INTERVIEW: Indie Rock from Foreign Voices

Hailing from various corners of the UK’s South West, the band Foreign Voices is a band that draws on the power of musical friendship and the allure of creative collaboration. While the current lineup was finalised in September 2022, their journey as musicians began much earlier, with shared histories and a mutual love for creating music. Ian, Tom, Martyn, Adam and Dylan have come together to forge a sonic identity that fuses elements of post punk, indie, alternative rock and post rock into a unique and compelling mix.

Their debut EP, unveiled in May 2023, served as a striking introduction to their multifaceted sound. It was a precursor to the creative fervor that led them back to the studio this year, crafting the much-anticipated follow-up. Set for release later this month, this forthcoming EP, titled Foreign Voices 2, signifies a significant step forward for the band.

Leading the charge and offering a glimpse into their evolving sonic landscape is “Empiric,” the EP’s lead single. Recorded at Cube Recording Studios in Cornwall by Ross Rothero-Bourge, this track is a captivating showcase of their musical prowess.

“Empiric” commences with an arresting post punk-esque introduction. The electric guitar’s lightly gritty lines set a tone of anticipation and intrigue, pulling the listener into their world. The drums and bass soon join, establishing a rhythm that gently punches through the mix, building a solid foundation for what’s to come. Then the smooth vocals enter, their mellifluous quality weaving engaging melodic leads over the arrangement.

However, it’s when “Empiric” launches into its emphatic rock chorus that the song truly comes alive. Here, the listener is treated to a sonic explosion of sound. Charged guitars, enhanced with spacey processing, soar with electrifying energy. The driving drums propel the track forward with unrelenting force, while the pulsing bass guitar adds depth and a sense of urgency. The vocal leads, simultaneously powerful and alluring, infuse the song with a sense of immediacy. It’s a spectacular and instantly catchy composition that marries rousing songwriting with an electrifying instrumental performance.

With the imminent launch of their sophomore EP and a series of live shows on the horizon, Foreign Voices is poised to leave a lasting mark on the UK music scene. “Empiric” is but the beginning of what promises to be a remarkable chapter in their musical odyssey.

We caught up with Foreign Voices to find out more about the band’s journey so far, their new single “Empiric” and what they’ve got lined up for the future. Check out our interview with Foreign Voices below.

Hey Foreign Voices, how’s things?

Ian (Guitar): We’re smashing! Thankyou for chatting with us.

How did you get together as a band?

Ian: I met Martyn first – he was wearing a Beastie Boys T-shirt.

Adam (Vocals): You both worked at the Money Centre right? I met Ian at University at around the same time. We instantly got along. I met Martyn on a night out with Ian. We talked about music all night and he said then that we should all be in a band… 14 Years later… Here we are!

Martyn (Guitar): I met Tom outside a practice room. He’d just bought a new Fender Precision bass. I remember he heard my band and told me that we sounded like Mogwai… Then we got chatting about post-rock.

Tom (Bass): I’ve played in a couple of bands with Martyn, I think we started in a funk band, then I made him play math rock! He introduced me to Ian and Adam. Then Adam and I moved away. Out of the blue a few years ago Ian sent me a message asking if I wanted to make music again, then we roped Martyn back in, then we persuaded Adam to join us.

Martyn: About two weeks before our first gig we needed a new drummer. I worked with Dylan and found out that his previous band had split up, so I roped him in. Their loss was our gain!

Is there any story behind the band name?

Adam: ‘Foreign Voices’ came from a song I wrote of the same title in a previous band with Ian called ‘Sal Paradise’. When we started out with our current lineup we were ‘The Lost Hours’. Whilst we were recording our previous single we became aware that the name was being used by another band, so we were kind of put on the spot. We all came up with a long list of potential names and I recommended ‘Foreign Voices’, everyone agreed with it, and it stuck!

Tom: It had a nice ring to it! And I guess it fits with the current climate in the UK. It feels like a lot of people, including us, have a lot to say, but no-one seems to be capable of understanding anyone else. We may as well all be speaking a different language…

Which artists do you draw most inspiration from today?

