Indie bands oh indie bands. Wherefore art thou indie bands? Sure, there are MANY out there, but are they any good? Sometimes the answer is a resounding YES, YES, YES, a thousand times YES!
When listening to bands over again, sometimes one’s ears can become clouded, and when the right band comes along and makes you turn around and go, “hmm! This is something I could get into!” you know you’ve stumbled onto something good. Scream Arena is such a band! From the United Kingdom, this motley menagerie of Rock and Rollers are the band Scream Arena. The moment you think you’ve pegged them, think again! They change it up. Each song sounds fresh and new, but nostalgic enough to send your waxy nostalgia notions into a rollercoaster blasting through memories of songs we’ve heard in the fundamental formation of Rock and Roll.
Not simply because they are bringing rock back, but because they are bringing it back well, we are happy to announce that Scream Arena is our RockRevolt Indie Band of the Week! Stand back and check out the conversation had with Andy Paul, lead singer and song writer for SCREAM ARENA!
Scream Arena is also the name of a sports video game based on the animated film, Monsters, Inc. Is there any relation between the game, the movie, and your band?
None whatsoever. I had never even heard of the game or was even aware of the film. The name Scream Arena came about by my working using the Def Leppard principle of putting two words together that don’t mean anything when placed together but sound good. It is an identity, it is branding. So, after much chewing of pens and throwing screwed up balls of paper around the wastepaper basket, Scream Arena was the name that clicked with everyone the moment they saw it.
Did you choose this genre of music, or did it choose you? When and how did you discover that this was your calling?
I think art of any form calls you. It is a vocational thing, you have no choice and you will do pretty much anything to be in a position to create. Hard Rock, at its heart, speaks to the primal; it is a brotherhood and a sisterhood. There is something about that draws people in and demands their loyalty and does not let go. It called me at school, when some guy, a musician within the school, came up to me in a corridor and said “you look the part” and while I wondered what part I looked like and how hard I should hit him, he informed me that he had a band for a school concert that needed a singer and voila! the first step along the rocky road.
Is there a musical genre out there that calls to you, and inversely, a genre/style that makes your skin crawl and ears bleed?
Well, by definition Hard Rock and Heavy Metal calls to me above all, though I have a regard for jazz, blues, flamenco. I really have no time whatsoever for so called “indie-rock”, essentially a meaningless phrase but one that covers a host of sins. Here in the UK we are told endlessly, mostly by the spotty great coat wearers at the NME that band “X”, “Y”, or “Z” is the future. Then you hear them and they are nine times out of ten a Smiths retread, with jangly guitars, earnest expressions and pompous opinions filched from the back pages of the NME. It is music for the BBC at Glastonbury and I hope Metallica do not take prisoners when they play there this summer.
Alex Mullings – Guitars/background vocals
Phil O’Dea – Guitars/background vocals
Lincoln J. Roth – Bass
Michael Maleckyj- Drums
What do you feel about your sound is your calling card? What about you will make casual listeners be able to distinguish your sound above all other bands in this business?
Good question, not one I have ever considered before. I think the clue may be in that a lot of the reviewers of the album, while liking us, have struggled to put us in one box as it were. Comparisons have been drawn with bands like Shark Island, Ratt, Accept, WASP, Collective Soul (No clue on that one!), Alice Cooper amongst many others. That suggests that influences can be heard but do not limit the band, and that somehow we’ve drawn on them and created our own niche.
Your bio reads: “We are so tired of Smiths retreads and rewatered workings of The Clash being sold to us as the future of rock music. It was time to say “enough”.” How do you feel your music breaks this cycle?
I think is obvious how we break the cycle, our haircuts give a clue. Simply listen to what we do. There is no whining about misery and depression in our songs, we know how to put on a show and we know how to balance firepower with melody.
You further explain that working with Paul Sabu on your debut album was the catalyst for your band. First off, how did you decide that “yes, Paul is the direction to go with here,” and what element did he bring to the band that allowed the band to flourish studio-wise?
Paul brought discipline, knowledge, understanding and an intense musicality to the studio. He perhaps understood the band better than the band did. It was an honor working with him.
I can imagine! I know why your album is in my rotation, but why do YOU think it should be?
A simple answer here, and it is because if you enjoy crafted hard rock with an edge and a melodic understanding and a lyrical narrative that avoids “lick my lollypop” lyrics, then Scream Arena could just be worth some of your time.
Being that this album is your self-titled debut, what aspects about the album define the band?
I think the band defines the album, the songs we have crafted are our callings cards, and it is part of a whole canvas.
You have a cover of Heartbreak Hotel on the album. In the future, would you consider doing covers again, and if so, what artist would you cover?
It was Paul’s idea to cover Heartbreak Hotel and he and the band really had to twist my arm to get me to agree. In the first instance he had mooted the idea of a cover and we thought something by the Stones or The Who, as we are English…then he suggested something by Paul Revere and The Raiders, which did not quite seem appropriate for us somehow. However then Heartbreak Hotel was on the table and in the end it really worked. As for future covers it is a thought, indeed we had considered the Contraband arrangement of the Mott the Hoople song “All the Way from Memphis”…just a great song and a brilliant piece of storytelling.
I’ve read in other interviews about your literary inspiration for lyrics, including Hemingway. Do you draw inspiration from other authors? (if so, what about their writings intrigues you?)
Hemingway’s A Moveable Feast the account of his time in Paris in the 20’s is a book I return to again and again. It has a sparse, dry bone style that to me is cinematic. You can see the situations unfolding in your imagination like a film and that is something I have tried to bring to the lyrical narrative of Scream Arena. Hemingway also spoke of how a lot of his writing was subtext, below the surface so his audience filled in with their imagination at his prompting. That really struck a chord with me and is again something I try to achieve. Of course there are many other authors I read: Dumas, Tolkien, Dylan Thomas, Charles Dickens, PG Wodehouse, but none of them have influenced me in terms of lyric writing the way Hemingway has.
Scream Arena has been waiting for a moment to emerge. Now that you have this album under your belt, what would you tell your original incarnation in 2005 about where you are today and how you got here?
Great question, I would tell us to buckle up because it was going to be one hell of a ride; very bumpy at times but at the same time worth every minute for the people and places we have met thus far along the way.
What advice would you give yourselves to take it to the next level?
Keep calm and rock on. (laughs)
That’s great advice for all of us!
