“Do you think Kevin Shields, Jim Reid or Kurt Cobain ever said they were a specific genre? We aren’t necessarily looking to fall into a genre, we’re just looking to make rad art that will move people, the same way the art that influences us has moved us.” – Matty Taylor

“The theme of death just kind of bubbled to the surface as the characters’ narratives started to take shape and intertwine. After I wrote “Heat Lightning”, I realized that death would have to be present in all the songs in some form or another. It was unavoidable.” – Reid Bateh

“Having good ideas or hearing good ideas from the band is motivating, and also getting great feedback from fans helps reinforce what you instinctively want to do.” – Scott McDonald

“I feel like it’s much easier to project your truth onto someone or something else rather than looking inside and trying to articulate it using your own voice. Through the imagined lens of someone else, feelings and ideas are a little more malleable and there is a lot more room for play. It certainly frees one up a fair bit!” – Gus Lord

“The character in the songs basically needs to put a lot of distance between himself and Glasgow because of things he’s done but, with me I chose to come to the States in search of a bit of adventure.” – Allan McNaughton

“The themes of the record aren’t necessarily dark so I think it’s the intensity of some of the decisions on instruments and it’s a more guitar-driven record but, they’re not “safe” guitar sounds. It’s sort of wobbly like an old gramophone or something.” – James Bagshaw

“I enjoy reading scientific publications. Magazines like New Scientist, and then when something really interests me I look deeper and find the journal article it cites. We are living in a dystopia. Its amazing! How exciting. Better write another song about it!” – Albert Wolski

“The title of this album and in particular the track reflects a statement on our society between dream and despair, on an available and disposable youth, in the instantaneity and the ephemeral.” – Yann Le Razavet

“My lyrical goals were similar; the songs on Angel are about your classic tropes of love and loss but, specifically loving and losing things that are fictional and that you never had.” – Rachel Birke

“I think that this record is really special to me because I was given total freedom to do whatever I wanted with my guitar playing (for better or for worse!).” – Juan Velasquez

“I take time between releases because that’s how long it takes me to write and record – about 3 or 4 months per song. Also, there is so much music out there, I don’t think we need a new release from me every year!” – Chris Cohen

“There have been several waves of people moving away to LA, etc. because they get evicted or simply can’t afford to stay anymore. We love San Francisco so much and even though it’s changing every year, we don’t want to give up on it as it still has a scene of very talented artists and musicians. We are just waiting for this bubble to burst, at least a little bit but, sadly this is happening everywhere right now in different ways, so all we can do is adapt and keep doing what we do.” – Galine Tumasyan

“Anybody that spends a few hours a day playing an instrument for a few years can shred, but to really convey emotion with a simple part that gets stuck in your head, that takes a great ear and instinct.” – Chris King

“It feels extremely relevant considering the political climate we’re in right now,” states Lauren Matsui on choosing to cover “French Disko” by Stereolab.

“There’s sadness in everything but there is also hope everywhere you look. It’s similar to how we connect the dark aspects of life with the beauty of art and music. I’m not sure if you can even really have one without the other.” – Cole Browning

“My first true punk concert was the UK Subs who came to Lowestoft in 1980. Then I saw The Damned a bunch of times from 1980 to ’82. It was just a magical time and I am so glad I grew up when I did. I don’t think kids today get that feeling from music but I hope I’m wrong.” – Dave Hawes

“We definitely don’t see ourselves as a shoegaze or a grunge band, I find those tags to be fairly meaningless, especially as those specific genres were more scenes from a time and place rather than a sonically defined music style, but we understand why we can be labelled as that.” – David Noonan

“Whether or not my feelings or emotions are properly translated, I always hope we can evoke some sort of feeling or reaction from our listeners (even if it’s pure hatred).” – Bria Salmena

“We like Spanish, we like that we can express ourselves in different ways and have a broad language to say it. Sometimes it bothers us that simply by singing in Spanish we reach this stereotype that we do not like; “Latin alternative music”. There is no such thing, it’s just music.” – Estrella Sanchez

“The biggest struggle for me still seems to be convincing the average sound engineer that we are a rock band, not a vocal ensemble.” – Courtney Gavin

“One thing I can’t stand is when people describe music made by women as a consequence of their presumably limited skill and not as the outcome of deliberate artistic choices.” – Sydney Koke

“For some reason it can’t be explained, how to write a melancholic song – but if you write one, there is always a certain beauty, a pureness in it and the listener knows and feels, there is something very true about it. Really, a beautiful song has to be melancholic in some way, like a beautiful story always feels nostalgic too, in some way.” – Markus Nikolaus

“The album title is more or less related to the problems we had, we wanted to face them positively because they were directly affecting our daily life.” – Jazz Rodríguez Bueno on MOURN’s latest LP, ‘Ha, Ha, He.’

“Knowing there are so many hardworking people in every DIY scene makes me grateful for all the opportunities that are handed to me.” – Melina Duterte

“I’m tired of watching any musician put aside their boundaries for people who are under the illusion that we are public property. I’m not your girlfriend. My boyfriend isn’t your gymnasium.” – Aldous Harding

“I used to think that my impulse to write songs matched the very same need to write poetry or stories when I was younger. A sort of longing to abstract and simplify the disorder of emotion I felt inside.” – Charlie Hilton

“We wanted to be like all our favourite bands but they were so diverse that ultimately you just end up sounding like yourself, which is how it should be.” – Gary Mundy

“I’ll be damned if such a one-sided overly simplistic representation of music from this land is all the world comes to know.” – A.J. Haynes

“The songs represent an inward reflection more so than an outward one. What it feels like to live in society but not an analysis of society itself.” – Andrew Kerr

“It’s interesting to me that as a woman in a male-dominated industry, we are congratulated when we show ‘masculine’ characteristics, but often chagrined for being ‘girly.’” – Esmé Patterson

“Writing songs has always been a cathartic experience for me. It’s a way of processing my life in a way that is not self-destructive.” – Zach Rogue

Complete interview with Carlotta Cosials of Hinds used for the short take in Big Takeover #77.

A post-punk/shoegaze trio from Tel Aviv that exemplifies the notion of music being universal.