.

.

Interview with
KIARAN CROOK
from
THE SHERLOCKS

(15th May, 2021)

Interviewer – Dave Bruce

.

.

Have you always wanted to be musicians? When did you get the songwriting bug?
I always wanted to play guitar from being about 12/13. It always interested me. The songwriting came later once the band had got going and we were able to play covers. It was just a natural progression to start think about the possibility of writing songs of my own… and everything has just grown from there really. The fan base, the gigs & the songs for better and better.

How would you describe your sound? Why do you think people resonate with your music?
I think our sound is very British and true to our upbringing and surroundings but at the same time very universal. The lyrics resonate with many people but more than that I think a good melody will always be more important. I’ve always loved & appreciated good melodies and I sometimes get confused with what a good song is just because someone is singing about politics or whatever. It’s subjective I suppose, but the topic of the song has always come second for me when there’s a good melody knocking around. It’s about people coming together and singing a melody that is mega! Obviously the lyrics are important though, no one wants to be singing ‘fish chips and curry sauce’ at the top of their lungs!

Which artist’s music and/or performance, past or present, inspires you today?
There’s too many to mention. I can’t pinpoint one performance… but I just like to take elements of different people to what I think is good. Whether it’s clothes, a sense of humour, songs. An obvious one would be The Beatles, the songs are incredible but so is the way they conducted themselves in interviews. They were class. The self-belief from people like The Stone Roses, The Sex Pistols, Oasis, The Jam… we’ve always believed in ourselves. And we feel like we’re writing the best songs at the minute, by a mile!

.

Buy/Stream HERE

.

Your new single ‘End Of The Earth has just been released! Describe its origin and evolution.
Wrote the chorus January 2020, never finished it off until we got in the studio to record it a few days before Christmas 2020. Ended up writing most of it in the studio in Essex. It hasn’t changed too much to how I imagined it would sound originally. It’s just a straight up punk rock sort of tune. Straight to the point. A definite banger for when we play it live!

Is there an EP or Album on the drawing board?
There is! We recorded a brand new album last year around July time and since then we’ve been sat on it waiting for restrictions to ease so that we can start the ball rolling. We feel this is our best record to date without a shadow of doubt! It’s mega! Every tune is class and there’s some serious anthemic songs in there that would blow the roof off any venue. That (the album) will be coming later this year!

Any tours or events coming up soon? What are you looking forward to, and what can the fans expect?
We’ve got a load of festivals coming up! We’re also gonna be joining James, Kaiser Chiefs, Keane and a few more on some gigs! Hoping to get to Europe this year and also go out on a U.K. tour of smaller venues to help put something back into the grass roots live music scene. It’s been a tough year for everyone and these venues need help to stay open so that new bands can keep coming through. Bands need the opportunity to play in these venues to build their fans so hopefully a lot more bands can try and help the venues out as well.

If you could perform with any music artist, Alive or Dead, who would you choose? And why?
Alive probably someone like DMA’s… always loved their tunes and have seen them from the very beginning in small venues. Either them or someone like The Chemical Brothers. Always been into them and I feel like I could write some good songs that could lend themselves to their sort of style.

.

.

Do you have any long-term aspirations as a music artist?
We just want to play the biggest venues possible. I feel like our songs were made for big venues and fields even! So for us the aim is to keep writing great songs and do it for as long as we can while we’re enjoying it.

What is the best thing about performing to a live audience? What’s been a career highlight so far?
I’d say the best thing is watching everyone go nuts to your tunes. To stand on stage and see people bouncing and singing the words back is something that will always be surprising cos it’s such a weird feeling to think ‘I wrote this song on my own and now all these people are singing it’. It’s crazy! Again, there’s too many to mention, as well as building are fans here in the U.K…. I’d say a big highlight is when you start to take it around the world and play in places like South Korea & Japan…. that’s when it really starts to blow your mind!

Finally, a few questions for some quick answers –
FAVOURITE:
Album –  At the minute ‘Word gets around’ by Stereophonics
Artist – The Beatles
Movie – Stand By Me. Old films usually
Place to visit – Whitby. Love it there.
Venue to play – Don’t have one. The biggest!
Food – A good ribeye steak all day long!
Drink – At the minute, a Belgian beer called ‘Leffe’
Person in History – Humpty Dumpty.
Tattoo – (If you don’t have one, what would you get?)  Humpty Dumpty

.

.

Follow THE SHERLOCKS
INSTAGRAM – FACEBOOK – WEBSITE
TWITTER – YOUTUBE

.

Press Release 14th May 2021 below

THE SHERLOCKS
release wild new single 
‘END OF THE EARTH’

.

.

Bolton-on-Dearne’s  The Sherlocks were certainly a slow-burn overnight sensation. Ascending swiftly from stints in working men’s clubs to rammed, buzzing and riotous gigs on the nearby Sheffield scene, they were embraced as the city’s next big guitar stars – the next-gen Arctic Monkeys, if you will – and the band set to launch the next wave of Sheffield Alt-Rock. Which they did; a series of self-released singles and EPs, beginning in 2012 and really kicking into gear with their Arctics-style signature anthem, ‘Live For The Moment’ in 2014, spread the word like wildfire.  Over two years of hard touring, The Sherlocks rose to playing two-thousand capacity venues across the north of England, caught the ear of Radio 1, 6 Music, Radio X and Soccer AM and signed to Infectious in October 2016. A smart signing; months before their 2017 debut album Live For The Moment hit Number Six in the UK they were already crowned as local heroes at the Sheffield Arena, supporting Kings Of Leon. The band went on to support Liam Gallagher on his European Tour in 2018.

With Under Your Sky also hitting the Top Twenty, it was an upward momentum no amount of personal or pandemical pitfalls could thwart. “(Coronavirus) was a bit of a blessing in a way,” says drummer Brandon Crook, who is also brother of lead vocalist and guitarist Kiaran Crook – “because it’s given us time to get new people in, get up to speed and record a new album” Guitarist Alex Proctor was a ‘fretboard wizard’ suggested by their sound guy “(He used to be in a Sex Pistols tribute band for some years”, Brandon laughs.) and bassist Trent Jackson met the band while doing backline at some of their festival dates.

While the rest of the world was on hold, The Sherlocks were undergoing a rebirth. Like every other band, their plans for 2020 were scuppered by Coronavirus: in early March they completed an initial low-key UK tour to support their 2019 second album Under Your Sky, but planned tours of America and the far east were scrapped along with what was gearing up to be a triumphant summer of high-billing festival shows.

Their incendiary new single ‘End Of The Earth’ announces their triumphant return to the live music scene in the UK, with a slew of summer festival dates announced, including headlining at The Boof in Whitehaven in August, The Sherlocks are also making an appearance at Kendal Calling, sharing the stage with an amazing line up including Blossoms, Australia’s own DMA’s, Richard Ashcroft, Supergrass, Stereophonics, The Streets, The Slow Readers Club and many, many more. The Sherlocks are also set to perform at Y-Not festival in Derbyshire in July, a sold-out Tramlines Festival at Hillsborough Park in Sheffield, also in July, among numerous other dates to be announced soon. All going well, The Sherlocks may just be on their way to Australian shores very soon.

‘With a fresh sound, fresh line-up, and a new music video for End of the Earth, there isn’t much stopping The Sherlocks from dominating 2021.’ – 1883 Magazine. 

2021 is set to be a very exciting year for The Sherlocks. If you’ve not heard their current single ‘The End Of The Earth’, you won’t need to go that far to listen to it – it’s out now on all streaming platforms. Listen now at the end of your headphones. The sound of rock is bouncing back. Soak it up.

.

AMNPLIFY – DB