EMQ’s with DISCONNECTED SOULS
Hi everyone! Welcome to our new EMQ’s interview, with Chester, UK based Modern Progressive Metal project, Disconnected Souls. Huge thanks to them for taking part.
What is your name, what do you play and can you tell us a little bit about the history of the band?
Good morning friends! My name is Fletch and I am a member of the musical project Disconnected Souls. Given our focus on writing, we don’t really have a defined line-up in terms of instruments and all do a bit of everything. I’ll probably go with the title of Composer in Chief though as I focus on bringing together the range of different ideas we have into cohesive songs (or at least trying!)
Originally, I conceptualised Disconnected Souls around 2014 as being a side project to focus on individual writing in different styles/genres outside of my main band at the time, Curse Of Dawn, where writing duties were split between a few members. I didn’t start actively working on this though until 2017. At this time Curse Of Dawn were on hiatus and two of my friends Tim and Patrick had started getting into music themselves, specifically keys and vocals. After a few jams ended up with some new material, we decided to formalise this into a specific project. Given the diversity of members interests and the music produced, I realised that this was fulfilling the vision I originally had for DS, and so I promptly engulfed them into it. In early 2018 we discovered that our friend Holly was an incredibly talented vocalist, guitarist and composer and thus became the band we know today.
How did you come up with your band name?
Like many bands the exact moment and circumstances of the name remain shrouded in mystery! I was trying to convey some sort of imagery and description for the world; we are all human and yet if you look at the news and history, there often is not much evidence of us fulfilling the incredible characteristics and potential that we have. We’re all alive, unique, and individual beings, and often as a species, we don’t do a good job of looking after ourselves or the wider ecosystem. Fundamentally, most people are good, but it is the lack of a shared conscious and understanding that allows us to cause pain to one another – hence, Disconnected Souls.
If that makes any sort of sense to anyone, then great, you receive a voucher for one hug with no expiry date!
What Country/Region are you from and what is the Metal/Rock scene like there?
We’re based in the Northwest of the UK. I personally feel that the music scene up here is excellent in all genres and there are no shortage of talented musicians, bands and venues. Most importantly there’s a great community of fans keeping the industry alive! Our hometown of Chester has two great venues, The Saddle and The Live Rooms. Liverpool and Manchester aren’t far away though and these are both cities known for their thriving music scene.
What is your latest release? (Album, EP, Single, Video)
Our last release was our Christmas cover of Frankie Goes To Hollywood’s ‘The Power Of Love’.
We’re delighted that our debut EP “Warring Elements” is about to be re-released on the 10th September 2021, which you can pre-order here:
www.disconnectedsouls.bandcamp.com/releases
Who have been your greatest influences?
This is something that we find exceedingly difficult to list as we’re always trying to keep ourselves exposed to lots of varied and emerging artists. Here is our attempt at keeping to a few each or we’ll be here for a long time 😊
Fletch: Nightwish, Shadow of Intent, The Birthday Massacre, Rachmaninoff
Patrick: I See Stars, Annisokay, Make The Suffer, Veil Of Maya
Tim: Vola, Leprous, Chvrches, Exist Immortal
Holly: Delain, Lacuna Coil, Muse, Ghost
Feel free to checkout our Spotify playlist that we keep updated with our favourites/recommendations!
www.open.spotify.com/playlist/4P4OWsvFUsl2ehGFM3mYBA
What first got you into music?
Fletch: I don’t remember consciously choosing to go into music. I’ve grown up around musical instruments with grandparents and father playing the piano/keyboard and mum playing the guitar. At some point I realised that I could express myself on these in a way that I otherwise couldn’t and began to have lessons in recorder and keyboard.
Tim: There wasn’t really a specific time that I can remember choosing to do music, I’ve just always had an interest in it. One of the main things was hanging around with Fletch and Patrick which gave more opportunities to regularly jam.
Patrick: I’ve always enjoyed singing but at some point, I was like, “I want to sing my own songs”. I also set out to improve myself as a vocalist.
Holly: I grew up surrounded by rock and metal music from my Dad, and classical music from my grandparents. From the age of 6 I began piano lessons and by the age of 8 I had started learning to play the guitar. I’m not sure what it is exactly, but I have a deep affinity with music; there’s a connection with it that I haven’t found anywhere else.
If you could collaborate with a current band or musician, who would it be?
We love collaborating with other artists. The track Shatter from our EP features our “Choir of Lost Souls”, which was comprised of a few our talented friends from other musical projects! We’re absolutely intending to do a lot more with this and to recruit more people into it – feel free to get in touch with us if you’d like to be a part of it 😊
We do actually have a mini-database list of more well-known people within the classical, electronic and metal communities who we’d love to work with if they’ll agree to it! For example, Tina Guo (Cellist), Armin Van Buuren (DJ/producer) and Ben Duerr (Shadow Of Intent).
If you could play any festival in the world, which would you choose and why?
