T
his time last year, Elliot, Brad and Jake were sat in college tak-
ing their a-level exams. Fast forward 12 months, 3 fights, a bro-
ken nose and 11 tracks later and each of them are members of
the biggest breakthrough band of 2010. They now go under the name of
‘Glass Amps’ and are still ‘technically’ unsigned, however a sell out
UK tour makes that hard to believe. Undiscovered caught up with the
trio to ask how the debut album recording went, and how they’re re-
leasing it through their own label.
First things first, Album - All finished?
Finally! For the past 2 months we’ve been locked away in
a dark studio in London.. We recorded over 20 tracks but
whittled it down to 11 - that was the hardest thing, and
caused a few arguments to say the least!
How did you find the recording process?
Rather tedius at times. You know, sat in the same room for
6-10 hours, you can imagine. It’s the first time we’ve spent
this much time together and at times things did boil over
the top between us.
‘Boil Over’? Care to expand..?
Well, lets just say we almost called it a day recording this
album. To say this time last year, we were sat in college
taking our exams, you can imagine it takes time getting
used to this different way of life. The pressure we had on
making this debut album was phenomenal, but don’t get us
wrong, we pulled through and we’re well happy with the 11
tracks we’ve got!
Title of the album? and why?
We’ve decided to call it ‘Change’. Elliot came up with it to
be fair. We were sat around one night reminiscing about
the past year and the word ‘change’ must have been said
about 47 times, elliot pointed it out and bang, album title
sorted!
We hear you guys are still unsigned, which is quite
unbelievable considering the euphoria around the
band. Have you turned down offers from any ma-
jors?
To be fair yeah. We had offers from 3 major labels, and
they were hard to say no to, but we stuck to our morals and
didn’t accept. We’ve heard so many stories from other
bands who have signed to one of the majors and within a
year they’ve split up. They try and tempt you in with these
massive deals however, if you want what’s best for the
band, stick to the indie labels, or one better, go it alone!
So you’ve signed to an indie label then?
Well sort of, however, the owners of the label are us! We
kinda needed a label to release this album under, so de-
cided on setting our own up and i think it’s the best deci-
sion we’ve ever took. We now decide everything, from
when it’s released, to what picture we have as the art work.
It’s brillaint, we’re 100% in control and that’s how it
should be! It’s our music at the end of the day, so bands
should have the final say no matter how much money
major labels offer to tell them otherwise!
Any chance of signing up any more acts to your
label then?
In a word, no. Well, not at the moment lets say, we’re too
busy with our own album at the moment. Signing other
bands is the last thing on our mind.
4
Could it be a possible direction for you post-Glass
Amps?
Well, that is an option, and it’s a route we’d like to take.
But for the minute, we’re Glass Amps and we’ve got quite
a number of years left in us yet before we call it a day!
How long did it take you to write the tracks for the
album then?
Well, the bands been going for around 2 years now, we
started in our 2nd year of college, back when we were 17.
It’s all been a bit hectic from there, but since then we’ve
built up a nice selection of tracks and then it was just a
matter of picking out the best for the album.
We had the a first listen to the album the other day,
not exactly following the Sheffield trend is it?
Haha not at all! It would be wrong to say we’re not fans of,
you know who, and yeah, of course we’re influenced by
them. If a guitar band our age tell you they’re not influ-
enced by Arctic Monkeys then they’re telling porkies!
So who exactly are your main influences then?
Well, as stated above, Arctic’s are always going to be a
major influence, but our music doesn’t reflect that in any
way. If you listen to the album i think you can kinda pick
up on the bands we’ve been listening to recently - Foals,
Delphic, LCD Soundsystem. It’s a sort of mix of them 3 but
with a more rockier, punkier edge...okay that makes no
sense but once you’ve listened to the album you’ll under-
stand!
Have you always been into the dance-indie scene
then since you were young?
Not at all, it’s only been these past 2-3 years that we’ve re-
ally got into that kinda stuff. We’ve always been into indie,
but only just discovered the dance side of it. We always
thought dance music was for people who wear tracksuit
bottoms tucked into socks (no pun intended!)
So ‘Change’ is been followed up by your first UK
tour, which is a complete sell out i hear?
Yeah it’s pretty unbelievable to be honest man. We set out
to play 5 O2 Academy 2 dates, put the tickets on sale, and
within a week all 5 were sold out! We spoke to our man-
agement and we decided to add another 5 dates and up-
grade each one to the main room at the Academy. It’s a
credit to our fans as well i think.!
Glass Amps Debut Album ‘Change’ is released on April
17th through 32nd Records. Check our track by track re-
view of the album futher up the page.
Words: Ben Stubbs
Photography: Ben Stubbs
‘We almost
ed it a da y
call
r din g t hi s
album.’’
reco