News

What Now To Release New Album and SIngle

• 11th Jan 2013

South African trio What Now will release their album ‘Move Like A Sinner’ on 11th March through Hey & Argh Records, 2013 preceded by the title track single on 4th March.

What Now’s hardworking, DIY roots led the band to record the album themselves in a miniscule home studio and what they captured feels like the debut album of a band reborn. Dark, seductive and dripping in hooks their pulsing newfound rock oozes with all the provocative sleaze of a stripper. It’s brooding, confident and flaunts its huge choruses with purpose and precision. The huge sound of the production sounds far and beyond anything you might expect from a home setup. ‘Move Like A Sinner’ is both a mission statement and a battle cry combined, and its release boldly announces a new era and a new beginning for What Now.

Determination. Dedication. Drive. It takes mountains of each to leave your friends and family behind and move eight and a half thousand miles away to make it in music. A few years ago What Now did exactly that.

Having grown up in the dusty beach town of Ballito, South Africa – a town known for its surfing and skateboarding, but with little trace of a music scene – vocalist and guitarist Ryan Morris met drummer Adam Jenkins at school, before recruiting vocalist and bassist Tyron Layley after overhearing him singing at a friend’s house.

In their first year, they had recorded their first EP, designing their own artwork and printing the CDs at home – spawning a DIY ethic that has stuck with What Now ever since. Selling them at shows and skate parks the EPs soon sold out and with a multitude of gigs under their belts the band decided to get serious and record a full-length album. “When our debut record came out we got great radio play on the big South African stations”, says Ryan. “It was our first taste of real success and we were all delighted of course, but we’re a very ambitious band and we just wanted to go big. We didn’t want to be trapped in South Africa and be limited by that further down the line. It was an incredibly tough decision, but we knew that we had to leave”

Swapping sweaty summers and warm winters for the alluring lights of the London music scene, What Now left their homes, friends and families behind them and relocated to London.“We didn’t know where to hang out or where to rehearse, we didn’t even know where to live! We were all living in one tiny room. Ty and me even shared a bed together!” explains Adam “It was a really dark time. We were lost, depressed and broke. We forgot who we were and we forgot what we were trying to do. Within six months of being in England we moved into separate flats and decided to split the band. It felt like everything that we had committed to and everything that we had sacrificed, had been for nothing”

For two years, Ryan, Tyron and Adam explored different bands and developed separate tastes in music before a chance meeting at a gig brought them back together. The time felt right to rekindle drifted friendships and reunite the band. With a refreshed vision of their future and taking new influence from their individual music tastes What Now underwent a rebirth and fusing elements of indie, pop and rock they developed a fresh sound and began playing, writing and recording again. Soon after, they were asked to pen an experimental track for the soundtrack of CSI: NY. Upon completion realised that they had stumbled upon their new musical direction and set to work recording what would become their second full-length album, ‘Move Like A Sinner’.

After a decade of determination, dedication and drive, and armed with this deadly album, the band have their eyes fixed firmly on the future. What Now? Now to make good on the promise that they made to themselves as kids setting out from South Africa alone – now to take on the world.

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Thursday 24th January The Lexington London