I don’t really have any strong feelings on this one – any event that I can perform my music and connect with people on a spiritual level is wonderful, whether that be an internationally recognised event or a smaller pub event.
Having said that in terms of venues, I would love to perform at Wembley or the Royal Albert Hall, especially the latter with a full orchestral line-up (starts having a lovely daydream).
What’s the weirdest gift you have ever received from a fan?
I can’t think of anything amusing for this one sorry! People have been very kind and receptive to our music for which we are extremely grateful.
If you had one message for your fans, what would it be?
“Everyone you meet is fighting a battle you know nothing about. Be kind. Always.”
If you could bring one rock star back from the dead, who would it be?
Assuming that they consented to coming back from the dead to talk to me (as they might be enjoying whatever does or does not come next and not find equal enjoyment in the conversation!), it would be enjoyable to bring back a classical composer such as Mozart to understand how they produced the volume of work that he did. This may not be what we commonly associate with the term “rock star” today, but it’s interesting that many of these people did have that level of prestige and status within the time periods.
What do you enjoy the most about being a musician? And what do you hate?
Having a creative outlet to express myself in ways that I cannot with mere words; to be able to share that with others and connect to them on a deep spiritual level through that mutual experience, whether that be playing together or them listening to it and understanding.
Hate is a concept that I largely try and avoid within my life! If we’re talking about what I enjoy less though it’s probably navigating one’s own mind that can be keen to procrastinate, be self-critical and/or feeling like one hasn’t achieved their goals, often simultaneously!
I’m in a mostly happy place today and have strategies for coping with them as best as I can, but I think most creatives will know and share in the pain of these…as will probably most of the world’s population.
If you could change one thing about the music industry, what would it be?
I think the music industry has a large volume of elitism and corruption unfortunately still, although great progress is being made in some areas. For me personally (recognising my privilege as a white male), the metal community has mostly been pretty welcoming, but I’ve had my eyes opened to both the lack of diversity and opportunity for people within minority groups and this is absolutely something that we need to work towards as a community to be more welcoming and inclusive.
Name one of your all-time favourite albums?
Nightwish – “Oceanborn”.
What’s best? Vinyl, Cassettes, CD’s or Downloads?
Equally good, different mediums are useful for different occasions. I personally use a mixture and I’m just happy to get music in the hands of the person who will benefit from consuming it!
What’s the best gig that you have played to date?
Disconnected Souls hasn’t played any gigs as we’re more a studio project, although we do have plans to play a few one-off shows as and when we can.
My favourite gig that I’ve played was probably a Christmas gig for The Nottingjam Orchestra (an eclectic band who improvise all music on stage and have a changing line-up). There was just something particularly electric about the atmosphere that night with a packed venue and the chemistry of the band was simply perfect. I was also told by a friend that a solo I did was insane and one of the best things he’d ever heard, so perhaps I’m slightly biased there 😊.
If you weren’t a musician, what else would you be doing?
I work as an IT manager full time, so music has always been my creative outlet to keep me sane and I’m fortunately not reliant on it as a source of income (BUT PLEASE STILL BUY OUR MUSIC AS IT’S VERY EXPENSIVE TO MAKE!).
I don’t feel like I could ever have not done music as I just have so many emotions and stories to tell through song. I guess it’s possible though that if I didn’t have exposure to instruments at a young age maybe I’d have focussed on another expressive medium, such as poetry, writing, sculpture or interpretive dance…?
Which five people would you invite to a dinner party?
Probably the other members of Disconnected Souls and two other musical friends, given that these are the people I’m closest to and it means we can partake in writing new material whilst there. The best days are those that are productive as well as being in good company! As tempting as it would be to pick some other famous inspirations, we might find we didn’t connect.
What’s next for the band?
We’re working on a rather ambitious project which we’re hoping to complete within the next two years. It will involve a lot of new music if we’re successful! And if we’re not it will still involve some new music, so win-win?
What Social Media/Website links do you use to get your music out to people?
www.facebook.com/disconnectedsouls
www.instagram.com/disconnected_souls/
www.disconnectedsouls.bandcamp.com
www.twitter.com/DSbandUK
www.soundcloud.com/disconnectedsouls
Jaffa Cakes? Are they a cake or a biscuit?
Following the ruling of Potter (QC) in the case of United Biscuits (UK) Ltd (No. 2). [1991] BVC 818, this band agree to abide by the judgement that Jaffa Cakes be recognised as a cake.
From a philosophical perspective I would suggest that the terms “cakes” and “biscuits” are simply abstract concepts, which are not in themselves a true definition or reflection of the entities that we may be attempting to describe and that in fact no words could sufficiently describe their true nature. Furthermore, any debate on this matter suggests an attachment to form based thinking, which is actually the root of human suffering.
I hope that helps clarify the matter 😊
Thank you for your time. Is there anything else that you would like to add?
I just wanted to say thank you for the opportunity to talk to you and the work that you are doing to support and keep alive the music community; we all really appreciate it so much love to you! <3
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