Formula Indie Sessions – Interview with Strange Pink

What is your earliest memory connected to music?

Ed: I have this really distinct memory of singing You’re Gorgeous by Babybird on karaoke aged about 3 or 4 to a room full of Adults. If you read the lyrics for the verses you’ll see why there were a few giggles in the audience. My mum came up and sang it with me and I remember her being very taken aback by the lyrics.

Dom: Watching Michael Jackson’s ‘Thriller’ on TV in the living room. Probably where my interest in being so unnecessarily dramatic and animated on stage comes from…

Sam: Hearing ‘Yesterday’ by The Beatles when I was two years old. We were moving house and the song reminds me of chess for some reason…

How did your passion for creating music begin?

Dom: At 27, some friends in York asked me if I could play drums so I could join a blues rock band. I’d last played drums when I was 16 years old, and I’d never played live before, or been in a rehearsal room. That band was called Stickybackplastics, from there I went to play with Seep Away around England, and tour the UK, Europe and Asia with The Parasitic Twins, make industrial music with Mary and The Ram, and drone metal with Creature Honey.

My passion for music has never ceased because I was like…why not have a go? I still feel that way today, that’s why I joined Strange Pink.

Ed: I’m not too sure really. As a kid it was a way of escaping the world but as an adult it’s a way of understanding the world. Both have been crucial. Passion comes and goes but the need for it never dissipates.

Sam: My dad taught classical guitar for a living and my mum was a huge fan of things like The Beatles, The Kinks and David Bowie, so I’ve grown up around music. I made my own ‘symphonies’ when I was kid by writing down notes onto music paper and it always felt natural to make up my own stuff. :

What’s the story behind your current music project?

Dom: Sam approached me to be in a band when he moved to East Yorkshire. I’d known him from his solo stuff, and his bands Nine Black Alps, Sewage Farm and The Sorry Kisses (yes, there’s a lot of ‘em). I actually tried to send him some other drummers, but he persisted, and here we are. I found Eddie on the street….well, he was crossing the street, asked him to join, not thinking he would, because he’s neurodivergent as f*** and doesn’t do anything he doesn’t want to do, but as if by magic, he said yes, and that made me so happy.

We got a bunch of people we love in to help us make music in the studio, like Nick Russell at Young Thugs, Ed [Woods] who does our mastering, our photographer, Victoria Smith, and it all came together when it came to getting shows, with the help of wonderful people on the scene, like Casey Stead at Forever Underdogs, Nick Cobley at Dive, Mark Sinfield (Budheron), Mark Page and Dan Mawer at The Sesh. We’ve been very lucky.

Sam: I’d recently moved to East Yorkshire and was keen to start something new after the pandemic. I had a few songs that I was keen to try out that weren’t straight-ahead rock or acoustic, kind of with the aim of doing something more atmospheric and experimental than I’d done before.

How would you describe your sound to someone who has never heard your music

before?

Ed: Honestly I prefer other people’s interpretations then my own. They end up being so much more interesting. We’ve had stuff like “Interpol mixed with Midwest Emo” and “If Elliott Smith was in Dinosaur Jr”.

Sam: Kind of guitar rock with a few effects pedals and some melodic bits but played fairly loosely. Or like Sonic Youth covering The Monkees.

What is one thing you’ve learned that completely changed the way you make music?

Ed: Probably that you have to embrace a level of embarrassment that might get uncomfortable. You gotta learn to cope with it in some way.

Sam: Always do the opposite of what Eddie does…

Ed: Hahaha

Dom: I’m sorry we embarrass you, Eddie. We can’t all grow a cool moustache…

Sam: Also, I take inspiration from punk in that you can do whatever you want, there are no rules, you don’t have to be talented, or in tune.

What tools, instruments, or software are essential in your creative process?

Ed: A recording app on your phone. We send across the latest rehearsal version of songs and that helps advance the songwriting process greatly. You find out in real time what works and what doesn’t.

Sam: All of the Strange Pink songs I play on guitar are in the DADGAD tuning which I’ve not really used much before. It gives the songs a different atmosphere and the fact that I don’t know what I’m playing makes the songwriting a bit more intuitive somehow.

