Gigslutz Interview: Morain

On the last day of their tour supporting Alexander, and just 3 days before the release of their new single Who Would’ve Known, Melissa Svenson caught up with Morain at The Garage to discuss touring, growing fan-bases and somewhat questionable influences…

Hey, how are you guys?

Pretty good thanks.

Whereabouts are you guys from?

Wakefield, near Leeds.

You’re used to the cold then! Is it different playing in London to back home?

There’s always more pressure at home, with friends and family being there, because you have to prove to them that spending all your time doing this ‘band-thing’ is worthwhile. But then you’ve got a different kind of pressure in London – there’s always a lot more industry people.

Yeah, I guess if you’re a London band you at least have all the pressure in one place.

Yeah, definitely. It’s nice to come down and play though, especially as we have a little bit of a fan-base here.

Of course, it’s always nice to play for fans. So, this is the last day of the tour. Are you glad it’s coming to an end? Are you desperately in need of a rest?

We could do a few more, I reckon. I need a day off because it’s been 7 days straight. It’s been a strain on my voice, but I could definitely keep going after that. It sucks because you find your rhythm about 3 or 4 days into a tour; when you’re doing a week and you’re finally getting to know the other bands and getting on really well, it then comes to an end.

Yeah it’s never nice to be dragged away from something fun. What would you say your favourite shows have been so far?

Newcastle was great, and last night in Cardiff – that was a great crowd.  Although, I think tonight will be the best.

It always is in London! How’ve you found the crowd, as a support band?

It’s been really good. Alexander are quite similar sounding, so the fans are similar. People have come especially for us so that’s been nice; our fans haven’t heard of them and their fans haven’t heard of us so it’s quite nice to get those extra fans. It’s a good mix. And we’ve been getting a good response after each show.


Do you think social media’s helped a lot with the fan-base?

Yeah. It’s got us a lot of fans and it’s nice to wake up after a show and have a load of new tweets saying that people saw us and enjoyed it. It makes it all worthwhile. And we’ve got fans that saw us on our Canterbury tour last year and have been to see us on this tour, which is great. It’s nice to know that people are sticking with us.

You’ve got a new EP coming out soon, haven’t you?

We have a single out on Monday and the EP is out April 21st.

Not too long! It’s a been a while since the last EP…

Yeah, it’s been about a year and a half.

Has there been much change in sound then?

No not really, some songs were written at the same time as the old EP. There are a couple of new ones on there too. We learnt very early on what kind of band we wanted to be and how we wanted sound, so we’re not going to change that. There are new elements and different ways of doing things – it’s not going to be the same EP again, it’s better thought out. But it’s the same. If you liked Morain before, you’ll like us again.

And what’s the reaction been like so far for the new single?

Really good, actually. We were really worried because we’d been active last year with shows but not put any songs out – we weren’t sure if there would be anyone there to care, but it’s all been good with social media and stuff. It’s worrying as well, after a year and a half, because there have been all these fads at the minute and the kind of music we’re doing isn’t that big a deal. We don’t have the synths that everyone else is doing so we were a bit wary, but it’s been good.

It’s nice to be different though, especially if everyone else sounds the same.

Our goal is just to be a British rock band, and at some point straight up guitar music will come back around and will take a leap at that. Until then we’ll plod along with what we’re doing.

Who would you say your biggest influences are?

Our influences aren’t really who we sound like. As far as an outlook on what we want the band to sound like it’s bands like Snow Patrol and Stereophonics – festival headlining British rock bands – but we’re all influenced individually by very different people. Jim likes technical guitar music, I like complete pop Gary Barlow crap, our drummer’s into drum & bass and house music. It’s good because it means our music isn’t straight up what you’d expect from rock music as everyone’s been inspired in such different ways.

Well it’s always nice to have a slight twist.

Can’t pigeonhole us! When we were younger we all liked similar stuff like Green Day, Blink -182. Still, now there’s some cross over. At the end of the day we all like Morain and know what we want Morain to sound like. It’s nice to have everyone’s different input. Jim’s riffs usually add a different spark to my ideas, which could be really cheesy pop songs.

What have you got planned for after this tour?

We’ll probably do another tour with the EP, then festival stuff, then another single before the year’s out.

Any plans for an album?

Not yet, going to keep building and keep the momentum going before we bring one out.

Just take your time. Anyway, it was lovely to meet you. Thanks!

You too. Thank you

Melissa Svensen

Melissa Svensen

Melissa, 22. Editor. Student, music journalist, probably talking about Blur or Bowie