Interviews

A Quick Chat With Violet

• 5th Sep 2014

We caught up with vocalist Charlie Bass of melodic genre-mixers Violet, who formed in August 2007 and since then have made a name for themselves on the underground alternative scene self-releasing an album and two EPs, since signing to Small Town Records. We learn more about their new record and future plans…

When we first started playing music…
We all first started playing music at different ages, I’m guessing around the start of secondary school for most of us. We first started playing music as Violet in 2007, after a few of us had been in other bands.

If we had to choose a new name for the band it would be…
Real tough question. Probably something like Threat Level Midnight because it’s hilarious. Fans of the US Office will probably appreciate it.

We knew we were onto something when…
We fully realised that we can use any other genre of music to influence our own. I think bands get stuck in how they should sound and not exactly how they want to sound. When you realise that you can incorporate pretty much any other music you listen to into your own sound, your world opens up! The joy of being in a band is being able to create whatever you want/need to and if you decide not to let yourselves be boxed in then you have more freedom to sound exactly how you want to sound. There’s too mush good music out there to now allow yourself to be influenced by it.

Our biggest non-musical influences are…
Probably films. We all get pretty passionate about film, a few of the band are really into video games. David Brent and Alan Partridge also have a huge influence on the way we choose to live our lives.

We’re most proud of…
There are loads of little moments we could list but, to be honest, just how far we’ve come. If it all ends tomorrow, we’ve come a long way together and probably exceeded our initial expectations of this band. I can honestly say I’m proud of my friends and myself for sticking with Violet and for actually achieving so much, especially for a group of kids.

Our ideal support slot would be…
To be honest we just enjoy opening up for bands that could get us to places maybe we couldn’t ourselves. Its fun trying to impress another bands crowd. America would be pretty good too.

Something we haven’t achieved yet which we’d like to is…
We’ve always wanted to play Warped Tour over in America. I sometimes feel like theres songs i know we are going to write that we haven’t written yet but thats a tough one to achieve i guess, and maybe you only know you’ve achieved it when looking back? Ask us again in a couple of years.

Our favourite place to hang out is…
On tour.

We can’t stop listening to…
This one varies for each member. Charlie is obsessed with Blue, most of us are pretty big fans of John Mayer, The 1975 and a lot of RnB. Pop also, a lot of pop on our tour playlist. Michelle Mcmanus included.

We’re not ashamed to admit that…
We absolutely love Romcoms, musicals, and any pop song pre-dating the year 2000, back when pop music still meant something! Im a little ashamed to admit that Joe loves Grease 2.

Catch us next…
A tour very soon… it’s yet to be announced but we are all so excited to get back on the road.