Rising from Ireland’s ever-blooming noise rock scene, Belfast four-piece Stratford Rise are a band on the up. Despite being in the early throws of their career, they’ve just released their self-titled debut EP, a four-track project which hurls listeners through a pendulum of sound, reminiscent of early works by one of their biggest inspirations, Gilla Band. Since then, the band have played some of their first shows in the UK, featured on BBC Radio 6, and seen a video recording of their Windmill, Brixton show rack up thousands of views on YouTube.
“I’m just shocked anyone is interested in our music” Rory Kingham, the band’s guitarist, laughs, as he chats to Goldenplec, “Windmill is now a legendary venue for all sorts of bands. It’s always strange going somewhere you’ve seen loads of photos and videos from and then you’re there, it’s pretty surreal, trying to make sense of the layout”.
“Rory thought the stage was in a completely different place” lead singer Orion Courtney-Lee adds quickly, “he thought it was in the far corner when really it’s just there as you walk in”.
The band, made up of Kingham (guitar), Courtney-Lee (singer/guitar), Ruben Carver (drummer), and Tom Martin (bass),first began when Courtney-Lee and Carver met in secondary school.
“He was the hotshot drummer in school” Courtney-Lee admits, “so we talked a bit and then we headed over to his place to jam in his shed. We just hit it off immediately, I knew instantly he was the best musician I’d ever played with”.
From there, they met Rory through a mutual friend, before Courtney-Lee’s Mum introduced them to Tom, the son of a colleague, who played bass. Things didn’t click immediately, but eventually, after a few sessions the band was formed.
From there, the band has gone from strength to strength. Despite their shared love of music, it was Tom who quickly became the driving force behind the band’s work.
“Tom had this real ‘get it’ attitude, and he’d wrangle me and Orion in rehearsals because we were just messing around. Tom came in and had a real discipline to him and we all followed his lead” Kingham recalls of the early rehearsals, before Courtney-Lee notes that “Tom always had the clearest vision for what he wanted out of a song. He’s real disciplined, and I feel like we really needed that. He’s always the one to stop a jam, to get us back on target”.
Once they had a few ideas down on paper, it was time to start thinking about how to introduce the band to the world, what statement they wanted to make with their first release. Thus, in 2023, their debut single ‘Water Running Through The Faucet’ was released to the masses.
How did it go from those sessions in the shed to releasing your first single, ‘Water Running Through The Faucet’?
R: “Orion, Tom, and Ruben had a few jam sessions without me, because at the time I’d gotten a new part-time job and was determined to make as much money as possible, so they’d written a song that became ‘Snow Sports’ from the EP, then we jammed this song we don’t play anymore, and we were juggling it up between ‘Snow Sports’s and what became ‘Water Running Through The Faucet’, and we wanted to go with ‘Water’ because it was the weirder of the two and we really wanted to make a bang.
"We recorded that in the same room we practiced in, and it was recorded by Tom’s Dad, Marty Martin. He’s a teacher of music recordings and the main audio technician in the college, and he’s just really good. He takes a very Steve Albini approach of just recording without getting too involved. He does some extra bits but he only ever wants to be known as the music recorder rather than producer.”
O: “Yeah, so we recorded it twice, we had a full session of it, but then scrapped it and did it again because we realised we’d just recorded everything too slow.”
R: “The first thing we did was this live show at the college which we recorded and threw online in a few places, and there was like 10 people who were mildly interested in us and we decided to release a single. There was no promo, just an Instagram post into the ether.”
You then released ‘World’s Fair’ before disappearing for two years. Was that to get the project ready or what was the thinking behind the break?
R: “It was a combination of things. We did some sessions for the EP but I’m not sure if we just lost steam with them or whether we were just indecisive, but when we’d wrapped up the recording we tried to get a label interested, because we’re all quite bad with social media, and we didn’t have a manager at the time and we were really scared of just releasing the EP and no one caring.
"There were some Irish labels, but it kinda fell through because the project was a bit weird and we didn’t have that much of a following, but we got a grant from the Cathedral Quarter Arts Fund, which went all on PR with Jawdropper and that’s how we released it, and around the same time we got a manager who keeps us on top of things, so it was a combination of things but it all came together really nicely.
"The project was done about eight or so months, but when booked the PR we had just gotten the artwork done and named the songs, so if we hadn’t got the grant it’s highly likely it would still be sitting on a hard drive somewhere, and it definitely wouldn’t have had the impact without the PR and our manager”.
Is there a conceptual theme around the EP, or was it simply the tracks you had ready to go when it came to recording?
R: “It’s not like we went chronologically, it wasn’t just the first 4 tracks we had, although our first song is there, but there were deliberations on what to include. It was a combination of what songs we thought had a good flow together. Overall, I think the songs on the project are the most rhythmic ones we have, the most angular, whereas ‘Water Running Through Faucet’ was very free and noisy.
"Obviously this is a noisy EP, but there were tracks we thought about putting on the EP but we’ve saved them for other things. There are some songs we’ve been playing for almost two years that are noisy and would have fit, but we’ve saved them for when we have the time and the budget to really do them justice with videos and the likes.”
O: “The reaction to the project is much better than expected. You know, you’re never going to strike gold, we haven’t struck gold, but I just had it in my head that we were going to toil away for seven years and maybe something would happen, like one of those hot shit bands you hear on the radio for 7 months, and then you go and check Wikipedia and they’ve been around since 2014 and it’s taken them over a decade, but maybe it’ll be different for us. Hopefully.”
How did the artwork for the project come about, it’s captivating.
R: “That’s one of Tom’s family friends who took that. That photo had been knocking about for ages and we’d tried a load of other things for the EP cover and nothing was working, so we gave that photo a go but we couldn’t figure out the layout. I’d done all the layout for the releases on GIMP because I’m too cheap to get Photoshop, so it kept crashing, but we messed about with it and we finally got it.
"We were really adamant about having it in a frame with the EP title on it, but we regret doing that now really, but we thought it looked like a Beatles cover with the name and logo, but yeah. It’s all DIY. It’s really cool.”
Has work begun on a second project?
O: “We’ve basically recorded the next one, but we’ve a few extra bits to do to them before they’re 100% ready. We recorded it all in a day and my larynx was hanging out of my mouth by the end of it so we’ve a few bits to re-record. We’re doing the same thing where we’re out shopping for labels and artworks and names and stuff so it could be a while yet before you hear it.”