Exclusive Interview: Reachback Chat About Their Debut Album And Career Highlights
Pop/punk rockers Reachback are currently taking the world by storm and we caught up with them last weekend to discuss their year so far!
Ruby Williams and Tom McHenry, the band's incredible vocalist and lead guitarist, both visited OnePopz HQ on the 27th September for an awesome acoustic session. They also answered our very own set of questions.So who exactly are Reachback? They're a four piece pop/rock group from Essex and they've been together since 2009. Just recently, on the 4th August, Reachback released their amazing debut album 'Adventureland' and it's definitely worth buying on iTunes. It features both of their latest singles: 'Saviour' and 'No Place Like Home'.
As well as performing the two promotional tracks exclusively in a new acoustic session, the pair spoke to us about some of their career highlights. In the interview, Ruby and Tom talk about everything from bright hair colours and favourite album tracks to getting into trouble whilst shooting a music video in a forest.
You can read some revealing quotes from the interview and watch both parts below.
For people who haven’t yet heard your music, how would you describe Reachback’s sound?
Tom: "I guess we’re being labelled a lot as pop/punk but I like to think we have fast, fun melodies. We have a lot of energy in our music so we try to get that across in our live shows."
Ruby: "I think now we’re probably diverting more to pop/rock than pop/punk. I think that the best way to write is to try and not be like anybody else and try and be like yourselves."
Tom: "We don't really try and put it into a category, we just sit down to work on a song and see what comes out really. We don’t every say we’re going to write a pop/punk song or we’re going to write a hard rock song so we just write stuff that we enjoy and hopefully other people enjoy."
Our favourites from the album are ‘Take My Hand’ and ‘Custom Faded’, have you got any particular favourites?
Ruby: "I really like ‘Take My Hand’ actually but I think, if I had to pick, I’d pick ‘Brave’. I really enjoyed writing that song, that was actually the last song that we chose to do for the album. We were choosing between two songs, and then I weirdly wrote this song in the bath, and I was like ‘Tom you’re going to have to count' and then I started singing it. The guys started playing and it just fell into place."
"It’s about a Disney princess, the princess called Brave, and I love it. It means a lot to me because I absolutely love Disney and I’ve always loved Disney princesses; just like any girl I think. I think a lot of people hopefully relate to it. As well, in Disney films, I think obviously people only see good about the princesses and stuff. But when you actually think about the reality of how a princess feels, she must feel pretty crap. Like being locked up in a tower, she doesn’t know anything, she’s probably a bit mental maybe. So I kind of wrote it about the reality of how a princess would actually feel about being locked up and not knowing anything about the world."
Tom: "I think my favourites are probably ‘Take My Hand’ yeah; that’s one of my favourite tracks. My other favourite is ‘Saviour’ so I was really happy that it was the first single and I was so glad we made that video. That was actually the first song we wrote from the album and I think that’s always been my favourite; ever since I came to the studio with the opening riff and it just took off from there. You just kind of know when you have a song and you start playing it and everyone joins in and you know that this is going to be a good song. We had that kind of feeling with ‘Saviour’. We were jumping all around the room that night."
Ruby, you used to have bright pink hair. Have you ever thought about dying it another colour?
Ruby: “I did. You know what, I did an interview yesterday and somebody asked me whether I wanted to dye my hair green and I could possibly do that for Halloween but I’d feel like a giant bogie if I did something like that. I dunno, I get really bored with my hair and I’m surprised it’s this colour at the moment but I always keep it blonde so if I ever do want to change it to another colour, it’s easier to do it. I was going to go back pink but I dunno.”
Tom: “You got recognised a lot more when you had pink hair, it was really funny cause we’d be out and a lot of people would come up to her and be like ‘oh, you’re in that band.'"
Ruby: "Yeah, the guy yesterday who I did an interview with was: ‘The girl in the ‘No One Else’ video, who’s that? Is that you?’ I was like no, no, that is me. *laughs* I’ve just got different hair. I dunno yet, I haven’t decided. I think I may stay blonde for a while longer and then probably do something stupid again."
And how about you Tom, have you ever thought about dying your hair pink?
Ruby: "He actually wants green hair. He’s always said that he wants to cut his hair spiky and have it green."
Tom: "Yeah, I’ll take green hair. That’s fine, I’ll spike it all up and have a mohawk as well."
You’ve also posted covers on Youtube, is there any that you particularly enjoyed or felt got a good reaction?
Tom: "I think we’ve all got different favourites of the covers. I really liked the first one we did which was Demi Lovato’s ‘Heart Attack’ cover. I really liked that, I thought that was really good."
Ruby: "I can’t think what my favourite is, maybe the the Miley Cyrus one. At the time, that song had just come out so we were like ‘Right, let's quickly get in the studio and record it.’ That was good fun, we love doing stuff like that because we all love that kind of music. We like taking songs and changing them around a little bit."
If you could leave one message for your fans who've supported you on your journey, what would you say?
Ruby: "Firstly, thank you for sticking by us all this time."
Tom: "Sorry it’s taken so long to get our first album out but I hope it was worth the wait."
Ruby: "We really hope you enjoy it and we can’t wait to get back on the road. We will be back on the road next year so we hope that we see you all there."
Isn't that nice? We reckon the album was definitely worth the wait and we can't wait for Reachback to go back on tour again next year; we'll definitely getting tickets. 'Adventureland' is currently available for download here on iTunes and you can watch more fun videos of the group here on their official Youtube channel.
