Fresh from performing at Camden Rocks and The Big Top at Isle Of Wight festival as well as new sponsorship from Ben Sherman, Indie Rock band, The Carnabys, release their new album ‘Too Much, Never Enough’ on August 19th preceded by the awesome ‘Elizabeth’ on August 5th. The Carnabys are a band who have a growing reputation for fantastic live shows, with the support of Blondie, Steven van Zandt, Patti Smith – without live music venues, bands such as The Carnabys wouldn’t exist and our future generations of music would fall into extinction. The band who rely heavily on the live circuit as their core vehicle for reaching new audiences, have joined forces with Music Venue Trust in a proactive initiative to preserve our British music circuit called ‘Save Live Music’.
In a bid to pull our live venues back from the brink of closure, The Carnabys are putting their album, ‘Too Much, Never Enough’ up for pre-sale 3-months in advance of its release in August and will donate all their earnings to Music Venue Trust http://musicvenuetrust.com It’s therefore no wonder that Music Venue Trust have recently announced The Carnabys as their latest patrons alongside Frank Turner, Slaves and Elbow.
The Album is an authentic, raw and straight to the point collection of high-energy tracks. With a deliberate light production touch it retains the character of their explosive live shows. Music-writing duties are shared, while Jack handles the words. Elizabeth is about some of the more interesting uses of our currency, Crocodile is a semi fictional dream reminiscence, and Great Dane In The Graveyard relates a poignantly comic misadventure with a late friend of Jack’s. Then there’s Down He Goes, which concerns a fight-prone pal of the band’s, and Frayed Feather which is directed at local musicians who were there back in rock’s formative years and are still hanging around. Made The Grade is about defying expectations, Caught In The Rain is about looking on the bleak side, Scars and Safety Pins is about self harm, but refusing help and Peaches And Bleach is about “working on something important and someone else inadvertently fucking it up”.
An outstanding 5-piece British band from South West London who catapulted onto the industry stage when they beat over 12,000 global artists to win ‘Hard Rock Rising 2013’. Since then the boys have been on a collision course to world success as they sell out gigs all over London including venues such as KOKO, Garage The Borderline and The Jazz Café. They’ve also performed to hundreds of thousands of fans as they’ve been on Tour with Blondie, shared the stage with the likes of Lenny Kravitz, Kings Of Leon, Fratellis, Palma Violets, Bruce Springsteen and Patti Smith. So it’s no surprise that they were hailed by Debbie Harry as one of the best support bands they’ve seen in years.
The Carnabys know what they want, and how to get it. They have learned their rock history but their intention is to live in the moment and they have plans for the future: to be doing this for a long time to come. “We are still going to be headlining festivals in 40 years,” promises Jack, and only a fool would bet against it coming true.
The Carnabys release their new album ‘Too Much, Never Enough’ on August 19th
To support The Carnabys fundraising push pre-order their new album here.
Let’s dive a little deeper into You, the artist and your music. What attracted you to this genre(s) or style(s)?
I’m not sure really, I guess our main influences when we first started playing live were the Rolling Stones, The Who, Led Zepplin and other classic bands. We then developed it into The style of music we feel most comfortable performing and giving energy.
How long have you been creating and sharing your music with the public?
We started writing and performing our own music at the end of 2012/beginning of 2013.
Who or what influences your playing and/or writing? Also, what motivates you to keep going?
We take inspiration from so many different things/bands/places, also for different aspects of the band. I think when it comes to live, our inspirations are the great performers such as Mick Jagger and the rest of the Stones, James Brown the great classic performers. Lyrically i’m inspired by Charles Bukowski, Hunter S. Thompson, Jack Kerouac, John Cooper Clarke etc. I’ve always had a thing for insanity.
Were you trying to accomplish anything specific on this new project? Creatively or otherwise?
We wanted the songs to be straight to the point. They’re all short, sharp, energetic tunes that have a message. Since the first album we’ve been touring and gigging to our hearts content, so we really wanted to inject the charisma and energy we’ve developed live, into the record. We recorded the whole album live and in two days. So I feel like we may have achieved that!
What was the last song you listened to?
Daddy’s little girl by Warfield Spillers.
Which do you prefer? Vinyl? CDs? MP3s?
That’s a tricky one! There’s a magical element that comes with Vinyl. The action of physically putting it on, hearing the crackle, reading through the booklet and album artwork. But as much as I hate what downloads and streaming have done to the industry, you have to change with the times. It is much easier! And I can have 20,000 songs on my phone… The days of earning a living through record sales are gone, so i’m not going to try and defend it and convert people to buying every album they want to hear.
How about this one…. Do you prefer Spotify? Apple Music? Bandcamp? Or something else? Why?
I’ve always had Itunes, so Apple Music is great for me. The layout works. I use Spotify as well at times though! I don’t use anything else… I should probably check it all out though!
Other than the digital era overwhelming us with access to an abundance of music, what are one or two of the biggest challenges you face when trying to attract listeners to your music?
Well being in a band amongst thousands of others, it’s hard to stand out, especially in London. Though I think we’re one of few that are as comfortable and at home on the stage as we are. I think people are really converted when they see us live, i’d like to think so anyway!
Do you gig, tour or perform? Do you ever live stream? Where can music lovers see you live?
We’re always gigging, it’s what we love the most. Our first tour was a world tour with Hard Rock Records so we played in Hong Kong, Tokyo, Sydney, Honolulu and Chicago. Since then we’ve hit most places in between! We’re always up and down the UK too so there’s plenty of places to come and see us. We have live streamed on Facebook as well, we streamed our set at the Big Top at IOW Festival for those that couldn’t make it.
Where is the best place to connect with you online? Discover more of your music?
Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Youtube, our website, Bandsintown, Tinder, Pokemon go, we’re everywhere.
Any last thoughts? Shout outs? Words of wisdom?
Come see us live! And if you’re a supporter of live music, please pre-order our brand new album ‘Too Much, Never Enough’. We’ve teamed up with Music Venue Trust and all the earnings from Pre-Orders, we’re giving straight to them to help keeping UK grassroots venues alive and thriving! Help us #savelivemusic
