Interview: Face of A Stranger (Written)
Games, Brrraaains & A Head-Banging Life bring you an interview with hard rock and alt-metal band, Face of A Stranger.
1. Hello! Thank you for taking the time to chat to us. First things first, tell us a little bit about yourself and how you got started.
(Mitch) We’re a hard rock/Alt metal/metal quintet outfit from the West Midlands, UK. Getting started…well I had a couple of music projects on the go around 2010-2012: 5th Syndicate, Life Therapy, and Loud Thought. Loud Thought would go on to become Face of a Stranger after some shuffling around to get the final line-up at the time in late 2012. Ben was in 5th Syndicate with myself and a few of our mates, so I brought him over, I met Joe through Callum, a mutual friend of ours, who used to be a local promoter and fellow former band-mate of Joe’s, I asked Joe to come for a jam and the rest is history. Now, through some line-up changes we’ve got a great drummer, Dan Brewer, a long-time close friend of Joe’s, and their mate Stan McDonald on bass.
2. Someone comes to you and asks you to sum up what kind of music you play – what do you tell them?
(Mitch) We’re definitely in the hard rock/alt metal/metal/post grunge/metalcore kinda range, haha! We have a lot of ideas on how our sound can evolve/transform too, and those conversations are always fun to have.
(Joe) I always find this really hard to explain to people as we don’t really have a set genre in my opinion. We have songs that are quite mainstream and poppy almost and then we also have songs that get pretty heavy and dark. I would say if you like rock/metal music you will find something you like.
3. What’s currently going on in your camp? New releases? Tours? Etc.
(Mitch) On the 1st December our new single from the ‘Monsters Among Us’ EP will be dropping, we have a lyric video to accompany that on YouTube; on YouTube we’re also starting a “We Play What You Want” segment of our in-studio show, where we will be performing unplugged versions of original songs, and covers. Some covers will be what we want to play, others will be what you want us to play. Also 10th December we’re at Subside in Birmingham with Gnawing Hunger, Stoneload, Overthrone, and Wars. So we’re very very excited about that, bands begin at 6:30pm, and end at 11pm. In January of 2024 we will be releasing a 2nd single and a music video, 17th February 2024 we have our EP release gig at The Giffard Arms in Wolverhampton, merch for sale, and hard copies our EP too. And then hopefully we can get on some festivals, we’ve never played one so that would be awesome.
4. What has been the most positive experience of making music to date for you?
(Mitch) Just making music with my mates, that’s incredible. You can really relax when you’re part of a group that just wants the best for the band and to make every song and experience the best it can be. Recording in the studio is a real delight, we have these running jokes and inside jokes, it’s just a great time. And when we’re seeing so many people come out to support us, is amazing. We recently did a gig at The Duke William in Stourbridge, and we had so many people there it was crazy, we do ‘Propane Nightmares’, Pendulum cover, and ‘Hero’, by Chad Kroeger and Josey Scott, and people went bananas for them, not to mention all the people singing lyrics to our original songs, it was one of the best ever gig experiences as a band, really really fun.
5. Likewise, what has been some of the more challenging aspects and how have you overcome them?
(Mitch) The more challenging aspects are getting people to come to shows, when you’re not a big band, you have to try much harder to get people to come. We have been lucky, we’ve got a lot of people locally that love us and support us, we’ve managed to impress strangers and they’re now fans, but when a band comes from Stourbridge and plays a gig in Brighton, you’re kind of at the mercy of people who, hopefully, love the live music scene and want to support it, keep it thriving. Pubs and clubs close down, open mic nights are cancelled due to lack of interest, it’s really hard sometimes to see how live music struggles. And it grinds my gears when some promoters or bar/venue owners think you can pay your electric bill in “experience”.
6. How do you handle the modern expectations of being in a band? Always online, having to put out content constantly, your success measured in likes and follows?
(Joe) It is definitely tough, you feel like you’re falling behind if you don’t have as many followers as other bands or if your posts don’t get many likes. I think the thing to remember if it starts getting to you is that you might be comparing your own band with a band that’s been going for 5 times as long as you have. Its also really important to remember why you’re doing music in the first place, yes it would be incredible to have thousands of people liking and commenting on your posts but for the majority of unsigned bands this wont happen, its important to make music for yourself and your own enjoyment and then whatever happens after that is a bonus.
7. What’s something that really ‘grinds your gears’ about the industry/business these days and what would you propose is done to combat it?
(Mitch) Well, like I was saying before, live music struggles, unless you’re a big pop act, or massive metal band, it’s pretty hard to get any headway unless you’re spotted, like Arctic Monkeys, I bet those lads grinded for years before anything big happened. And I just wanna have people listen to our music and buy tickets to our shows, and we have some amazing fans who come and see us whenever they can, one lad comes up from Devon to see us, which warms the hell out of my cold tin heart, haha! We have great people around us. With the big guys, it’s things like how Spotify is a solid platform for us musicians, unfortunately the system is, the more plays you get, the more money you get; but when you’re a struggling band, we make no money, haha! And that’s why we actually love what we do and write music that we wanna write, if you’re not doing it because you love it then there’s no point. So we’ll struggle, because life is a struggle, we just would like a light shone on small bands that could potentially have a big following, maybe to combat that, create an app which is based solely around small artists, and create a system of payment that can give a little to up and coming bands. There are so many great bands out there on the local circuit.
8. Speaking directly to listeners – what would you ask they do to help support your music?
(Mitch) First of all, we say thank you to those people, you’re all beautiful and you really do make us feel warm and fuzzy inside. Just buy tickets and merch, I suppose, haha!That’s definitely the best way to support us. Venues don’t pay much unless you’re a wedding band or a tribute/covers act, so really buying tickets for our shows and our merchandise is 90% of what money goes into the band, we’re not having holidays, haha! Every penny we get goes back into making more music, and producing more records and merchandise. To find all our gig dates and merchandise, music videos, photos, etc, visit: www.faceofastranger.co.uk.
(Joe) I would just say thank you and continue doing what you’re doing, sharing our stuff online is free and doesn’t cost a penny and it really helps. Especially these days with Facebook and Instagram algorithms prioritising paid promotions its even a battle to get your posts seen these days without paying. Turning up to gigs and bringing friends along!
9. Outside of the music, what’s do you do to relax?
(Mitch) Spending time with my other half, and my dog, I like to write short horror fiction stories, play video games, watch movies (mainly horror and sci-fi), spending time with mates, going for food, cinema, go-karting, seeing live music at bars and venues. Recently me and a few mates went to see Cannibal Corpse and Ingested, that was amazing. Saw Limp Bizkit for the first time earlier this year, and the other week we caught Galactic Empire at the Asylum in Birmingham. So really, when I’m not doing music, I’m either writing it or seeing it, haha!
(Joe) I honestly spend a lot of my free time writing music, id say 95% of it is rubbish but I really enjoy it and find it really relaxing. Apart from that I love football and have a season ticket at Aston Villa.
Where can people find you?
Website | Spotify | Facebook | Instagram
Come to a gig, say hi to us, we’d love to see all your beautiful faces. Peace out strangers!
Thank you for the interview too, we appreciate your time.
