Fresh from supporting James Marriott across the UK, and before hopping in the tour van for a few weeks playing as support on Declan McKenna’s EU leg, Soft Launch have, well, soft launched the band with the release of their debut, self-released single ‘Cartwheels’, a microscopic examination of the moments in the relationships where everything seems topsy turvy.
The band, featuring Cavan man Josh McClorey and Wicklow native Conor Price, recently saw ‘Cartwheels’ get its first BBC Radio One play when the aforementioned McKenna sat in for Clare Amfo on the single’s release week, and managed to sell out The Grace in London in just under an hour.
“It's been good” McClorey smiles when asked of the past few weeks, “we’ve just moved into this new studio here in London so we’ve just been getting that together which has been fun”.
“I’m just looking forward to getting back on the road” Price adds, "We’ve done about 15 gigs together in total before the James Marriot tour but when you’re on the road, playing night after night, everything gels together really nicely”.
The band were formed through a series of accidents more than anything itself as the members, which also include Benedict Quinn, Henry Pearce, and a drummer simply known as Limmer, all met through different projects before coming together in early 2022 to form a band.
Throughout that year, they began test-driving tracks and writing/recording demos whenever two or three of them had spare time. By mid-2023, the band had amassed a record-worth of tracks and set about launching Soft Launch as a project.
“We just started making songs” Price explained of the creative process, "We had no idea what we were making but we didn’t know if it was two EPs or an album; but after all these songs had emerged it just became really clear what it was”.
“We kinda knew from the start that we were going to swap instruments and singing on songs and stuff, but in terms of how it looked as an album that just took off itself really”.
Despite having tracks ready to go as far back as 2022, the band were determined to have an album complete and release-ready before even starting to think of debut singles.
“We wanted to show that we could make something entirely self-written, self-produced aspect and have a body of work ready to go before we even got involved in the industry” Price explains of the decision.
“We had everything ready before we even met our manager, it was that early, because unfortunately nowadays something might blow up super quickly and I feel sorry for those guys sometimes because if you don’t know who you are or have any other songs written it becomes a scramble and a race to pull something together to catch up with the storm of interest”
Despite the multitude of other options, it was clear to the band very early in the process that ‘Cartwheels’ was going to be the band’s debut launchpad. The song was written over three days in Brighton in the summer of last year.
“We had a different studio there, but we didn’t really have time where it would be all of us there, it would just be two or three of us at a time” McClorey recalled, “We kept coming back to it though because it was such a banger, a big fuck you song really”.
“It sets up the next few songs really well,” Price adds, “It shows who are, its a big punch in the face. It’s makes you excited for the next phase”.
McClorey and Henry Pearce have toured with CMAT, whilst other members have a number of other projects continuously on the go. It made finding time to focus on the band increasingly difficult.
“Everyone is so busy!” McClorey vents, “The James Marriott tour was the first time all four of us hung out as a band for more than 10 days at a time because everyone has been doing different things until now, which is great with paying rent, meeting people, and getting the band’s name out there but now it’s all starting to take shape and is starting to just feel right”.