3 Letter Danger Club
What made you discover your passion for music? Any particular moments or turning points that you experienced?
We’ve all had different experiences in music, Jimmy (bass) and I (vocals) were both involved with amateur musical theatre and self taught a few instruments, Tom (guitar) did a year at a music university before deciding not to continue, Adam (drums) is from a super musical family so it’s in his blood I guess! We’ve all always dabbled in bands or solo projects, and our music is a culmination of all of our different and shared experiences. We never set out intending to be a funk band, it just sort of happened when Tom and I were messing about; we’d done a covers gig for a friend’s charity event, then a few weeks later I chucked a MIDI drum line together, sent it to Tom, he wrote a bass line, I wrote some vocals, and that song became Danger, our first ever single.
What’s the one album that started it all for you on your musical journey?
We’d all have different answers for this, honestly mine were all the classic early 2000s bands: Busted, Atomic Kitten, Steps. The first artists that really stood out to me were Kelly Clarkson and Christina Aguilera – any really impressive female vocalist really caught my eye!
How would you best describe your sound? Any themes or nuances that define your sound?
We always refer to it as kind of funk/rock/ska, but that’s pretty loose. With us all having such different musical influences it really depends who came up with the first idea for the song, and they all evolve as we each chip in – which I think leads to some really cool results.
What’s your approach to songwriting? Is it collaborative?
Our songwriting tends to happen in one of two ways, either by sending ideas back and forth and everyone adding or tweaking a layer, or replacing a track if there’s a placeholder, or in the case of songs like 16 and Waiting they were pretty much written on the floor of my lounge, with Jimmy and Tom jamming something out to a MIDI drum track and recording it when something cool happens. Adam didn’t join us until the album was pretty much written so if you see us live you’ll notice the live drums are often pretty different to the album versions, so the live versions are his contribution, we just said play however you want!
Are there any kind of production/musical techniques that you use in your songs? I.e. playing styles, recording techniques etc.
I have a degree in Music Tech which I did a long time ago, so hilariously I’ve forgotten more than I can remember. The one thing I’ve always clung to from that degree is the phrase “if it sounds right it is right”, so when it came to mixing the album I didn’t necessarily stick to any particular technique, just experimenting with various plugins and settings until I liked how it sounded. Although I will stand by parallel compression and Logic’s own Exciter plugin for guitars if you need to add some missing high end and distortion!
What’s been your most memorable gig so far/memorable moment? This could be deep and meaningful or outrageous and funny.
Tom will hate me for saying it, but when we played Parish dive bar not long ago, Tom snapped his top two guitar strings and somehow still managed to absolutely nail the Charlie guitar solo by live transposing it in his head while he was on stage! He’s a bit of a guitar prodigy and he very much proved that that night
Do you have any pre-gig rituals or studio habits?
I can’t say we have any particular pre-gig rituals but our post-gig ritual is normally a tequila shot each!
Based on experience, what advice would you give to other local artists trying to make a name for themselves?
Get to know the local venues that put on smaller artists, join all the local music scene pages, go see bands that do a similar thing to you, see if they’re looking for support act – that could be you! Otherwise just keep creating stuff, it doesn’t have to be perfect if it brings you joy.
This is your chance to let people know what’s in store. What’s next for you? Any new releases, gigs, or exciting projects on the horizon?
We’ve got a few new songs in the pipeline which we hope to bring to gigs this year sometime. We’ll be supporting Codename Colin at Parish on April 10th, June 28th we’ll be playing Longest Day Festival in Cleckheaton. We’re hoping to pop up in a few other festivals over Summer to keep your eyes peeled you might see us around!
