Cover Feature Canterbury: ‘It Was This Whole Big Family’

Photo Credit: Sam Bond

According to many a broadsheet nowadays, rock music is on its way out. We, however, undoubtedly disagree, and with bands like You Me At Six, Young Guns, We Are The Ocean, Canterbury, Deaf Havana and Lower Than Atlantis creeping up radio playlists and the charts alike, we’re definitely not alone in that thought.

Obviously though, everyone has to start somewhere and in DIY Magazine’s latest cover feature, Sarah Jamieson gets to grips with the bands who are heading up rock’s assault on the mainstream. As promised, we also have full length interviews with each of the bands, and here, we chat to Mike Sparks from Canterbury about the ‘southern invasion’.

What life like back in the early days of your band?
Back when we were starting out and we were all in our little bands, still at school, you had these sort of, old school scenes everywhere. That’s how we all started in music. Back in those scenes, in those days, the internet and music didn’t really exist. The ‘being in a band’ thing was you playing loads of shows in your local village hall; maybe every now and then you’d get to go to Reading, or Guildford or something like that. But, you’d still just play shows and get people to hear you through your live music. Maybe, eventually you’d get to record if you earned enough money; because those shows never really paid, because it was just your friend putting them on. It was just people of similar background putting on shows in their local place, or something like that. You’d maybe record your own demo or something like that.

And what was the mentality of the ‘scenes’ back in those days?
I think, where we came from - I know it’s the same everywhere else though - you just had to work so hard at doing it. You have to come up with all of these different ways of getting people to notice you. When you’re in a scene like that, the idea of being on the radio or getting signed is a complete dream. It’s not ever like anything that would happen for real. It’s just like, ‘That’s really cool but for nor, we’re just gonna try and get big in Hampshire or Basingstoke. Maybe one day, we’ll get to go to London!’ You play shows every week in a different place for no money, and get your parents to drive there. I can only speak from my area - which is like Basingstoke, Hampshire sort of area - but everyone there was in a band. If you were into music, you joined a band. That was just what you did. It was really cool, because you had the different sounds; in Surrey, things were a bit more poppy etc etc. I think the reason that everyone from that age, and that sort of place when we started is finally making it is because we grew up before the whole internet thing kicked in. When the internet kicked in, all of the scenes disappeared because there was no need for them anymore. You just had a scene on your computer. Rather than, on my computer when I was younger, I just had all of the demos of bands that were near us; other than Blink 182 and Green Day and stuff like that. They were the only other bands you could listen to. You didn’t really have any other way of discovering music. Then, when the internet really came about - it’s awesome, don’t get me wrong - you can listen to any band from anywhere, as long as the band themselves have the means to record a record. But I think all of the bands that grew up in that era, with that sort of ‘scene’ thing, we just work a bit harder.

There was definitely a big movement of rock bands in the South of the country in the past four or five years.
There does seem to be a weird Southern invasion of bands. Everyone knows each other. You Me At Six are such a prime example of people that help out their bands, their friends. All of their people that are on tour with them are their friends. Their tour manager is their tour manager from ages ago, their lighting guy is their mate who knows how to do lights. One of their cousins is a guitar tech. Things like that. Everyone knows each other and it is a huge, huge family.

The South definitely has some kind of weird… I remember when I was young and all of my friends were in bands. You just had to be in a band. A lot of them now aren’t in bands, but there was such a massive music scene down here.

You Me At Six are, inevitably, a name that repeatedly crops up, since they are very much the ‘big’ band of the group nowadays. What’s it like to have witnessed their entire journey?
They’re a tiny band that got huge. There are a lot of gigs going on now, but I don’t know if anyone really feels that passionate about them anymore. You don’t have to go out to a gig to hear a new band; you can just search the Internet and find one without fail in about ten seconds. You might not like them so you just go onto the next one. Back in the day, you’d go down to the show in the village hall and there’d be one band that you’ve heard of before but only because you’ve seen them before. I still have all of the CDs, all the demos and stuff that I got back in those days and can still listen to them now. It’s so funny and most of it’s really bad music, but back you’re when thirteen, it’s still the coolest thing ever.

