Interview with Green Wire: ‘Sonically, they’re all quite bouncy, driven songs but that’s what we write and love playing – we love watching our audiences rock out with us’

Manchester-based indie rock band Green Wire are gearing up to launch their high-octane debut EP in May titled ‘How’s Your Head this Morning?’

The band, who formed in the spring of 2021, comprises Charlie Morris (drums), Simon Stirzaker (singer/songwriter), Jack Massey (lead guitar) and Ethan Henry (bass). Stirzaker and Morris met at university a couple of years ago via a gig that Stirzaker was doing with a former band. I ask where their name comes from and they laugh: ‘Funnily enough, a few people have asked us about this,’ Stirzaker said. ‘It comes from my nanny telling me to stay grounded. I was looking at ideas around electricity like “Live Wire” and then I thought of “green wire” because that’s the one that’s grounded.’

‘There’s a lot of it that doesn’t feel connected but it all is’

The EP will comprise 5 tracks: ‘T-Shirt & Jeans’, ‘Cigarettes on the Dancefloor’, ‘Mrs. Artois’, ‘Looking Back’ and one new track, ‘Away He Ran’: ‘The EP is a story I’d say, it’s all about the sort of naivety of being young and all that,’ Stirzaker said. ‘There’s a lot of it that doesn’t feel connected but it all is. There’s themes of love and loss that you feel when you’re young and then obviously there’s ‘Looking Back’, that’s about us being in our younger years and everything being stripped away due to the lockdowns that happened. Yeah, that feels like a while ago, doesn’t it? (laughs). Sonically, they’re all quite bouncy, driven songs but that’s what we write and love playing, we love watching our audiences rock out with us but, of course, in that you have to have the sad songs, don’t you? It’s just a little musical reminder, if you will, that life isn’t always smooth sailing and fast paced.’

The title ‘How’s Your Head This Morning?’ is the first line from their song ‘T-Shirt & Jeans’ (2021), according to Morris. ‘The lads tell me off when we play ‘Away He Ran’ live,’ Stirzaker said. ‘I say it’s about a man who went out for a bottle of milk and never came back!’ Morris nods: ‘There’s silence from the crowd when he says that, the room is so quiet!’

It turns out, somewhat harrowingly, to have actually been inspired by Stirzaker’s own dad: ‘It’s about my dad going away like that as a kid and me destroying myself about it,’ he said. ‘It was written before Green Wire was formed. After I wrote the first verse, my girlfriend pulled the guitar out of my hand and told me to stop writing it for a bit. You have to get over the mental incapacitation, to step away from it for a while.’ I ask if his mum has heard it. ‘She has, it’s one of her favourite songs. My sis and my mum used to listen to it around the house.’

‘It’s weird, weapons grade weird!’

Earlier this month, they release their single ‘Cigarettes on the Dancefloor’, which opens with a punchy, sparkly guitar tone before Stirzaker comes in on vocals: ‘There’s a dodgy sweaty club in Manchester (laughs), this club takes it to the next level,’ Stirzaker said. ‘It’s weird, weapons grade weird! It’s about a night there where I got drunk and met some random girl. We were dancing around and ‘Not 19 Forever’ by The Courteeners came on, which is actually about the same Club 42. I don’t have a full recollection of the night (laughs) but at some point I wanted to roll a cigarette and thought will it look cool if I do that?! They had smoke machines, I didn’t think anyone would notice, so that’s where the song title comes from!’

As the track kicks off: ‘Stare at the sky/ Look how the clouds are never ending/ I hear the train lines, my mind’s bending/ Is this home?’

They’ve used a Boss Audi overdrive “Angel Wing” pedal, which gives the song an 80’s feel, albeit it with a jangly twist: ‘Jack’s guitar tone is incredible,’ Stirzaker enthused. ‘He’s using a whole host of drive pedals but he has a very smooth, glassy drive tone. He gets it from a full tone drive pedal and then a Fender drive pedal. I can’t quite remember the names of them but I know they both are driven by tube circuits. On the riffs, he uses a lot of higher up double stop-esque shapes but doesn’t play them as you would a double stop, I think he’s using sixth intervals.’

‘Mrs. Artois’, has a slightly different feel sonically but has the same degree of energy as ‘Cigarettes on the Dancefloor’: ‘This one came from a story when I was walking around Wetherspoons at work and a guy was talking to his missus on the phone,’ Stirzaker said. ‘He had a pint of Stella in his hand and he was shouting about having to sleep on the couch (laughs). Ethan, who I work with – who is also in the band – said how would you explain dying from alcoholism?! I said “Being bludgeoned to death by Mrs. Artois” and that’s how the song started.’

