies and our general don’t give a fuck attitude.

The pinnacle of our gigging experience and 2011 though has been playing The Barfly, Camden that besides some sound stuff was still a pretty awesome gig. What we found was that were solid, able to mess around on stage and stil deliver a slick and sticky performance. Since then we have been hugely focused by putting in the hours, creating new material whilst re-working old material to make it sounds even more awesome, even more dynamic and even more FTA.

Amazon:
#1 in Classic Rock
#1 in Hard Rock & Metal
#92 in Top 100 MP3 Albums

iTunes rating:

With an initial push from Facebook and Twitter we manged to reach #1 in the ‘Hard Rock & Metal’ and ‘Classic Rock’ MP3 charts on Amazon. For one week we even broke into the top 100 mp3 downloads, managing to break out of our genre and mix it up with the likes of ga ga, goo goo, and whomever the fuck else.

For a first time release from an unsigned band with no money for advertising, it’s a hell of an achievement. And a ringing endorsement for what can be accomplished via the power of social media. Hell, if Twitter can bring down dictatorships, it’s ability to promote a little old rock band like us is really no surprise, right?!

In a show of unabashed optimism, we attempted to record and mix the whole track in one day. We managed to lay down all the basics and to get a monitor mix, but alas the song was not fully mixed and therefore polished to our satisfaction. But we still released it on gogoyoko, and our first track was out there. We even got featured on their homepage:

Flash forward about eight months, and we were back in the studio. This time we’d set a slightly more realistic goal of recording two songs in three days. Over the course of that time we recorded ‘Starfighter’ and ‘Hot Pursuit’. The results:

As you can tell, we took it very seriously:

With three songs recorded, two to our satisfaction, all we needed was to re-mix ‘Slipshod Blues’. Cue another half day in the studio.

And we were ready. “Ready for what?” you ask? It was time for FROM THE ASHES to release their debut EP…