In this interview spotlight, I chat with The Avenues about their latest project (Office Wear) as well as AI in the music industry, dream collabs, and more.
Full Q&A along with links and music below.
AI (aka Artificial Intelligence aka Chat GPT 4.0)… How is it changing the music world? What are your thoughts about this new trend?
It’s definitely a mix of both positive and negative to us. From a production side of things, there is useful AI technology to help musicians and producers mix tracks, but from a songwriting perspective, one of the things we love about music is the relatability of lyrics, and that’s not something that AI can replicate to us.
Can you choose a favorite song of all time? Or is this an impossible task? If yes, what’s the song? If no, what’s your current Top 3?
It’s definitely not an easy choice as we’re a bit of a mixed bunch when it comes to music tastes! Three that we always tend to come back to would be Common People, Rock The Casbah, and a personal band favourite is Afternoon Delight.
What about this project makes you most proud? Was there a specific goal you were trying to accomplish with the release of “Office Wear”?
We’re so happy with the response we’ve been getting to ‘Office Wear’, as the song’s lyrics are really personal to us. We decided to head back to the studio earlier in the year to write and record some brand new tracks, and there’s always that worry when making new music that it won’t be as well received as previous releases. After the first of the new releases, ‘Another Movie’, dropped, we felt like there was a lot of pressure on ‘Office Wear’ to keep the momentum going forward, and we’ve been blown away by the reception! I think the proudest aspect is that it’s quite different to almost all our other music and it feels like we’re showing ourselves that we’re capable of trying new things and trusting new ideas.
What inspires you to create music? What motivates you to keep going?
The main inspiration is simply that it’s what we love doing. Music is a huge part of all our lives and even though running a band can be difficult and stressful at times, it never feels like work to us, and we’ve never thought about slowing down. The motivation to go as far as we can is what the song ‘Office Wear’ is about, in a way. Everyone wants to be successful in doing what they love and we’re so lucky to be in a position where we can give it a real go as we started the band at a young age. Seeing years of hard graft slowly beginning to pay off is an amazing feeling and every time we sell a ticket to a show or see our online streams going up, it’s great motivation to keep doing what we’re doing.
If you could collaborate with anyone – dead or alive, famous or unknown – who would it be and why? If it’s an indie/DIY artist, please include a link so readers can check them out.
We’d love to hear what Mark Ronson would do with our tunes! We love an outside opinion in the studio and he’s the best in the business for turning a great song into something spectacular. We also love a horn section.
What was the last song you listened to? Favorite all-time bands/artists?
Like our song choices, we’d struggle to agree on a mutual favourite band, but our favourites across the four of us would include Kings Of Leon, My Chemical Romance and Green Day.
Where is the best place to find you and stay connected?
Right here in Hull! If that’s too far to go, we’re mostly active on Facebook and Instagram, and keep everyone updated on what we’re doing. We’re also lucky to have an amazing photographer who’s always restocking our photo collection and helping us get our faces out all over our pages, and our music is on all the standard streaming services.
I appreciate Your time. Want to say or plug any other projects before we part ways?
Thank you for having us! We’ll be back in the studio in 2024 to work on more releases, but we’ll be keeping the details quiet until it’s all set in stone. However, keep an eye out on our social media for another single coming in the new year!
