Tuesday, 28 February 2017
Wednesday, 22 February 2017
Sunday, 19 February 2017
Friday, 10 February 2017
Draft Article
The Faceless Men took the indie scene by storm recently, with the release of their debut album, The House of Black and White (reviewed on page 13), at the end of last month, despite their previously unknown status. Similarly to this sudden appearance, the three faceless men appeared unceremoniously and quitely to our interview. The three members, Frank, Ben and Charlee, appear, Charlee with a pint in his hand, in a local Leicester bar, ready to dicuss their album, upcoming tour and origins. After the greetings, and the gratuities of a free physical album from the boys, the questioning begins.
So, how and when did the band form?
Frank: I went school with them, which is when we first met and later formed. The band was originally called High on Horses, when it was just me and Charlee but we realised that we could become this big break out success that we wanted if it was just bass and lead guitars, so we drafted in...
Ben: Me, the only one with any musical talent!
Charlee: Mate...You play Acoustic...
F: I was going to say that we've gotten on ever since but..apparently not.
B: But, it was my idea to change the name when I joined, which was only really two years ago.
C: Feels like eternity...
Why The Faceless Men though?
B: Well, back in late 2014 and I was a huge fan of the (A) Song of Fire and Ice book series, as well as its TV adaptation Game of Thrones (which had just finished it fourth season) and there's a guild of assasins called The Faceless Men. So, I proposed it and Frank loved it.
F: Of course, there's a tradition with these kind of geeky, pop culture-based indie band names.
C: Take Panucci's Pizza for example, a great band named after a great little easter egg for the show, Futurama.
When was your first gig under the new guise?
F: That implies we had a gig under the High on Horses guise...
C: Well, my mum watched us once.
F: We only really played in Charlee's garage until the end of school, where we kind of gatecrashed our prom.
B: We didnt gatecrash, the head helped carry my drums in.
F: Sorry then, we brought our equipment with us and pleaded that they let us play
C: Doesn't have the same ring to it though.
F: We played mostly cover songs, portrayed through our style but we finished with one of our songs.
C: After a lot of deliberation, we decided to play Black Canary, which was the first one we wrote together.
That's one of my favourites on the album. Did they love it at the time?
B: They were drunk, 'course they did.
F: Several people did say to me it was great afterwards, one of whom got us our first proper gig.
C: Which was down the road, as a matter of fact.
B: It was such a shambles. We only had a 10 minute set, so only played three songs.
C: My bass broken half way through our last song, so i had to skip and change notes.
B: Yet, it somehow landed us a second gig.
Was this one any better?
B: Luckily, much better. No technical difficulties this time and we got a decent set, lasting 30 minutes, acting as a supporting act for the nights big band.
F: Fun fact: that was the first time we played the introductory piece 'We are The Faceless Men', which has now become a tradition at our gigs, even appearing on our album.
Speaking of the album, how did that come about?
F: Well, we all took gap years last year to do a few gigs. But we also got part-time jobs to accumulate cash to self-fund our band.
B: At one of our gigs, we got talking to someone afterwards, who turned out to be an independent record producer. He volunteered to help put together the album.
C: Thankfully, the gap year meant we had time to work on the album, so we got eight out of the eleven tracks done before we all got full time jobs.
F: We hoped to have it done for November but...
B: Someone got a decent job at different hours to mine and Charlee's.
F: But we did get it done in December and woah...the response was overwhelming...
C: I never expected the mild media storm that was generated.
B: It was crazy to think that we were embraced by the community, only two years after we were playing in a garage.
The community loved you. What do you plan to do next though? Another album? Possibly a tour?
F: We had about 13 venues call up about whether we can play there but with work commitments we really struggled to fit them all in.
B: So, we've all taken a two week period off work and...we are doing a tour.
C: We have 7 gigs in the tour at the moment but the details are yet to be ironed out.
F: However, about another album, no. Well, maybe in a year or two but, right now, we haven't got any songs for it yet and we're all quite busy.
C: Short answer: not now but maybe later.
So, how and when did the band form?
Frank: I went school with them, which is when we first met and later formed. The band was originally called High on Horses, when it was just me and Charlee but we realised that we could become this big break out success that we wanted if it was just bass and lead guitars, so we drafted in...
Ben: Me, the only one with any musical talent!
Charlee: Mate...You play Acoustic...
F: I was going to say that we've gotten on ever since but..apparently not.
B: But, it was my idea to change the name when I joined, which was only really two years ago.
C: Feels like eternity...
Why The Faceless Men though?
B: Well, back in late 2014 and I was a huge fan of the (A) Song of Fire and Ice book series, as well as its TV adaptation Game of Thrones (which had just finished it fourth season) and there's a guild of assasins called The Faceless Men. So, I proposed it and Frank loved it.
F: Of course, there's a tradition with these kind of geeky, pop culture-based indie band names.
C: Take Panucci's Pizza for example, a great band named after a great little easter egg for the show, Futurama.
When was your first gig under the new guise?
F: That implies we had a gig under the High on Horses guise...
C: Well, my mum watched us once.
F: We only really played in Charlee's garage until the end of school, where we kind of gatecrashed our prom.
B: We didnt gatecrash, the head helped carry my drums in.
F: Sorry then, we brought our equipment with us and pleaded that they let us play
C: Doesn't have the same ring to it though.
F: We played mostly cover songs, portrayed through our style but we finished with one of our songs.
C: After a lot of deliberation, we decided to play Black Canary, which was the first one we wrote together.
That's one of my favourites on the album. Did they love it at the time?
B: They were drunk, 'course they did.
F: Several people did say to me it was great afterwards, one of whom got us our first proper gig.
C: Which was down the road, as a matter of fact.
B: It was such a shambles. We only had a 10 minute set, so only played three songs.
C: My bass broken half way through our last song, so i had to skip and change notes.
B: Yet, it somehow landed us a second gig.
Was this one any better?
B: Luckily, much better. No technical difficulties this time and we got a decent set, lasting 30 minutes, acting as a supporting act for the nights big band.
F: Fun fact: that was the first time we played the introductory piece 'We are The Faceless Men', which has now become a tradition at our gigs, even appearing on our album.
Speaking of the album, how did that come about?
F: Well, we all took gap years last year to do a few gigs. But we also got part-time jobs to accumulate cash to self-fund our band.
B: At one of our gigs, we got talking to someone afterwards, who turned out to be an independent record producer. He volunteered to help put together the album.
C: Thankfully, the gap year meant we had time to work on the album, so we got eight out of the eleven tracks done before we all got full time jobs.
F: We hoped to have it done for November but...
B: Someone got a decent job at different hours to mine and Charlee's.
F: But we did get it done in December and woah...the response was overwhelming...
C: I never expected the mild media storm that was generated.
B: It was crazy to think that we were embraced by the community, only two years after we were playing in a garage.
The community loved you. What do you plan to do next though? Another album? Possibly a tour?
F: We had about 13 venues call up about whether we can play there but with work commitments we really struggled to fit them all in.
B: So, we've all taken a two week period off work and...we are doing a tour.
C: We have 7 gigs in the tour at the moment but the details are yet to be ironed out.
F: However, about another album, no. Well, maybe in a year or two but, right now, we haven't got any songs for it yet and we're all quite busy.
C: Short answer: not now but maybe later.
Wednesday, 8 February 2017
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