Ever since forming in 2014, The Assist have had their finger on the pulse of how the modern generation consume music, soaking their soaring indie anthems with hip-hop-inflected beats, dance-tinged rhythms and blistering breakdowns. It’s this eclectic adventurism that has seen The Assist sell out venues across Birmingham, Manchester, Leeds and Sheffield as well as share the stage with The Happy Mondays and Blossoms. They also played in Paris with Black Honey and toured the main rooms of the UK’s O2 Academy’s with local heroes The Twang.
In this interview spotlight, I chat with The Assist about the latest music, surviving the pandemic, technology and more.
Full Q&A along with links and music below.
Where are you from and how do You describe your style of music?
We’re an Indie/Alternative band, from Walsall in the West Midlands, who like to make music you can both dance and relate to.
How did you get here? As in, what inspired or motivated you to take on this journey through music and the music biz?
I think just from growing up, we all went to gigs and festivals, and we realised we could do it ourselves. We started out with minimal ambitions, and it just grew and grew. A massively inspiring story was when Peace, from Birmingham, had their debut album reach No.1 in the charts when we’d seen them playing small venues the year before.
How does your latest project compare/contrast with your previous release(s)? Were you setting out to accomplish anything specific, follow a specific theme, or explore different styles of creation?
I think, ultimately, our latest project is massively a collaboration of all our work to this point. I think we’ve done most of our exploration work in old singles and demos, so this album was more about really finding what our best work was and reinventing some old stuff. In terms of the themes, all of the tracks have social commentary lyrics and tell the story of the frustrations of living and growing up in a desolate, declining working-class town.
Name the biggest challenge you faced as a creative during these unprecedented? How did you adapt?
I think finding the motivation, as everything was so boring at the time, it was hard not to make playing the guitar and song writing boring etc. The biggest challenge was definitely being apart, though our band is very much a social thing, and we drifted not being able to see each other.
How have you kept the creative fires burning during all this?
We had an epiphany of what we all wanted, and with time to reflect, realised we needed this album; we saw the lockdowns as a time to make progress when no one else could really do anything, so the idea of using this bad situation as a positive really kept the fire alive.
What was the last song you listened to?
I’m listening to Paul Wellers orchestrated songbook at the moment, so something from that.
Which do you prefer? Vinyl? 8-tracks? Cassettes? CDs? MP3s? Streaming platforms?
I’d say CDs. My journey with music took off when I could buy CDs for my first car. I do a lot of driving, so I have a massive love of CDs. I’m yet to see a vehicle with a built-in record player, but there’s an idea for the future!
Where is the best place to connect with you and follow your journey?
We have a website where you can buy merch and stream our music which is below with all our social media links!
https://www.facebook.com/TheAssistBand/
I really appreciate Your time. Anything else before we sign off?
Thanks for taking the time to interview us! We really appreciate what you and other people do for keeping the unsigned scene going; you’ll never understand how much it means for bands to hear kind words about their music and have support off blogs etc.
