Daily Mirror (Northern Ireland)
PLEASE ACQUAINT YOURSELVES WITH OUR... BRAND NEW FRIEND
IF YOU HAVEN’T HEARD OF THIS NORTH COAST FOUR-PIECE YET, YOU SOON WILL
BY their own admission Brand New Friend are already exceeding their own expectations.
Together since 2016 the four-piece are about to release their first album and have a small matter of opening for Snow Patrol on their Northern Irish tour to look forward to. Not bad considering frontman Taylor Johnson’s modest initial expectations of simply playing pubs and friends’ house parties.
Initially a solo acoustic act, the Castlerock guitarist soon enlisted the help of his younger sister Lauren, 20, on keyboards and to join him on vocals and they soon added Belfast pair Aaron Milligan, 21, on bass and Luke Harris,
19, on drums.
For their new album, Seatbelts For Aeroplanes, which is out on April
27, they went in with as many as
116 songs - with the final 13 tracks completed by the end of last year.
Taylor, 23, explained:
“Essentially what happened with the whole thing was that we were a band that was gigging like mad across Belfast, playing every single pub that we could. We’ve nearly played every pub in the North and
South at this stage.
“We got a bit of advice from
Owen Strathern from General
Fiasco. He said that what really helped in their early days was that every time you write a good tune that you’re proud of and that you love, record it there and then. That way you’ll be building up a back catalogue of songs that you’re very proud of and you’ll be recording when it’s fresh in your mind and you’ll mean what you’re singing.
“We thought that was great advice so we went in over the course of last year and recorded all these different songs, with the idea of maybe self-releasing them as EPS to see what people thought.
“Then we started getting a bit of label interest and when Xtra Mile our current label got involved, we played them this stuff and we said: ‘This is what we’ve been doing, what do you think?’
“And they turned around and said: ‘That’s the album done’. “We thought they’d want us to re-record it but they told us it was just what they wanted, it was very live, very raw, it sounded exactly like we do playing live and they said that’s why they fell in love with us.
“So we actually ended up making the album by complete accident. None of us expected it to happen like that.”
And what can fans expect?
Taylor went on: “They’re songs about love, loss, teenage angst.. going to uni and dropping out of uni.
“It’s a growing-up album, it’s a coming of age record really. It’s from a point in my life where I’d just left school and was wondering what I was going to do with myself. All I wanted to do was to make music - how realistic is that, to make a career out of it. But still wanting to give it a go anyway.
“The album is about trying to come to terms with that.
“We wanted to do a mixture of songs that people had previously heard and loved, with a wee nod to them saying thank you. And also giving people something new. So it was about saying: ‘This is how we started, this is us in the early days but this is what we’re turning into and we hope you love that as well’.”
If that wasn’t enough to keep them busy, the band is also preparing to support Northern Irish heavyweights Snow Patrol on their Irish tour.
They’ll play six dates with Gary Lightbody and co in May, just a few weeks after their new album comes out.
Taylor said: “We’re very, very excited about it.
“We found out about a month or two ago. It all came about very randomly and very luckily. Our manager basically sent an email to Jonny Quinn the drummer, who runs Polar Patrol the publishing company. We were basically hoping to get a publishing deal out of it which would have been unbelievable.
“So we sent him an email and said: ‘We’re a very young band from Castlerock in the North Coast and we’ve just recorded our debut album.. if you could listen to it it would mean the world’.
“We didn’t expect him to even listen to it but he did and he loved it. He then rang Gary and told him he was going to send him the album, but didn’t tell him that it was from a local band.
“So Gary phoned him back and said that he loved it.. and Gary said: ‘We need to get them on the tour’. So it was just pure luck.”
Surely an inkling of pressure, then?
Taylor said: “I don’t feel any pressure whatsoever. When we started the band we had no expectations. We were just happy playing our mate’s house parties. We love writing our own tunes, we love playing to people. But realistically we thought, we’re a young band from Northern Ireland, if anything happens above playing pubs then that’s great.
“So we’re already exceeding our expectations so now it’s all about enjoying it.” t 4FBUCFMUT 'PS "FSPQMBOFT JT SFMFBTFE UPEBZ t #SBOE /FX 'SJFOE QMBZ ,JXJ T JO 1PSUSVTI UPOJHIU BOE 5IF #MBDL #PY JO #FMGBTU UPNPSSPX