Interviews

We Catch Up With States Of Emotion

• 23rd Mar 2010

States Of Emotion are one of Glasswerk's tip for 2010 and we got a chance to catch up with them briefly this week.

How are you today?
Sweet thanks….The suns finally came out to play and i' m indoors glued to a laptop with the central heating on. Live the dream!

You've been playing together since you were fourteen. Does your music now reflect at all the music you played then, or have you developed it beyond recognition?
Being together since we were 14 has cemented us into the unit that we are today. When you've grown up living the musician lifestyle it soon becomes all you've ever known. Although our sound and the songs have progressed dramatically since we were 14 our ethic has always been the same…Eat, sleep, drink, BAND.

You're still young, but you've already achieved a lot (festival slots including Glastonbury and The Great Escape, airplay on Radio One). What goals do you have lined up for 2010?
We've been holed up for years working on developing the sound before writing and recording the album so things like Glasto and Great Escape kinda came out of nowhere but they were an honour to play, most bands never get the chance to do Glasto and we did it without even having a deal. Now the albums finished 2010 is all about scooping up fans round the country and beyond…sharing the songs we've worked so hard on with as many people as possible. It's just about spreading the word really and getting the record out.

Who are the best band(s) you've shared a stage with so far?
Not many bands on the circuit have completely blown me away, we supported Captain and they were great. Local boys Electric Child House and London Blackmarket are always banging live.

The new single starts with, and takes its name from, a speech by Winston Churchill. What made you decide to write a song around that?
We wrote that song a few years back and it's really stood the test of time. At that point being in a band felt like we were fighting a constant battle, lots of posey indie wanabees around, prick promoters and twats giving you their card after gigs promising you the world then amounting to fuck all. We were like the black sheep on every bill we played cos they all sounded like Razolight shagging Babyshambles and we sounded like U2. “We'll fight them on the beaches, we'll never surrender” was just like us saying “We'll fight on through all this the old fashioned British way and nobody's gonna stop us.”

Where/who else do you take inspiration from?
Lyrically i' m inspired by my personal life more than anything. The songs on the album cover stand out moments in my life so far… both positive and negative. I can only really sing from the heart otherwise I feel like a phony flogging a dead horse, may aswell start a wedding band for 300 a night if that's the case. Would have to practice the solo for Sweet Child O' Mine a bit harder if our wedding band was to be any good though!

A lot of music today is imported, do you take pride in being a home-grown band?
Of course, we are the real deal. To be fair there's currently lots of great bands doing the old fashioned laps round the country in a transit van for fifty and a crate a night that will no doubt be the future of British music. Don't really wana jump on the band wagon but im gonna have to…Fuck the X-Factor, Fuck MobileAct Unsigned and all that other rubbish. Take the power back!

And…can you lend us a fiver?
Yea I'll lend you a deep sea diver, need it back by Friday though cos Ive gotta get my euro millions ticket. If I win i'm gonna piss off to Bermuda for a while like Merlin did.