Dylan (Drums): I think we draw from a vast array of artists for inspiration and that’s the variety that makes our sound. I grew up with punk and hardcore, specifically bands like Title Fight, Basement and Citizen but as a drummer I love really a driven beat and take massive inspiration from The Strokes and Interpol.

Ian: I think that the Strokes influence both mine and Martyn’s guitar playing, and definitely see aspects of At The Drive-In and Tom Petty in what Martyn and I are trying to do. For me, John Frusciante is the master of melodic guitar playing and serves each of his songs beautifully. That’s definitely something I try to incorporate when I’m writing.

Martyn: I find Interpol inspires a lot of my guitar parts in the band, along with Radiohead. But when I started out on guitar my key influences were Alt-Rock and Grunge. As time went on I found myself drawn more to post-punk: The Cure, The Banshees, Joy Division.

Adam: Radiohead, particularly Thom Yorke, are a pretty big influence on my vocals too. I particularly admire his creativity and the way he hangs melodies off disparate instrumental parts. But I also try to incorporate the sheer beauty of singers like Jeff Buckley and Moses Sumney.

Tom: I guess that the key influences on my bass playing are Chris Squire from Yes and Justin Chancellor from Tool. My background is in classical music, as a pianist, and so I’ve always admired the orchestration and layered rhythms of Steve Reich or the dissonance of Shostakovich. Right now I’m listening to a lot of post-metal, such as Deafheaven and Pelican and finding ways of combining their intensity and dynamics into our sound.

How else do you find inspiration for your music?

Martyn: For me music is a means of catharsis, it’s a medium for me to express feelings of grief and loss. Playing music is a healthy way of processing difficult emotions and I feel really lucky to have a platform in the band to be able to do that.

Tom: Definitely. Playing together in a band is such a release of tension, but when you first bring those emotions into the practice space it can be hard to communicate in any other way than through making music. That being said, I find the inspiration for my parts can come from unusual places. I remember reading about Steve Reich developing his rhythms from field recordings or by mimicking speech patterns. I was sat in my Dad’s Ford Transit listening to the various squeaks and rattles and fit a bass melody over that once.

Ian: I think inspiration for music can come from any artistic medium. Recently I’ve found a lot of inspiration through films and books. Recently I’ve been really inspired by There Will Be Blood and the books of Jack Kerouac.

Adam: Some years ago I acquired the concept of ‘second-hand images’ from an educational lecture. We can’t help but raise ourselves on constant referencing. I’ve learned not to listen to much music around the time that I’m writing. I’ve little resilience to mimicking… It drives Ian up the wall as I develop a Lancashire accent when I’m around him for any length of time.

What do you love about the Plymouth music scene?

Ian: The camaraderie and support you get from the longer serving bands. There’s some amazing original music that people definitely need to know about.

Dylan: I’ve been playing in the Plymouth scene since I was 13 and this city has such a mix of fantastic music. Punk has always been one of the defining genres in this city, but recently there has been an influx of new bands emerging with a more experimental sound, such as the friends of ours in Breather, In August, and Hoya Bembe just to name a few!

Adam: I live 150 miles away now, so only really remember what the scene used to be like… not so much what it is now.

Tom: It was fantastic. Plymouth had a fantastic post-hardcore scene with bands like Bedroom Project, and loads of touring bands used to pass through. But now the medium sized venues have either been torn down by the council or left to rot by private owners who don’t seem to care about the music scene or the beautiful historic buildings that they’re complicit in the destruction of. The guys at the Depo are doing a fantastic job with electronic music and smaller venues like The Junction and Rock Bottom Bar are superbly run by people who are passionate about what they’re doing. But I’d love to see what these guys could do if they had a 500-1,000 capacity venue.

What would you say is the perfect setting for listeners to enjoy your sound?