Which indie artist or song are you loving right now?

Dom: I love what Chalk are doing, they’re blowing up. Very much that alternative/industrial rock sound of the 90s. Locally to us, there are bands like Sickcino doing incredible things in Hull, O’Phantom, Portable Memory Of, and Evil Will Prevail as well. The new MOULD album, ‘Hoping As A Coping Mechanism’ is great.

I really like Flesh Planet from Pontefract, Wildernesses from London, Dreem Weapons from Bristol, The Bricks from York, there are so many cool bands across alt, indie and punk that we’ve had the luxury of playing with.

Sam: Joanna Sternberg is probably my favourite musician who’s around at the moment. But I have also been listening to Surfbort, Widowspeak, Winter, Jessica Lea Mayfield, Ghostwoman, Orua, Tony Molina etc..

Ed: Been listening to a lot of Lael Neale recently especially her Acquainted with the Night album as well as Sooyoung Park’s bands Seam and Bitch Magnet. Wednesday and MJ Lenderman are in a lot of great projects that come to mind as well.

How have your personal experiences influenced your music and artistic vision?

Dom: Growing up with Cerebral Palsy has informed my experience. Everyone told me I couldn’t do stuff – be in a band, or whatever, and now I’m doing it. I’ve always wanted to be in a band like this, so yeah. Also, Sam and Eddie have made me feel much cooler as a musician, and I try to challenge myself in different ways each time we write.

Sam: Music allows me to communicate a lot of things that I have trouble talking about. Not that I write ‘confessional’ stuff, just that the germ of the idea usually comes from a personal experience and then usually grows into something unrecognisable.

What emotions or messages do you hope listeners take from your work?

Dom: That we are definitely not the least important band in the vast catalogue of Sam Forrest’s bands….probably.

Sam: Exactly what Dom said. That I am the mastermind and creative vision behind Strange Pink and that Dom and Ed are completely disposable (especially Dom).

What’s the most important lesson music has taught you so far?

Dom: Everyone can and should try to make music, if they want to. Why not? If it’s shit, at least you tried, if some people like it, or you make people happy, or thousands of people listen to it, then that’s a cool bonus!

Sam: That you should listen before you start playing.

Ed: You might not relate to every experience in the world, but you can share a feeling with a total stranger and I feel understood.

What is a dream venue or festival you would love to perform at?

Dom: For me, it’s Humber Street Sesh, which by the time this comes out, we’ll have played. Mega!

Ed: Glastonbury. Just never been and would like to go plus anywhere outside the UK.

Sam: I will have soon fulfilled both dreams of playing in Cleethorpes and Scunthorpe. But I’d also love to play anywhere in Mexico or Brazil.

If you could collaborate with any artist, past or present, who would it be and why?

Dom: Sonic Youth.

Ed: Any really, I just love making music, especially if they have esoteric instruments. I played with a Hurdy-Gurdy guy once, which was really fun. I would love to do a collaboration with an orchestra at some point.

Sam: Judee Sill – seems like she was a lot of fun and had some insane chord changes.

Where can our listeners follow and support your music? (Website,Spotify, IG, links)

https://www.instagram.com/strangepinkband

https://strangepink.bandcamp.com

Looking toward the future, what’s your dream for the next chapter of your musical

journey?

Dom: More shows, more tunes. More big love.

Sam: Just to keep playing together would be great, as life can make this fairly difficult. Would also like to create some new songs together in the practice room. More songs with Ed singing too as I’m lazy.

What do you hope listeners will discover about you along the way?

Dom: That Eddie was in three other awesome bands in Hull, called RUNoffthestatic, Bill Worry and Modern Mood Swings that deserve more attention. Also, that Sam has some new material coming out with The Sorry Kisses. Errr, while I’m here, Creature Honey will be releasing some miserable drone tunes this year, and possibly, the live debut of Mary and The Ram…may god help your ears!

Oh, yeah….the new Strange Pink EP, ‘Guest Room’ comes out in October. Give it a listen if you fancy it!

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