Debut EP: WAR
Artist: Sweet Little Machine
Release Date: 11th July 2016
Today I am sharing music from the pop punk band Sweet Little Machine, based in Sheffield, England. I came across their music just over a year ago, where I think there were only two songs available. I thought they were one of the most solid bands amongst the many pop punk bands around at the time.
They had performed countless shows even before they recorded these songs and I think this is the reason why I felt that they were such a solid band.
You can read the interview with them further down this page.
Their debut EP “WAR” is going to be released on 11th July. It contains five tracks.
2. How To Stop An Exploding Man
3. In God We Trust
4. We Used To Own These Playgrounds
5. War
Sweet Little Machine are going to release the music video for the third track “In God We Trust” today. Its punchy drumming gives it a real drive and it is the most up-tempo tune on the EP. They show a lot of energy, and it is a great sing along song.
Their second single and the fourth track on the EP is “We Used To Own These Playgrounds”. It is a quite straightforward pop rock song, though crafted with a variety of elements. This song really stands out to me. The music video was released in late April this year.
The first track on the EP “Save Our Bones” was released on YouTube with a lyric video last year. They show you a textbook pop punk sound with this tune.
Each song has its own character. The lead vocalist Alex’s voice is strong and perfectly suited to the music. This five truck EP is very enjoyable. I can almost visualise their fresh sound bringing excitement to every moment they are on stage. I think Sweet Little Machine are one of the must see bands right now.
Recently, with our short notice, Alex, the front-man of Sweet Little Machine kindly spent some time of his busy schedule to be interviewed by us. Here it is;
Hello, Sweet Little Machine! First of all, can you introduce yourselves? Your names and your roles in the band?
Hi Music Matters! Sweet Little Machine are a four piece Pop Punk band from Sheffield, U.K made up of myself, Alex, I sing and play guitar, Adam is on Lead Guitar, Lucy on Bass and Joel on Drums.
Could you tell us how you all met up and became a band?
We have all been playing in various bands for years, we also went to school together when we were younger! Sweet Little Machine kind of just happened. Myself, Lucy and Joel started getting together to write songs and as we got deeper into it, we started looking for a lead guitarist. We found out that Adam was looking for a band and so invited him into the mix!
How did you decide on Sweet Little Machine as your band name?
We have many different versions of where the name came from. The version we like to go with most is the name of the ever popular sex toy ‘The Bullet’, which is indeed a Sweet Little Machine.
I would like to hear the other reasons too sometime haha. Who are your influences? Does everyone listen to similar music and bands?
We do and we don’t! We all share bands that we love and have grown up with such as Green Day, My Chemical Romance, Kids in Glass Houses and Fall Out Boy.
As you break it down we then start to have bands that are unique to us individually. As an example I’ve recently gotten into Biffy Clyro and Mumford and Sons, whilst Adam and Lucy are big Muse fans. Then Adam is really into Nothing But Thieves, Lucy loves Avenged Sevenfold, whilst Joel likes Nickelback
All these bands have together influenced us in different ways. Bring that all together and add our own ideas and playing styles and you end up with the E.P ‘War’.
In bands we have been in before it was so easy to get pigeonholed and play it safe, whereas with ‘War’ we were kind of like ‘Fuck it, if it sounds good then let’s do it’.
How do you go about writing your songs?
I usually come in with a lyric or song structure I’ve been working on and from there it’s very much about bouncing ideas off of each other and seeing what everyone can bring to the mix. That’s the beauty of the writing process, I might have something in mind for the direction of the song and by the time we’ve worked it through it’ll have a different vibe or it’ll just have that SLM personality. I think there’s a need to be spontaneous with writing as well for example the hook ‘We Used to Own These Playgrounds’ wasn’t added in until we were into the second day of recording and then all of a sudden the line came to us and we were like “This has to go in! We have to have this in the breakdown!”
How would you describe your latest single “We Used to Own These Playgrounds”?
Pop with guitars!
I think it really captures everything we’re about. We love our music catchy and fun. Pop with guitars, with a big sing-along hook. We’ve always had an amazing reaction to Playgrounds live and I think we’ve managed to capture the personality and essence of the live track with the record.
We’ll also be releasing the 2nd single on July 4th which very much follows the same mantra, fast, fun, catchy and awesome to play live.
Following ‘Playgrounds’ we are also releasing a second single ‘In God We Trust’, which again we followed in the same vein. It’s another song that always goes down great live and is loads of fun to play!
Your EP will be released soon and your latest single was released on YouTube in April. What do you feel about the EP release?
We had done a sold out pre-release show for the EP and released Playgrounds just prior to that. The response was incredible to the single and we’ve kind of been buzzing off of that for a while. The build up to a summer release of WAR to go alongside the festival appearances and tour just made sense.
Could you tell us about the EP a little more?
I think the EP is just the end result of a really creative period that we had as a band. Originally we went into the studio to record ‘Save Our Bones’ and ‘Playgrounds’ and another track. I think the process of recording just really helped us with writing new material, and before we knew it we had this collection of songs that went down great live, making us want to bring them together into an E.P. We were actually struggling a little with the last track, we just couldn’t nail the last line and on the last day I just screamed, “This Is War!” and we just thought “This is what we have to call it”. We all felt that it really summed up the attitude and emotion behind the E.P
Thanks for sharing the story! Will it be just released digitally?
No, it’ll be available to buy from Bandcamp as a physical CD along with our special edition T-Shirts. It will come out on all usual platforms like iTunes, Spotify, Deezer, Amazon, GooglePlay etc… If you’re looking for a physical copy or a Tee, head over to Bandcamp or you can pick them up from any of our shows!
Do you have a special show planned for the EP release?
We have an incredible home support that we are very grateful for! So much so we saw our two most recent headline shows in Sheffield Sold Out! One of which was the pre-release for the EP.
Just after the release of the EP this July, we’re headlining Docstage at Tramlines Festival on the 23rd of July back home in Sheffield. It’s a free entry outdoor stage. Plus Tramlines Festival is always a great weekend, so it’s going to be a messy one! That will be the first show after we release the E.P ‘War’ so we will be coming armed with E.P.s and T-shirts.
Exciting!
Is there anything you would like to say?
This has been great *tilts fedora*, shall we do it again sometime?
It will be great! Thank you for your time and good luck!
August 5th – The Leopard – Doncaster
August 6th – The Live Room – Manchester
August 7th – The Turf Hotel – Burnley
August 12th – The Lincoln Imp – Scunthorpe
August 19th – Percy’s Cafe Bar – Whitchurch
August 20th – The Scene Club – Swansea
August 25th – O’Rileys – Hull
August 27th – Lounge 41 – Workington
August 28th – Lifest – Birmingham
September 2nd – Pi Bar – Leicester
September 3rd – The Black Swan – Bradford
Facebook – www.facebook.com/sweetlittlemachine
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