Floors and Walls are one of the stand out bands to be featured on our Myspace site this year, and so we thought it only right to review their 2007 with the help of one of the band: bass player Ian Booth.
A brief history lesson to bring you up to speed, the band formed in the spring of 2006, and have already built a loyal following in Brighton. Their style is a mix of hard rock, MCing, melodic guitars and soulful, yet hard hitting lyrics. Front man and MC Alex Adams comes from a Drum and Bass background, while the rest of the band were raised on the likes of System Of A Down, Mars Volta, Muse and The Chili Peppers. The result has been described as The Streets meets Rage Against The Machine.
This time last year they were preparing to release debut album ‘What Can We Do Today’. Ian Booth reflects on the expectations, and ultimately whether the record has been a success.
“We didn’t really have any expectations, we just wanted to play as much as possible and show everyone what we can do. To us it has been very successful. We don’t know how many exactly we have sold but that’s not our main focus as the people who have bought it seem to love it, that means a lot more to us.”
The album was released on local independent label South Coast Sound, read a review of it
here. As is usually the case with emerging bands, no matter how good the CD is (and in this case it’s an impressive debut) it’s main purpose is to get more bodies through the door whenever the band play live. They’re certainly making a name for themselves as one to be checking out in 2008, as
this review from Bristol shows.
As Ian told us, their album has certainly been given a great deal of live exposure. “We have been touring it for the past year in as many places as possible but we've got our first gig outside the UK in February playing at the Flatline Festival in Austria. It’s a free snowboarding festival that should attract about 8000 people, so should be great. We want to tour a lot more though, preferably every day, so we're waiting for a nice little support slot.”
Live highlights from the past year include “the release party we had at Concorde2 in Brighton. Playing the Isle of Wight Festival comes pretty close as well, very messy weekend!”
Floors and Walls definitely benefit from being part of one of the most exciting music cities in the country. The Great Escape Festival rolls into town once a year, bringing the cream of future stars from both the UK and abroad, but Ian believes Brighton is the place to be all year round.
“The music scene here is brilliant, I know everyone says this about his or her city but I think we have got the best unsigned scene in the country. Great bands to listen out for are Your Army, Thedealwasforthediamond, The Chedington Incident and Gloria Cycles.”
Ian wouldn’t be drawn on any other record label interest, but given the reputation this band have gained, regardless of how many A and R scouts are sniffing round them, 2008 looks set to be a great year for them.
Finally, the name drop story for the year: “We met Chris Eubank the day he got arrested in London, he was filling up his truck before going off to annoy Blair but I don’t think we really fit in with famous people."
Get the full 'Band of the Day' list here