Double page spread interview

To use as the main content on my double page spread I interviewed the band that are fronting my magazine. Being the genre of indie-rock, the band would mostly like to focus on their music rather than themselves, so therefore, most of the questions that I tried to ask were related to the music rather than their personal lives and personality. However some of the band’s energetic personality has to be captured in order to interest and capture the target audience, so I have made sure that the layout of the double page spread will be lively, expressive, and very personal to the band.
However, I think that the interview may be too long for my double page spread, and may not be able to include it all in my magazine. If this is the case, I will cut out the parts I feel that are least involved with The Weak(end) Arrow’s actual music career, as this information is the most important to include, and to be prioritised above other information.
They’re young, dumb, and full of...indie tunes. They call themselves The Weak(end) Arrows, the young band made up of Sam Turner, 16, Louis Flanagan, 17 and Connor Simmons, 17, all from the small Essex town of Loughton. At FUSED Magazine, we were expecting three boys serious-headed, sensible, and all around stern. ...Boy were we wrong. The Weak(end) Arrows strolled in (an hour late, may we add) laughing and joking, so laid-back that they were almost horizontal. Though despite the messy start with a flurry of arguing about their instruments and bickering in the recording room, we couldn’t help but to find The Weak(end) Arrows a tiny bit loveable, and are simply pretty damn chuffed to be able to give the boys their first ever interview.

Interviewer: So what’s all your names and what do you do in the band?
Sam: I’m Sam, I’m lead guitarist and lead vocals
Connor: I’m Connor, I do backing and bass
Louis: I’m Louis, I hit things...
[Band laugh]
Interviewer: Cool, so who is your major influence as a band?
Sam: Hmm that’s funny because I think we all have different influences, because he *points to Connor* likes stupid...stuff, he * points to Louis* likes Screamo, and I sort of, like a bit of everything, so I think it’s a collective thing. We have our own style.
Interviewer: What’s stupid stuff?
Sam: You ever heard of the Cold War Kids?
Connor: They’re this awesome mix of blues and indie, and he hates them because –
Sam: You say they’re awesome..
Connor: They are awesome!
Sam: Yeah but they’re not
Connor: They just are
Interviewer: So how long have you been together as a band?
Sam: *thinks* Hmm not that long
Connor: About a year
Sam: A year-ish yeah...give or take a couple of months.

Interviewer: Did you all want to be in a band to start with, or?
Sam: Well no, Louis here bought a drum-kit, and we sort of thought I’ll play guitar, Connor can do bass, why not? Put it together and see what you get.
Interviewer: Had any of you played before?
Sam: Yeah I’d been playing guitar since I was like in year 7, so
Interviewer: I thought you were gonna say since you were about two
[Band laughs]
Connor: I’ve been playing bass on and off for years, never been particularly good at it. But y’know, better than these guys.
[Band laughs]

Interviewer: Didn’t they buy you a bass?
Connor: Oh yeah! They did, for Christmas...thank you.
Sam: Why don’t you explain what happened to that, by the way?
[Band laughs]
Connor: Well.. it was icy, and someone distracted me in the distance so it’s totally their fault..but I fell over and broke it a little bit...
[Band laughs]
Sam: And that’s what he does to our Christmas presents.
Connor: Yeah but I fixed it...sounds crap but I fixed it.
Interviewer: I think it’s nice that you buy each other musical presents, Louis’s drum skin aswell?
Sam: Yeah, we’re just generous people
Connor: Mm
Sam: Where’s that 50p you owe me by the way?
*band laughs*
Interviewer: So where have you been playing?
Sam: Erm, we try and do it every week, on Wednesday night there’s a jam night down in the pub in Debden called The Churchill, we just go up there play a few songs, bit of a laugh really...and that’s sort of what we’ve been doing recently.
Connor: Then we heard about this thing and thought we’d give it a go
Interviewer: So what sort of music have you been listening to at the minute, any favourite albums at the minute?
Sam: What at the moment? Hmmm what’s recently come out...
Connor: At the minute the three of us have been getting into Enter Shikari
Sam: Oh yeah big time
Connor: They’re just released a sort of, it’s an E.P really, just a sort of follow-up to their last album Common Dreads, there’s a few remixes and stuff. But yeah, Common Dreads, great album.
Sam and Louis: Yeah
Interviewer: What would you say is your favourite album ever? Of all time?
Connor: Ooh there’s a lot
Sam: Hmmm that is a hard one...back in the day Black Parade, it’s gotta be
Connor: That was way back in the old emo days

