Project Description
Interview with
ALEX HENERY
from
BASEMENT
Interviewer: Meg Price
from AMNPLIFICATION
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Formed in Ipswich, England, Basement is comprised of brothers Andrew Fisher (vocals) and James Fisher (drums), Alex Henery (guitar/vocals), Ronan Crix (guitar) and Duncan Stewart (bass). Together they have earned global acclaim for their deeply personal and earnest compositions. Beside Myself finds Basement’s introspection unfolding over a collection of punk-charged alternative classics. Tracks such as Disconnect, Be Here Now and Stigmata shine on Beside Myself, as Fisher’s acute self-awareness unfurls over deeply-rich studio recordings.
I caught up with Alex Henery this week to discuss the new album, Festivals and more!
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BESIDE MYSELF
available today!
HERE
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Hi Alex! How’s it going?
Hey, good thank you!
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Just got a couple questions today, ready to go?
Yeah, all good to go!
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Awesome! So congratulations first of all on your new music!
Thank you!
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Checked it out, I’m a big fan, so what can we expect from Beside Myself?
I feel like it’s a continuation from our last EP, but I just feel like the songwriting and everything else we just had more time to write on this record and just took our time and we’re just really excited about it, feel like I’ve never been this excited about a record before, and we’re all on the same page which is really nice and yeah just really exciting, playing new songs each night and soundchecking and deciding which ones we want to play, playing a few before the record comes out so its really exciting to kinda go through them and see which ones we want to play. They’re cool.
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Yeah, Awesome! So what do you hope fans can take away from the new album?
Um, I really hope people like it and I don’t know, just hope people like it aha!
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I’m sure people will like it!
Yeah, um but Nah I don’t know really know aha! If people like it that’d be really cool and if people still support us that’s really awesome and yeah! Don’t know what else to say to it.
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Is it hard touching on the themes that you present throughout your music?
Um, for some reason, it’s a hard thing to say without going into too much detail, like I don’t know what other people are going to think about it, um, and I try not to overthink what people will take away from the music, when we go to the studio I just want to write songs that we like and enjoy playing and then trying to make the thought of if the fan will like it, it’s in the back of my mind but a secondary thought, ya know? Don’t want it to dictate the way we write music cause when I write song I want to write song that people will enjoy and have a good time listening to it, but at the end of the day Its more important that we enjoy playing them and are excited about it and then hope it implodes as well to the listener.
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Yeah, wonderful! So you guys are playing Lollapalooza as well in the US soon, hey?
Yeah, we played that like a few months ago yeah!
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Are there any differences in the crowd compared to US festivals and UK festivals?
Um not really, I mean we played a Festival in the UK which is like, where I grew up going to as a kid and to play that was like a really big deal and then playing Lollapalooza was like a big deal, but obviously didn’t have the same connection as I didn’t grow up in Chicago but just knowing all the amazing bands that played there is amazing and definitely one of the biggest festivals we’ve ever played so it was an experience to play and to say that we played it was pretty cool!
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Yeah, that’s great! So it was a bit of a career highlight?
Yeah definitely! There’s like a few things left on the bucket list in my life that I want to do but that was definitely one of them, I didn’t think we were going to do that so it was like really cool.
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Yeah, so what else is left on the bucket list?
Honestly not too much, nothing I can really think of. Well, two things, I’d love to play the main stage of Reading Festival and then I’d like to be on Late Night TV show!
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That would be cool!
As well as tour America, visit Japan, Australia and got those ones kinda of quickly which is amazing, pretty much accomplished. but anything else on the list is kind of like a bonus, I didn’t think anything else was like possible you know? When we started the band we just wanted to write music and just tour didn’t have any grand vision of what would happen, now it’s just like cool.
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Do you find crowds in festivals differ from those at your own gig?
Yeah, festivals you play in front of a lot of people who probably haven’t heard you whereas at a gig the majority of people that are there have come to see you play specifically but that’s the cool thing, playing in front of a bunch of people who haven’t heard of you which is nice with a bunch of people who have so it’s cool. A cool thing about festivals is that everyone there just to enjoy the music and check out new music so it’s a nice environment to play in front of.
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Yeah! Do you have any favorite artists that you’ve played with or collaborated with?
Um, there’s like a band from Massachusetts that we’ve toured with a few times, called Ovlov and they released a record this year called Tru and it’s one of my favorite records this year.
