Brighton based band, Springhill, have only been together for a year...but have already booked a gig at ‘The Haunt’ AND played to over 5,000 at the ExCeL…
I hopped on a train and we all got to know each other over a few pints to celebrate the release of their new single ‘Dorothy’ and to chat about their hopes and dreams for the rest of 2019.
Well it’s lovely to meet you all for the first time, but how did you guys meet each other and become a band?
Cam: Jordan and Dan had already been in a band together and one of their fans was a singer songwriter who needed a backing band. He reached out to Dan and Jordan directly to get them to play and then asked my drum tutor for recommendations for a drummer...that’s when I got involved.
Dan and Jordan put an advert out onto gumtree and we were lucky enough that Chris was selling his amp at the time and that his girlfriend (now fiance) got him to look for bands. When Dan and Jordan first met Chris, they all got on really well and things have just snowballed from there…
Jord: Having toured and gigged with Dan since the age of about 16, giving up was never really an option. With our old band ending, we began playing as session musicians for a friend of ours we met funnily enough through being a fan of the old band.
Once we had Cam on board things looked on the up until our original guitarist dropped out two minutes before our third rehearsal. We all basically panicked but luckily, Chris came along out of nowhere via Gumtree and with his matching denim shirt and white t-shirt, we knew we’d struck gold.
Chris: Yeah it did feel like I was arriving for a tinder date when I first walked into the pub to meet you guys but as soon as I saw Jord wearing the same denim shirt as me I knew it was love at first sight!
What inspired you to write ‘Dorothy’?
Jord: (Laughing) Now this is a question for Dan!
Dan: Haha, I guess you could say that? Lyrically, Dorothy is about chasing something that you’ve lost, whether it’s a friendship or a relationship. Sometimes you can convince yourself that what you had is back, but it’s only ever temporary before the real situation rears its head again. Dorothy is trying to push that knowledge to the back of your mind, live in the moment and forget everything for a night.
Chris: I had these chords I came up with for a very previous heavy metal band that never got used. Me & Dan had been having chats at the time about progressing the sound to something more gritty and I realised we could translate these heavier sounding guitars into something more indie and grungy that worked with Dan’s voice. Dan started writing the vocal melodies & lyrics and it suddenly felt like we were onto something! I’d been listening to a lot of Oasis as well at the time which really helped mould the new sound in my mind I think we were going for.
If you could collaborate with any other artist or band (alive or dead) who would you pick and why?
Chris: To be honest I like to indulge in some classic 80s pop/rock from time to time, so I’d love to hear what we could sound like with a real 80s/GTA vice city soundtrack vibe. I’d love to be in the same room as Luther Vandross and see if we could smash out a hit as smooth as ‘Never Too Much’.
Dan: Oooo, this is such a tough question! Obviously, there are so many incredible artists that come to mind… Queen would be really interesting, to be in a room with the minds that created Bohemian Rhapsody and trying to keep up with them? In terms of current artists, I’d actually love to work with either a rapper or someone like Mark Ronson, to really put a new spin on what we do, and see if we can create a bridge between Indie-Rock and Hip Hop/R&B/Dance etc etc.
Cam: I know that I’d personally love to have worked with Pink Floyd or their engineer Alan Parsons around the time when they were recording Dark Side of the Moon - they were doing some crazy and incredibly inventive stuff for the time (and would actually really help me with my current uni project…). But I’ve also got to agree with Dan, collaborating with someone popular in a different genre to what you normally play often makes for the most interesting projects!
How excited are you all for your upcoming Brighton show?
Jord: When we first sat down with a notepad just over a year ago, we asked the question; ‘where do we want to be in a year’s time?’ - my immediate response was; ‘booking The Haunt’. The fact we’ve pulled this off continues to astound me!
Chris: Jordan’s initial one year plan still amazes me at how accurate it’s been! How are we headlining The Haunt already?! It’s madness!
Cam: Very, very excited. We’ve got a load of new songs that we can’t wait to play. Also it being our biggest headliner to date and playing at such a well-known Brighton venue is going to be mental.
Dan: Excited doesn’t cover it, this is massive for us. Having only been together for a year, to be performing at one of our favourite local venues already is fantastic. I’ve seen some amazing gigs at The Haunt, and to be back there, playing with SpringHill is immense.
What was playing to 5,000 people at the ExCeL like?
Cam: It was really cool for lack of better words. I felt like a proper rockstar with all the pyrotechnics, crazy lighting and everything else going on while we were playing.
