Echoes Of The Future 01 – Orders Of The British Empire
In the first of our new series that aims to shine a little light on some the acts that we love and that we think may go on to great things, we have a chat with the boys from Orders Of The British Empire, a London based outfit that play a distinctive brand of muscular post rock.
1. How long has the band been together and how did you all meet?
3 years ish. We all met via ads on gumtree.
2. Where did you get your name from & what does it mean?
It was thought it up as a temporary name while we thought of something and it just stuck. It means nothing really and we actually worry that people may take it a political/nationalistic way which we would never want! We’re basically too lazy to change it now.
3. Describe your sound for us & who would you say were your biggest musical influences?
Predominantly post rock but with more balls to it. We have a shared interest in post-rock based bands but all have different personal influences. Dan likes math, James likes anything epic, Greg likes the 80s and Chris likes Pig Destroyer!
4. And what about non-musical influences?
Lager!
5. Music can be a fickle mistress, what is your biggest high & low as a band so far?
Highs – NWFA festival this year was definitely a highlight but also our EP launch in February which was amazing. We played to a packed room with loads of great bands so can’t ask better than that in our opinion.
Lows – One gig in Derby where the promoter didn’t show up so we had to run the gig ourselves and basically played to the other bands. We were also supposed to be staying at the guy’s house so ended up having to sleep in a Travelodge car park where we were woken at 7am by drunk skinheads marching down the street chanting Eng-ger-land. A low moment.
6. What one fact about the band do you most want to share with the world?
James takes hair straighteners on tour – It’s embarrassing!
7. The old model of record demo-do gigs-get signed-make millions is pretty broken these days, what’s your plan to deal with this?
There are ways to make a living out of the industry but it is hard and you have to be completely in touch with the fact that there is not big money involved. For the kind of music we do, writing for TV is a way of earning some extra dollar as documentaries and other shows always need a good 30 seconds of ambience! However, one thing I will say about any recorded music is that any money you do make off it needs to be kept by you as much as possible. For example we have set up a publishing company called aurora audio so that any pittance we do make will come to us rather than being siphoned off to middle men. Other than that, if you get big enough to tour constantly just do it as that is the only way to make anything close to a living off being in a decent band anymore and even if you won’t make enough to retire on you’ll have a shit load of fun for a few years doing something you love!
8. We journalists like to use easy labels to describe bands, what’s the worst thing you’ve seen yourselves described as?
Can’t remember being described too badly in print other than as ‘ripping off 65daysofstatic’ which may be a bit harsh. Best descriptive comment we’ve ever heard from anyone was when we played at the underworld in Camden after a very metal band (they did a pantera cover) and one person waited for a quiet bit to shout ‘your boring’. It really didn’t add to the moody atmos when we were pissing ourselves laughing. Planning to change our description to post-rock/experimental/boring very soon.
9. We’re loving what you do but who’s floating your boat right now?
There are honestly so many great bands out there in the underground at the moment but if I had to name a few to check out from the instrumental/post rock spectrum you’d not go wrong with Waking Aida, Killington Fall, Alright the Captain, Monsters Build Mean Robots or Khuda or if you like your hardcore/post hardcore check out Shapes, Silent Front, Caretaker and Nitkowski. Both Caretaker and Nitkowski have new albums out soon which I’m massively excited for.
One of the bands that blew me away on the last tour we did were Wild Dogs In Winter, we played with them in Kingston and London and they were just amazing. Their album (Homba) is great and somehow manages to be beautiful and depressing at the same time! Also, i reckon new Bjork record should be pretty mint.
10. What’s up next for you guys?
Currently writing the album which should be out in spring/summer 2012. Other than that it’s just more tours and playing as much as possible. We will definitely do another UK tour again early 2012 but Europe has also been mentioned and that would be amazing. Also planning on a few festivals for summer so keep a look out.