Adam: Hopefully our music has a little bit of everything. So whether you’re listening immersed in a glorious sunset over the sea, driving in stormy weather or wrapped up in a duvet with the headphones on my hope is that you’ll feel connected to it.

Ian: For me the perfect place is live at a venue with a banging rig, surrounded by a beautiful mix of people with different views on music and life.

Tom: (Laughing) For your opportunity to do that check the facebook page for upcoming gigs. But in all seriousness, I like to think you could enjoy our music anywhere… Although I would definitely recommend listening to it loud through a decent stereo or headphones. Nothing sounds good through mobile phone speakers.

How has your own style and sound evolved since you started out?

Dylan: It might be an obvious answer but I think we simply have just gotten better. We’ve become more in tune with each other as musicians and the music has started to develop into a sound recognisably our own.

Martyn: We’ve become much better at being able to let go of ‘needing a particular part’ in a song for the sake of ego and working together to put the song first. It can take a lot of sacrifice and compromise, but it works for us. This means that our sound has become much more sophisticated than when we started.
Ian: When I started out in bands I used to thrash my guitar about, jump into crowds and hurl my guitars at drum kits. Now, it’s much more about the music making the statements and not relying on stage antics to make up for musical inadequacy.

How did you find making your new single “Empiric”?

Dylan: When we were writing it Empiric it felt like a very different track from the get-go. It was far more driven and intense in a punk style than in the shoegaze style we often gravitate towards. It was a track that came about very quickly and was a bit of an underdog until we performed it live and got a very positive response.

Tom: It initially started out as quite a mellow track. But as the parts developed more of our individual influences started to be expressed in the different sections. The outro is pretty much an experiment in how many different time signatures we could hang together without the whole thing falling apart.
Adam: As I live so far away the lyrics for our songs tend to be written last. The lyrics for “Empiric” started with me humming a little tune and the words then developed out of that… To be honest, I wasn’t at all mindful of the theme or the lyrical content to begin with. It grew into a song about societal manipulation. I’d imagine that’s a topic that bubbles under the surface in a lot of people’s consciousness.

Ian: For me once we got into the studio recording the track felt like a breeze. It felt natural and supportive and it was great to hear how on point everyone was. We record really quickly, so far each EP has taken a couple of days, although that’s partly due to necessity with our lives and jobs. It was great to be working with Ross (Rothero-Bourge at Cube Studios, Cornwall) again.

What message did you want to get across with this release?

Ian: I think this track highlights the breadth of our sound. Many people initially thought of us as purely making this sort-of expansive ‘alt rock’. This track shows our more direct and punchy sound.

Martyn: Absolutely, I think that it’s one of our most immediate songs and that it showcases our individual musical skills. For some people it will be an introduction to a different facet of our sound as a band. And for new listeners I hope that it makes them want to explore our other tracks.

Adam: I hope that they listen to the words and that they too feel some kind of connection to what I’m saying… Hopefully, they’ll feel motivated to say ‘piss off’ to societies’ jobsworths a little more.

What can we expect from your upcoming EP?

Ian: Huge choruses, poignant verses and memorable vocals that make you sing your heart out in the car whilst shedding a tear at their tragic beauty.

Tom: I think with this EP we were in a very different emotional space to the first release. Adam and I were both recovering from a horrific chest infection. We were staying on the Cornish coast and the weather was bleak. I think as a result it’s definitely a bit darker and more raw sounding than the first release. One of the tracks, Vague In Ailing, has some of Adam’s most personal lyrics and they hit really hard.

What artist have you been listening to most recently?

Tom: Martyn and I both feature on a music review podcast called the Cacophony Sessions. As a result we have to listen to a lot of new music. But outside of researching for the podcast I tend to gravitate towards heavier music at home, music that really fills the space. The new Liturgy album, 93696 really does that. It feels blissful despite the density and oppressiveness of the music.

Martyn: Absolutely, the new music we listen to changes every day. That being said, Blur, Fontaines D.C. and Failure have been on constant rotation for me for over a year. In terms of new releases, I was amazed by how much I loved the new Foo Fighters album as I’m not usually a fan.

