Interview with The Harmonix: ‘The best way when we’re approaching our writing is not to box ourselves into one genre’

Five piece Dundee-based alt rock band, The Harmonix, brought out Mad For It last week, their pulsating, energetic and accomplished debut EP, which will leave fans wanting more.

The Harmonix comprises Peter Hughes (vocals), Jock Fullerton (drums), Kian Sturrock (bass), Jamie Cruickshank (guitar) and Jack Guyan (guitar).

‘Runaway’ the first track, kicks off with a monster drum beat that Jack came up with. ‘Jamie and Jack also had guitar riffs and we just put them together in the session. It’s very rock ‘n’ roll,’ Hughes said.

As the song goes: ‘Here in Sin City we cannot stay, today’s the day, tomorrow’s our fate, lost but never found is the love for this place, silence all your prayers, so we could just escape.’

Amazingly, they had only practiced ‘Rosie’, another track on the EP, once before they recorded it, Hughes said. ‘We played it and it just felt right, we knew we wanted to use it, ‘ he said. When I ask him if the song is inspired by a real life Rosie, he laughs and says ‘no comment’, which I’m taking as a yes. The drum beat in ‘Rosie’ was sampled from the Amen break, which has been used a lot, Guyan said. (The Amen break is a drum break that has been widely sampled across many different music genres. It comes from the 1969 track ‘Amen, Brother’ by the soul group, The Winstons.)

The band is now back in the studio working on new material. ‘I think within a few months we’ll have something to bring out. It could be a single, it could be another EP,’ Guyan said.

‘Whatever we feel is right, we’ll release it’

Stylistically, the four tracks on Mad For It are all quite different, with ‘the ballad, ‘Join Us’, about as different to ‘Runaway’ as it is possible to be, which was a deliberate decision, according to Guyan: ‘The best way when we’re approaching our writing is not to box ourselves into one genre. Whatever we feel is right, we’ll release it.’

Their influences seep into their songs as well, Guyan said: ‘You can hear a bit of that in our music, we’ve got some Arctic Monkeys’ influenced riffs.’ In terms of both songwriting and vocal influences, Hughes cites John Lennon, Freddie Mercury and Michael Jackson.

As Cruickshank puts it: ‘Jack’s more into rocky stuff and me, I’m into The Smiths and all that indie stuff. When you put the two together, you’ve got our sound.’ Jack chips in: ‘I’m more influenced by heavy guitarists like Van Halen. For Jamie, it’s people like Johnny Marr (formerly of The Smiths) and Bernard Butler from Suede. Jock’s got heavy drum and bass influences. He likes Led Zeppelin.’

Of the group, Hughes and Cruickshank have known each other the longest (from school) Guyan said. ‘We’d be part of workshops in Dundee and grew a friendship from that. I met Jack and Kian at a family party a few years later and we branched a friendship through that. And I met Peter a week before the band started through my cousin. We found Jock over Facebook!’

Interestingly, Fullerton wasn’t originally the drummer, Cruickshank was. ‘When Peter first sang, we played ‘Come Together’ by The Beatles and we were blown away by his voice,’ Cruickshank said.

If they could open for any other bands, Fullerton is quick to say Fontaines D.C. – ‘They’re just breaking through, they’re very cool,’ he said. Guyan says he’d love to open for The Smiths because ‘their sound is very similar’. He’d also like to open for Catfish And The Bottlemen. ‘I’d like to open for the Arctic Monkeys,’ Sturrock said.

‘We’re the East Coast Mafia!,’ Hughes jokes. ‘Bands like us and Medusa and The Night Alley. We’re all bands helping each other out.’

(Photo from left to right: Jack, Kian, Peter, Jamie and Jock)