Jord: Yeah I agree with Cam 100%, it’s something I’ll never forget! We knew we had to hit the ground running with this project and to be on stage at the ExCeL less than a year since our first rehearsal felt almost ridiculous. Pyro, lighting on a different scale to anything we’d seen before - I can’t really explain the feeling when those LED doors slid open at all...
Dan: It really felt like one of those once in a lifetime moments… The production was unbelievable, the lights were blaring, fire was raging, and the 20 foot LED screens that opened up to us playing were something else.
I’ve got to be honest I did worry that I was going to fall over as I walked up to the mic a lot, so once I;d got that out the way, everything was fantastic! It’s really motivated us to make sure that we make that our life.
Who are your main inspirations?
Cam: I come from a place of a lot of rock, metal and just heavier stuff - bands like Nirvana, Enter Shikari, Rush, Primus etc. It's what I mainly grew up with and learned to start playing drums to. My tastes have definitely widened and mellowed out a bit now but when playing I definitely still lean towards the heavy side of things.
Jord: Like Cam, I too had an unhealthy obsession with Nirvana in my early teens but since, my musical inspirations have somewhat ebbed and flowed throughout the years. I’ll always hold Nirvana as the main reason as to why I am where I am today, along with ‘School of Rock’. But I do enjoy a wide range of genres spanning Hip Hop, Jazz, Pop, Electronic, Motown and the likes of Liam Gallagher, Stevie Wonder, Tom Misch, Loyle Carner, Catfish and The Bottlemen, Disclosure and Jamie Cullum - I could go on all day if you left me to it haha.
Dan: So many! I personally, was brought up on Britpop, so my main influences would have to be the likes of Oasis, Blur, Pulp etc. but throughout my life there have been so so many artists out there that inspire me. I wouldn’t say that I like any particular genres, but if it’s good, it’s good and I’ll listen to it.
Chris: My music taste has done a complete 180 to be honest. I grew up on heavy metal bands like Limp Bizkit, Slipknot and Linkin Park, I didn’t even like indie music until a friend at uni took me to see Little Comets and then that opened up a whole new world to me.
It was about the same time the 1975 were still playing tiny venues so I fell madly in love with them. Nowadays I listen to a real mix of Tom Misch, Busted, Bring me the Horizon and Oasis hence the mash up of heavy/indie guitar riffs!
What was the recording process for ‘Dorothy’ like?
Cam: We recorded at Seaside Studios which was a new one for us. The studio has some insanely good equipment and the engineer, Jack, was awesome. It’s not easy to be sitting in the same booth for four hours hammering out the same part over and over, but when I first heard my takes through the monitors in the booth it really made it worth it. Once it was done we sent it off to Abbey Road to get mastered by Frank Arkwright and when we heard it back, it just blew our minds.
Jord: Yeah, our first time in a world class recording studio was something that made us all feel like kids. To be able to put something together we’re so proud of and spend so much time on makes this track so special to us. The 12 hour days are a killer and when you spend 24 hours hard graft for a 3 minute song, you realise there’s a bit more to this than jumping around on a stage...
Dan: It was a great experience, I think the other guys have already highlighted the actual recording process, but one thing that I really enjoyed was just spending the time together. With jobs/uni and normal lives, it can be tough getting the time outside rehearsals to spend as a band, so to have a whole weekend together was great.
Chris: Haha, I’d have to agree with Dan without being too soft! Also you could dribble over the guitars there for days on end...
How much fun did you guys have filming the music video?
Cam: Loads! We have a lot laughs in between takes and even during them, which I can imagine makes Chris’ editing job a lot of...fun? It’s sweaty work but we had a great time and got a great video to show for it.
Jord: Chris really is the creative genius in the band so we left the whole concept to him. When I was told to turn up with a white t-shirt and my guitar in a small room I had visions of the ‘Song 2’ video but I can confirm no walls were hurt in the filming of this video!
Chris: I said to the guys I had a plan for how we were going to make an energetic awesome video on a budget of absolutely nothing. In retrospect I had no idea what I was doing until we got there and then it all just worked!
Is there anything else hidden up your sleeves for 2019?
Jord: We’ve got some really exciting discussions going on behind the scenes that I’d love to shout about but sadly I can’t. But I can say that we came into 2019 knowing this will be a big year for us and we fully intend on leaving our mark on it...
Chris: Jordan seems to be a sorcerer when it comes to making plans come true so I’ll probably ask him. We definitely have a lot in the works and are always thinking about the next step but as cliché as it sounds I think it’s important to enjoy every moment you’re in which I think we all try to do as much as we can!
Now if you’re just as intrigued about this band already taking this year by storm then you can check out their music video for ‘Dorothy’ right here...
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