Following its huge success, The British Sound Project returns this year to a brand-new home at O2 Ritz Manchester on Saturday 30th November 2019! The festival features an all-British line up of indie rock bands across two floors in a celebration of some of the UK’s most exciting names in music, as well as upcoming, rising talent.
Now here’s your chance to get to know No Hot Ashes, who will be playing the main room alongside Rat Boy, Indoor Pets, FEET and TTRRUUCES…
Tell us about your new album Hardship Starship.
Luigi – We’ve waited so long to show everyone our first offering to the world of albums. The songs, the title, the artwork really sums up our careers to date. The album is our take on the world through our eyes. Exploring the hardships, we and others face and the idea of being able to fly away into space from it all.
- What inspired the space theme?
Isaac – It came from the album title really, we settled on the name of the album way before the songs were even recorded and some of them even written. It’s taken from an old single called ‘Cool Cat’ and we immediately knew it was going to be the name of our debut album. The space theme was present in the ‘Cool Cat’ artwork so we wanted to play on from that. There’s a few space references throughout the album lyrically and metaphorically speaking to people about the idea of “escaping”.
- Tracks like ‘Motion Sick’ show a new, more emotional side to No Hot Ashes. What was the writing process like for this song in particular?
Isaac – Musically, ‘Motion Sick’ came about pretty much like the rest of our songs in terms of the writing process, we started with some cool chords, a melody and tight drums/bass but lyrically this song was a letter to my mam when I was living in an awful flat and I was completely on my arse, skint. I was away with the band a lot and wasn’t getting to see much of my family. There’s a lot of space themes in this one. In the studio Chris Taylor (Producer) and Luigi experimented with a lot of old synths and sounds to get that feel.
- You’ve recently played your biggest headline show ever at The O2 Ritz, how was that?
Luigi – Ritz was incredible, after playing a show to that many people it’s hard to take in really. You go into autopilot mode whilst playing but you’re desperately trying to take in all of the emotions. All our families were there and close friends and obviously so many fans, it was very special and definitely the best show we’ve ever played.
- How have fans reacted to the new tracks live?
Isaac – The new album tracks have gone down very well live, it’s always a good sign when they’re shouting back the words to you. We wanted to write this album with the intention of the tracks translating well live, we’ve sometimes struggled with older songs to make them work live and mainly enjoy playing them live. With the album tracks we enjoy playing every one of them.
- What was your favourite new song to perform?
Luigi – I think collectively, ‘Trouble’ is a very fun track to play live and we get to let go a bit, there’s fat guitars, huge drums, police sirens and lots of shouting. Playing the song live really feels like you’re having a scrap.
- Got any other mad stories from the road (that you can tell us, of course)?
Isaac – There’s too many we can’t tell you. Find us at the bar after any show and we’ll probably let everything slip. We spend a lot of time inside our van and in Travelodges so all kinds of sh**t happens. Sleeping in baths, broken beds the list is endless.
- Who else on the BSP line-up are you excited to see?
We’ve seen RatBoy a few times over the years and they always put on a wicked show, Indoor Pets we played with a few years back supporting Spring King (RIP) and we’ve heard excellent things about Feet so very much looking forward to catching them.
- You’re from just down the road from Manchester, what spots do you recommend to those visiting for BSP?
Northern Quarter for all your cool and edgy bars and burger gaffs. The Courtyard near Ritz for CHEAP PINTS and we’d also recommend Temple Bar which is around the corner also.
- What can we expect from your set?
Big beats, get high all the time.