Interview with Vela Incident: ‘Had it not been for lockdown, recording together might never have happened’

Port Talbot, Wales-based band Vela Incident have released their latest single ‘Home’ today, a mellow, dreamy track about life in a small town.

The band comprises Matt Bradley (vocals), Liam Thomas (lead guitar), Adam Cardy (rhythm guitar), Patrick Oliver (drums and synthesizers) and Adam Tweed (bass). They first started a band together in Port Talbot when they were 13 but went their separate ways before reuniting to record some songs this year. Bradley now lives in Liverpool and Oliver is in Teesside. Their name was taken from the Vela Incident, an unidentified double flash of light detected by an American Vela Hotel satellite in 1979 in the Indian Ocean that some people believe was either the result of a meteoroid hitting the satellite or due to nuclear weapon testing, although no-one has ever claimed responsibility.

Oliver wrote ‘Home’ when he was just 16. ‘The lyrics seem to mean something to me that they didn’t back then, they’re a bit dark,’ he laughed. ‘I guess ‘Home’ was about not feeling like you fit in in a small town where everyone knows you and wanting to get away to somewhere you are familiar with – home – ironically that small town is your home. I suppose it’s about ‘home’ being a place of solace where you can go and escape. Who knows, I never made an effort to write that, it just came out, perhaps it was deep in my subconscious.’

The lyrics back that up: ‘I just wanna be on my own, don’t you tell me there’s no place like home….and they’re all talkin’ ‘bout me, I’ve been around the block too many times and I wanna go home.’

‘Home’ is his favourite of their songs to date: ‘I always thought it would make a good impression. It starts off slow, kicks in, blasts out and then goes down again. It’s all built around a D major chord riff.’

‘Had it not been for lockdown, recording together might never have happened’

Oliver programmed every drum tap for each track on his mobile phone before passing it onto the others to put their parts down. ‘I own a record label up north – Goose Records – so they mixed it and sent it back. Had it not been for lockdown, recording together might never have happened. We had time to do it. Before, life had got in the way.’

Including ‘Home’, they have released four singles this year and are currently working on two new ones, at least one of which will come out this year. ‘The next one will be ‘Queen of Liverpool’,’ Oliver said. ‘I met a girl on holiday and she broke my heart. The other new one is ‘Fall in Love’, which was actually the first song I ever wrote, it’s got a 1960’s, Velvet Underground feel.’

Earlier this month, they released ‘Perfect Flaw’, a very haunting but beautiful track that includes Oliver’s favourite line: ‘If Cupid had a gun, would you still wanna love?’ ‘I always wanted to get a tattoo of it!,’ he laughed. He describes the song as being ‘about when someone sees you as the love of their life yet you don’t feel the same, or anything for them’: ‘They see you as something you’re not, they build an image of a life of the house, marriage, garden, two kids, two cars and two holidays a year, when in reality they’ve picked the wrong one, you’re not that person, you never will be to them,’ he said. ‘It’s a strange hollow feeling when you can see someone feels that way about you and you almost wish you could feel the same but all you feel is numbness, emptiness. And you’ll hurt them, they even subconsciously know you will but they pretend you won’t.’

They have enough songs for a couple of albums, with around another 10 songs to do, he said. ‘Then we’d like to gig it, if we can and look at writing some new songs, see how writing then compares to writing now!’

Oliver is a big fan of Welsh indie bands The Rotanas and White Riot and Philadelphia-based rock band, The War on Drugs, who he said has had a big influence on how he produces music, partly because of how the instruments weave in and out. During the 90’s, he listened to a lot of Britpop.

If he could tour with anyone, he picks Lou Reed and The Rolling Stones: ‘Under the spotlight, you see how they come alive, become different,’ he said. ‘It was the same with Freddie Mercury. My old music teacher had a speech impediment but when he played the guitar and sang, it went away. When he stopped, it came back. He taught me and Matt.’ He muses what going on tour with The Stones would do to him: ‘There’d be nothing left of me at the end, I imagine!’

(Photo from left to right: Liam, Adam, Patrick, Matt and Adam)