Adam: Tom introduced me to the band Sang Froid and I’ve been listening to them a lot, and I’ve been enjoying the new singles from the band Another Sky. I’m pretty excited as we’re going to get to play with Sang Froid in Plymouth on the 11th November, it will be great to get to see one of my favourite recent bands in action!

Dylan: I’m still stuck on the music from the early 2000s New York scene! Along with a lot of LCD Soundsystem, Unwound and Bjork. Bjork is still releasing great stuff. Her new collaboration with Dirty Projectors is fab.

Ian: I know it’s a few years old now, but I’m still really enjoying the Voidz’ album Virtue. It’s some of my favourite production and songwriting in a long time.

What’s the main thing you want people to get out of listening to your music?

Ian: I’m really hoping that people find something in our music that moves them.

Adam: My lyrics focus a good deal on themes of loss, bereavement, regret… Struggle in general, I guess. With that being said, I’ve tried to write them with silver linings, and I hope the message that listeners hear is that no matter how bad things can ever be the sun will always rise again. We’re not defined by those bad times but are fortified and richer as growing beings emerging from them. I know that sounds really corny, but it’s true!

What’s been your favourite live performance so far?

Adam: We only started gigging regularly recently, so I guess my favourite so far would be at the Bread & Roses.

Ian: We felt comfortable as a band, it was almost telepathic.

Dylan: It was a really good gig, although for me I think I preferred our first headline set at Rock Bottom Bar. We had a big audience and got to showcase loads of new material, and it was great to play with Hoya Bembe.

Tom: I’m looking forward to going back to both of those venues. If the next time is as good we’re going to have a great time!

Who would be 3 artists to headline your dream festival? And where would it be?

Tom: Well we’re definitely not all going to agree on this one! For me my dream festival already exists! I go to Arctangent festival every year and cannot recommend it highly enough, so that’s definitely the location I’d choose. In terms of headliners… for me it would be Godspeed You! Black Emperor, Sigur Ros and Aereogramme, assuming I’m allowed to have a band that don’t exist anymore?

Ian: Yep, mine are totally different! For location it would have to be the Minack Theatre in Cornwall. And then in terms of artists it would be John Frusciante and The Voidz… and then I’d want to put us on too, just to have the honour of playing with those guys!

Martyn: For me it’s Radiohead, LCD Soundsystem and Interpol at Red Rocks.

Adam: That’s the place I was thinking of! I’d go with Radiohead too, but then I’d pick Bjork and A Perfect Circle.

Dylan: I could probably agree with Radiohead… although I’m torn between them and Sonic Youth… with Daft Punk and The Strokes in there too.

Do you have any advice for a new artist wanting to follow your footsteps?

Adam: My advice to any band following in our footsteps would be to turn around and walk your own path. It will be more interesting that way! We’re still quite new to this.

Dylan: I think as a new band ourselves it’s quite hard to give that kind of advice! I guess the most important thing is to find the music that suits you. We’ve all been in multiple bands over the last 10 or more years, and this is the first band I’ve ever been in where I can feel something special whenever I play with the other members. Whenever we get together and write it feels fresh and exciting, and I think that’s the feeling that all musicians should be chasing.

Ian: I’d definitely recommend that when writing music you should try to stick with it and do your best to serve the song. It’s important to try to leave your ego at the door and enjoy playing with the people you’re with.

Finally, what do you have lined up for the rest of 2023?

Tom: We’ve got a lot lined up for the rest of the year. The next EP releases on the 15th September. We’re working on a physical release which will be coming out in November 2023 on both CD and 12” vinyl. They will be available online through our Bandcamp and pre-orders will go live around October time once we’ve checked the test pressings and have the release date set in stone. We’ve got local shows lined up, and we’re currently booking for a UK tour in February 2024. We’re already working on new material for the next release, and will be filming a live session at Clearwater Studios. So exciting times are ahead we hope!

Listen to Empiric below