Q&A: Greywind at St Pancras Old Church, London – January 2017

I’m speaking to Greywind on the release day of their debut album, Afterthoughts. How do you feel now that the fans finally get to hear your debut album?

Steph: Amazing. I can’t believe it’s finally out! We’ve waited so long; we’ve been listening to it for about a year and a half ourselves.

Paul: Yes, we recorded it in Texas in June 2015. It feels like it’s been an 89 year wait though. I think it’s definitely been worth the wait. The reactions online have been ridiculous today. When it’s something that you’ve worked so hard on and then people connect to it; it’s amazing.

It was originally due for Autumn release, but it was delayed by a few months. Do you feel that it has been worth the wait?

Steph: Yes; now it feels right.

Paul: It allowed us to do another tour before then with Farro acoustically; which showed a different side of us. Also; Circle is one of our favourite songs on the album and we wanted to release that as a single before the album came out. We managed to release all of the singles from the album that we wanted to before it came out, so that was good.

It may still be early days yet; but how do you feel that people are reacting to the album?

Steph: Amazing.

Paul: It’s been insane. Even before the album came out, some people had got tattoos of the logo and that was mad.

Steph: I kept thinking, why are they doing that? They might end up hating us and it’s permanent!

Paul: There were also already fan pages. Seeing everyone’s positive reactions today too is nice. When we write songs, we write them for ourselves. As long as we’re happy then that’s the most important thing; but then when we see nice comments like ‘I love your music’, then it’s wonderful.

Jason Perry recorded and produced the album. What influenced you to work with him?

Paul: We like to keep things simple, and that’s his motto as well. Simplicity is the most important thing.

Steph: We just clicked when we met him.

Paul: When we met him, we told him that the sound we were after was heavy guitars. Usually in a lot of bands, it’s just the lead in front at the chorus and there’s no punch to the music. With Afterthoughts, I want the music to hit like a heart attack if that’s the first time that someone’s heard it. It goes along like ‘Awww, this is nice’ and then it’s like a punch in the face; but that’s what we wanted. Jason understood the vibe that we were after, so we just clicked straight away. He’s also one of the nicest and funniest guys that we have ever met.

Do you have any particular favourite tracks from the album?

Paul: It changes all the time.

Steph: It depends what mood I’m in.

Paul: Yeah; because if I’m angry, then I’ll probably listen to Forest Ablaze.

Steph: I really like Desolate. I like playing that; we’ve added it to the set tonight as a new song.

Paul: I’m proud of every song, so it’s hard to choose. I like all of them. They’re like my babies.

I last interviewed you at Slam Dunk festival in May. How has your year been band-wise since then?

Steph: Wonderful. We got to play Reading and Leeds Festival and support Thrice.

Paul: Thrice are one of our favourite bands and we got to support them in London. Four years prior to that, they played their farewell show in that same venue and we flew over to see that. Four years later, they’re back and we supported them at that exact same venue.

Steph: When I was on that stage, I was looking at the spot where I was when I watched them last time thinking, ‘How am I on this stage?’. It was surreal.

Paul: It’s been the perfect year; really good.

Your songs have a distinct sense of honesty and a down to earth quality to them. What generally inspires and shapes your songwriting? Is it from day to day experiences?

Paul: Yes. The first thing that really opened our eyes, was that about five years ago now our Uncle committed suicide. That really opened our eyes, and we decided to start a band and do what we wanted; but in a good way. The general theme of the album is how people cope with the darkest moments of their lives in different ways. Something like that could completely wreck you and make you give up; but instead it made us do this, in a nothing’s going to stop us kind of way.

There’s some stunning artwork that accompanies the album, which I’ve noticed is due to be available as art book on your website. What inspired that move and who created the artwork?

Paul: Daniel Conway created the artwork. His work is incredible. He did Fightstar’s artwork for Grand Unification and I love it.

Steph: We just threw his name out there when we were doing the album and thought we weren’t going to get him; but then he agreed to work with us; so that was great.

Paul: With the album artwork, we wanted to get a piece of every single song into it. For example, with Forest Ablaze, there’s a picture of a forest on fire. A bit of every single song is in the cover, and then there’s individual artwork through the album as well. He put so much effort into every single piece and he completely got what we wanted.

Today’s gig is actually your first ever headline show, and it’s sold out! How are you feeling about performing today?

Steph: I’m so excited.

Paul: I’m really excited. We don’t get nervous before shows; but this is all we’ve wanted to do for so long. We’re enjoying every single second of it and we just can’t wait. It’s only our seventeenth ever full band show in our whole entire lives; I don’t know how it’s happened, but we just love it. We can’t wait to play the new songs for the first time tonight as well.

What are you hoping that 2017 will bring for the band?

Steph: Just to get to play as many shows as possible. Also for people to hear our album, and hopefully they will like it.