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Oh yeah!
Um, I’m excited to play with a band called Joyce Manor, playing with them in the UK and never toured with them before and I’m really excited about that, cause I really like their record and they just released a new record as well. Um, trying to think who we’ve played with before, played some festivals with like bigger acts but doesn’t feel like, ya know, it’s kind of a live thing where we didn’t actually play with them hahaha. I mean I love checking out bands that we get on with and we like their music and so far, we’ve had really good luck with bands that we’ve toured with and had a lot of fun with.
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Yeah, that’s awesome! Do you have any dream collaborations or dream bands to play with?
Umm, oh yeah! We wanna play with, it will never ever happen but it would just be fun to play with Red Hot Chilli Peppers because they were like my favorite band growing up but realistically, I don’t really know we would love to tour with Deftones. Who else would be fun, tour with Green Day, that would be sick! Oh, I’d love to do a tour withTwenty One Pilots! Feel like it would be cool!
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That would be so sick! It’s funny, Katelyn, my co-host on Amnplification, she’s a huge huge fan of Twenty One Pilots! And you guys as well! She was pretty upset she couldn’t make the interview!
Yeah, they just have some really interesting stuff.
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Yeah, so are there any Australian tours in the works?
Yeah, we’re trying to sort something out as I love going to Australia, it’s like one of my favorite places to go, we have a lot of friends there and all the shows are always awesome. Last time we came it was mind-blowing, I couldn’t believe how good it was, it was crazy, the fans and people there are just so cool. I guess we have a common bond cause like part of the commonwealth and same humor and kinda just get on which is kinda nice. And there’s a cool band that I found out are from Australia they’re called Hatchie.
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Oh yeah!
She’s amazing, I didn’t get to see her the other day she played in Austin while I was out of town but I think she’s amazing, her bands really cool and I think it would be amazing to play a show with her.
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Yeah, I saw them play not too long ago as well, she was awesome. Do you have any bands that you’ve drawn inspiration from?
Umm, yeah I mean maybe in the earlier days like a lot of like kind of more mid-west American bands like kind of weirder, alternative bands but now it’s kind of like less of influences. I think by now we’ve kind of established a sound of our own and it’s really nice to feel like that and now it’s just trying to make sure it sounds like something we would write and not what someone else would write and trying not to be someone else but of course sometimes you say ‘aww it kinda sounds like this band’ but you have to make sure it sounds enough like yourself that it doesn’t sound like a carbon copy of someone else.
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Yeah, just sort of make music that you enjoy.
Yeah, I mean I love bands like Sonic Youth, Cold Jam and there are so many bands that I love and subconsciously they work their way in some ways.
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So how do you think this new EP will translate live?
Well, we have been playing it at the moment but I think it’s just going to take time for us to get a bit more comfortable with moving around and like, I feel like I’m standing still a little bit more and you can’t stand still but you’re pretty nervous. But yeah it just takes time but yeah, I think they’re going to be like always they’re going to be amazing. Like the records they’re going to be a little bit heavier, a little bit more Britty sounding and I like that we offer something a little bit different off this new one, and I hope it has its own kind of vibe and energy. I want it to be its own thing.
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Yeah, well that’s exciting then. So what’s next for Basement, have you got any future endeavors that we can expect?
Well, we’re just pretty excited to get the record out and just see what people think and get excited to do all these headline tours, we haven’t done them in a while and hopefully make it to Australia and Japan and we’ve never been to New Zealand before, I want to go to Hawaii, those are just a bunch of places we’ve never been. I’d love to go to South East Asia! But we’ll probably do the usual stuff like the states and tour Europe which is cool but I’d like to travel and do some different things.
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Yeah, that’s exciting! So that’s all I’ve got for you, thanks so much for chatting to me!
No worries, thanks for asking the questions, we’ll hopefully see you in Australia!
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Yeah absolutely!
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BESIDE MYSELF
available today!
HERE
TRACKLIST
1. Disconnect
2. Be Here Now
3. Nothing Left
4. Ultraviolet
5. Keepsake
6. Changing Lanes
7. Stigmata
8. New Coast
9. Just A Life
10. Slip Away
11. Reason For Breathing
12. Right Here
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Follow BASEMENT
OFFICIAL WEBSITE | FACEBOOK | TWITTER
INSTAGRAM | SOUNDCLOUD
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