Interviewer: You say that like you’re not allowed to talk about it anymore...back in the emo days
Sam: Ahh yeah, past tense
[Band laughs]
Sam: I don’t think I could decide on a all-time favourite
Connor: No me neither

Interviewer: It’s okay, we’ll let you off...how have you found it getting into the local music scene?
Sam: There’s not too many, well, we know one other but you know, local bands our age...not that I’ve noticed
Connor: Not really of our genre anyway, there’s a lot of heavy metal bands around here but not many sort of softcore, all-acoustic indie bands
Interviewer: Is there a lot of screamo?
Sam: A lot of screamo around yeah...there are quite a few bands like that
Interviewer: Does that make it sort of hard then?
Sam: I think getting gigs is the hardest thing about it
Connor: Yeah
Sam: If you were to phone up every pub in the area you’d probably get about two...so it’s hard to get gigs and stuff, but you just gotta keep trying
Connor: But you know most people are going up through the internet nowadays

Interviewer: Yeah that’s also true. So is there a big fan base for you guys?
Sam: Yeah all three of them
Connor: Yeah that’s us three
[band laughs]
Connor: My mum likes us
Sam: Yeah what is all that about, bands thanking their mum’s for the support? No, we don’t do that. They don’t do much.
Interviewer: Don’t they like you?
Connor: I’d like to thank my mum.
Sam: For what?
Louis: I’d like to thank your mum too...you know what I mean?
[Band laughs]
Interviewer: So you say as a band you’re not very interesting? You seem quite interesting!
Connor: Well we’ve only been around a year...There’s not much we’ve done with our lives
[Band laughs]
Interviewer: Got a highlight of the year or anything?
Connor: Our first gig
Sam: Yeah that was a highlight

Interviewer: You’ve gotta tell us about your first gig
Sam: Well we went down the pub as we do, and there’s normally a host band there, and they set it all up, and you go on and do your song, and then they go back up there again. We got there, expecting it all to be set up....it wasn’t, we didn’t know what was going on, and then we heard the band had had a carcrash, and couldn’t get there. So then the pub owner came up to us, asked us to go back to our houses and get ALL our equipment, bring it back to the pub and put the night’s show on. So we had to host the whole night’s show
Connor: On pretty poor equipment, the mic stand was a golf trolley with a pole rammed in it and a mic screwed onto the end
Sam: Yeah only suitable for my height
Connor: But apart from that it went alright
Sam: Yeah the songs we done went well...there weren’t many of them

Interviewer: Well you know it surprised me that you could do that, I wouldn’t be able to go get a load of equipment and plug it all in
Sam: Oh I didn’t go and get it all I stayed in the pub and had a drink
[Band laughs]

Interviewer: Well if you start off with something like that, you can only get better, it must be quite an ego-boost to say you hosted it?
Sam: Yeah we were like that at first as it was our first gig and all, but then we just thought why not, let’s just go for it, we’re here now.

Interviewer: So just one more question for you, who do you aspire to be like?
Sam: Hmm well I like the old school big rock bands who just did what they wanted, they weren’t like most bands nowadays who just listen to their producers all the time... Led Zeppelin, there we go
Connor: Might be pushing it a bit far Sam
[Band laughs]

Interviewer: Where can anyone find you, have you got a Myspace or anything online?
Connor: Well we do have a facebook page but unfortunately Louis here who put it together is dyslexic, so it’s all spelt wrong...we’re The Weak(end) Arrow apparently
[Band laughs]
Sam: Search us on youtube, theres a few tracks on there, a couple of Editors covers

Interviewer: Are they quite an influence?
Connor: Oh yeah going back a while, but we love the Editors
Sam: Yeah they’re quite a big influence for us

Interviewer: Has that gone in the bin with the emo phase?
[Band laughs]
Connor: Oh no, they’re still quite recent

Interviewer: Have you got anything else coming up this year? Anything planned?
Connor: Oh yeah we’re gonna do some more recording, probably some more of our acoustic stuff in Sam’s room, and Sam’s also promised us to make us a proper youtube channel so look out for that...but apart from that no, as we said before we’re quite boring
Sam: And we’ll still be doing gigs on Wednesdays, if you go to The Churchill in Debden on a Wednesday you may see us there, if you’re lucky...or you may not.
Interviewer: With a wheelbarrow and a washboard?
Sam: Yeah, I’ll be playing a cheese grater.
[Band laughs]