“The world’s so stuck in a circular queue”. Four-piece rock band from Manchester, UK. Ashley Day (Lead Vocals, Guitar) Ben Willocks (Drums) George Dray (Lead Guitar) Will Hopton (Bass, Backing Vocals) Heavy, gritty and unapologetic guitars with soft vocals and brazen lyrics. Something different, something new.
It was 2016 when it all started, originally it was just me (Ashley) and George, we met online after realising we went to the same school. We became really good mates quickly, chatting about music and guitars and all the other stereotypical band-forming trademarks you could think of. We started meeting after school, George eventually dragged Ben along to these meets, George introduced him as the ‘drummer’. We became very close as a 3 and named ourselves ‘Sideline’. Will was a late-joiner, he came after our first base-player left in 2018 – what an entrance.
What is your creative process like?
We are our best when we are together as a 4, some of our best songs simply come from George playing a random riff or Ben just playing some drums and we will all join in and it just goes from there. We all take our part for sure, there’s not one song where only one of us has made alone. We don’t follow any standard process, we just go for it, change and develop the songs as we change and develop ourselves as a band.
How would you describe the music that you typically create?
Something new, something different. It’s rock music, heavy guitars and big chords pairing with a soft leading vocal. Our songs are short, just how we like it, we never want to bore anyone.
What have been your highlights so far?
Playing the Breadshed in Manchester, sold out, was a great gig for us, we loved it and winning the Regional finals for unsigned artists last year was a huge success. But our highlights have mainly been knuckling down as a 4, getting songs that we can hopefully play to everyone and eventually release (when we have the money). This last year we have really started making the music we want, it’s great.
What are your top three albums to listen to?
In Utero – Nirvana, Definitely Maybe – Oasis and honestly we could not agree on a 3rd… too much choice.
What has been your favourite track you have released so far?
Our next release, Disarm your Denial, it’s out on the 20th.
What has been the best Venue you have performed?
O2 Academy in Birmingham, but we all love Night and Day, Manchester, never a bad gig there.
What has Lockdown been like for you all?
Weird, we would usually meet 3 times a week, so lockdown of course stopped that, we’ve kept ourselves busy though, we have released new tracks and covers by each sending individual video recordings over and putting them all together, like Where is My Mind (Pixies), it’s on Youtube now. We even made a Tik Tok just to put covers on and to keep ourselves going as a band. We are ready to start up again now though, in need of a gig.
If you could change anything about the industry, what would it be?
The charts… they’re so different to how they used to be, no one likes the same music anymore, there’s never one album that does way better than the rest, there’s never one artist that all your mates love or want to watch. Nailing the charts this day in age would be an achievement and a half. We’d love for women in rock music to become better recognised too.
What’s next for you?
Our next single release, it is out on the 20th August on all platforms which you can now pre-save by the link in our
Instagram bio
– Disarm your Denial. We will be releasing a music video for it too shortly after, which we are all really excited for, it’s got a massive message so it will be great to see how everyone takes to it. We have an acoustic gig outside, in Knutsford on the 31st August which we are also planning for, so if anyone fancies a beer in the sun, head down.
Thank you for Your time guys, as always below is the links to follow Good For Gordon and Listen to their tracks!
Spotify
Twitter