Do you think it was harder to be a band a few years ago, in comparison to in present times?
We come from a place where you have to work really, really hard and put so much effort into writing music. Whereas now, people are growing up with the idea that, if you record music to a half-good standard, you put it on a Facebook page and hope that people listen to you. You tweet about yourself, or post about it on your Facebook page, or bombard people with emails. So now, just as it is easier to get your heard now by tons more people, in the same way, it’s ten times harder because now, every single band - or, quote, a ‘real’ band - can get heard from wherever they are, or however much money they have.

I don’t mean to put down anyone in a newer band because, if anything, they have to work even harder now, but I think that everyone from back then, we were just made to do it the hard way and pay our dues a bit more. There was no way of just getting signed unless you happened to be playing the label boss’ wedding or something. There was no way of getting signed back in those days unless someone just happened to hear you. Now, you can submit your demo on Facebook or whatever. It is easier, but at the same down, it’s so watered down. There’s so, so many bands on so many different websites and so many different social networks that it may be even harder. But back in our day… I’m saying this like it was a really long time ago! [laughs] It was maybe five years ago.

But do you think all of that hard work pays off?
I think bands like us and We Are The Ocean, You Me At Six are a prime example of how big it can get. I remember playing with You Me At Six at Farnham Maltings Social Club; it’s on one of our web videos from ages ago and it was one of the biggest shows we had ever played. It was an all day festival, but it was just all of the bands that we knew getting together, like Tonight is Goodbye who are now Futures, they were playing. Kill The Arcade who are now Brother, they played. It was this whole big family. That was the kind of example where everyone would come together to play one show.

There was obviously also the idea that you all started touring when you were so young…
Totally! I remember the first time I said I was gonna go on tour, my mum was absolutely petrified. To her, I was going to be let loose on England.

Do you have any stand out memories from the early days?
My first ever tour - we called it a tour, but it wasn’t really - we went out together and did this really funny five or six date tour. My band had one of those tiny vans that window cleaners use. It had two seats in the front, and then a little area in the back, which we put all of our stuff in. Then, we just sat on top of our equipment. We would drive the four hours down to Plymouth and that’s how we did it! It was the most uncomfy thing in the world, and now I would hate doing that, but back then I was fourteen or fifteen, sitting in the back of a van with three guys about to go play a show. We didn’t even have a place to stay and I’m sure that we had to announce that and ask if anyone in the audience could put us up for the night, which they did, which was quite cool!

But things like that never really seemed to be an issue, with any of the bands.
As scary and as funny as those stories are, you’re doing the one thing that you want to do more than absolutely anything in the world, so it doesn’t matter at all. You always have to go through the shit, which is part of anyone’s job if they want to do it. It wasn’t even shit; if anything it was really fun doing that. It’s just a story to tell: that time we stayed at some random person’s house, getting in trouble/ I remember walking all the way through the city centre of Plymouth, holding my amp, with my guitar on my back, literally being ‘that guy’. I don’t really know why. We got the train to a show once as well.

Was it really as tough as you can assume to be touring then?
We are the people who’ve gone through the proper crap stuff, which isn’t necessarily crap, but when you look back at it, you think, ‘Oh god, we did that!’ But, hopefully, we you can get a bit bigger, it’s the sort of stuff that keeps you more humble than a band that, say, recorded one song, put it on MySpace and someone noticed them. With all of those bands, something bad always happens to them. All of the bands that are massive now have done it in a real way, which is a really cool thing. Even Foo Fighters, or Coldplay who are the biggest bands in the world, they all have a really good story.

Finally, how important do you think it is to support the British rock scene?
I think it’s really important. I think England is kind of, weirdly, the coolest country in the world for music [laughter]. I know I’d say that, because I come from England, but when you’re young, America is everything. When you’re especially into rock - all kinds of rock - it’s like, 80% of it is all made up in England, or found in England, or there was some kind of little movement going on. I just think that I can see now why it’s a lot easier for British bands to get bigger. Our music is once again, it’s really cool. Before, it was all about the American sound, a pop punk thing. Now, more than ever, British music is really popular again and that’s kind of a benchmark to set your own music against. Everyone should support British music more than anything. I think it’s wicked, and definitely, bands should take each other out, and just make this whole scene again; make it National, rather than a tiny scene in a village. We could make it a huge UK scene.