‘It’s got very raw vocals and guitar, it’s stripped back’

Other tracks show that they can do pared back and heartfelt, particularly ‘T-Shirt & Jeans’, which is essentially a song about being infatuated at the beginning of a relationship: ‘It’s very real, this there gradual release, that tension and release,’ Stirzaker said. ‘It’s got very raw vocals and guitar, it’s stripped back. It’s a story over music, the story early on in a relationship, it’s a very raw experience.’

Stirzaker typically writes the lyrics, although their songs are very much a group project: ‘Normally, I’ll do some lyrics and a little riff,’ he said. ‘I don’t subscribe to taking more credits for the songwriting, I can’t make the sound without the rest of the band. It’s a collective.’

Musically, they bring a lot of influences to the band: ‘I listen to a bit of everything,’ Morris said grinning. ‘Growing up, I listened to Led Zeppelin, The Doors, Cream, The Who and I still listen to them but I also listen to Catfish and the Bottlemen, The Killers, Muse, The Cortinas (a Bristol-based punk rock band in the 70’s). And I enjoy my metal and pop punk (laughs). You can get good ideas from anyone you listen to. My favourite drummer is John Bonham from Led Zeppelin, I’ve taken so much inspiration from stuff he plays and watching videos of him. I was 5 years old when I started having lessons. I was playing pots and pans around the house (laughs), I think my mum got me lessons to get them back!’

Stirzaker’s musical background reveals different influences: ‘I started playing the guitar near 10 years ago when I was 11 or 12,’ he said. ‘I’d picked one up when I was 6 or 7 but I never actually played it. My dad taught me a couple of chords and I was hooked but I didn’t get into guitar solos until I was 16. As a kid, I listened to The Everly Brothers, Simon & Garfunkel, Donny Osmond, rock ‘n’ roll. Ed Sheeran has been a big influence, I used to listen to him a lot when his song ‘The A Team’ came out (2011).’

‘Chris Cornell blows me away every time, his acoustic version of ‘Black Hole Sun’ is brilliant’

Stirzaker is mulling whether to have Michael Jackson on lead vocals in his fantasy band: ‘I’m in two minds because I don’t condone his behaviour but I remember spending a lot of time aged 5 to 10 trying to convince myself I could moonwalk (laughs)! We might cover him, maybe ‘Black or White’, ‘The Way You Make Me Feel’ or ‘Dirty Diana’ but you’d have to make your cover sound really different. The first song of his I heard was ‘Ben’ but I didn’t know what it was about for the longest time. I was a teenager when my mum said “Did you know it’s about his pet rat?” I felt cheated, not knowing that for so long! In my band, I’ll have Roger Taylor as my drummer. Bass and guitar are hard, I’m a huge Queen fan.’ Morris interjects: ‘Aren’t you having Eddie Van Halen?’ Stirzaker looks pensive: ‘I’ve learned a lot of Eddie Van Halen’s stuff,’ he said. Morris grins: ‘Yeah, I heard your version of ‘Spanish Fly’!’

Morris’ fantasy band is a thing of beauty: ‘Freddie Mercury and Chris Cornell on vocals,’ he said quickly. ‘Jimmy Page or Flea on the guitar and Joe Dart from Vulfpeck or Ross MacDonald from The 1975 on bass. I’ve been listening to a lot of Soundgarden, Chris Cornell blows me away every time, his acoustic version of ‘Black Hole Sun’ is brilliant. If I could bring back anyone, I’d bring back Chris Cornell and Amy Winehouse.’ I say that I would as well. Stirzaker gets very animated: ‘Actually, ‘Mrs. Artois’ was inspired by Amy’s song ‘Monkey Man’. The chords aren’t the same but we’ve got the ‘duh duh’ feel.’ Morris is still mulling guitarists: ‘Do you know who is criminally underrated as a guitarist? George Harrison and he’s probably still a better drummer than Ringo Starr!’

They’ve had some entertaining moments together: ‘So there was the time in our first rehearsal that we spent about half an hour debating whether coffee was a soup,’ Stirzaker laughed. ‘I’m still lost on the matter to this day! Your whole write up will be about coffee soup, our group chat is still called coffee soup, even now (laughs). Jack and Ethan were going on for ages! Or there’s the time literally, this Sunday, when we played Zanzibar Liverpool and I split my finger so bad on my guitar that my guitar wound up looking like a murder scene by the end of the set. I’ve got a pick in my room that I’m retiring from last night due to the amount of blood left on it!’