The Cape Race Q&A

Your name:

I’m Matt Sayward and I play guitar in The Cape Race.

Where are you from?

I was born just outside of Nottingham, but moved to Manchester when I was really young. I lived in Manchester until around 6 months ago, and now I have a place in London.

Who else is in your band?

My good friends David on vocals, Scott on guitar, Jonny on drums and Adam on bass.

How would you describe yourselves?

A rock band first and foremost. There's a bit of melting pot where what we sound like is concerned - there's elements of a number of subgenres of rock that come into what we sound like, but predominantly we go for a quite full, expansive... I don't know, 'widescreen' sound with honest, eloquent lyrics. We get different comparisons all the time - yesterday we got likened to Counting Crows, which we can kinda hear. Then we got called 'The Killers meets Don Broco' which is a weird one, but when we thought about it, kind of applicable. Then we get Circa Survive meets Kings Of Leon. And there's definitely elements of all this.

Who are your main influences musically?

Personally, I'd honestly just go with a lot of 90s/00 guitarists. Bands like Hundred Reasons, Hell Is For Heroes and My Vitriol made me want to pick up a guitar. All their material had an emotion in the playing as much as anything being sang and that really resonated with me. I'm really into the guitar work on Louder Now & New Again by Taking Back Sunday, and I use that as a benchmark for a lot of my tones/production. I love the vulnerability and abrasiveness in what Jesse & Vinnie from Brand New do, and the understated elegance of the songs Chris Walla from Death Cab puts together. Then at the other end of the spectrum, I love how Stephen from Deftones messes with chords and makes them really dark and evil sounding. 

What do you hope to achieve in music?

Ultimately, to be making a comfortable income working on musical projects for the rest of my life. Between what we have cooking for 2013, we're optimistic we can do it. If I can give someone that same feeling that made me want to pick up a guitar, then I'd feel pretty accomplished.

What has been the highlight of your career so far, and why?

Listening back to the final master of our debut album and hearing exactly what I wanted it to sound like in my head was pretty incredible.

And what’s the moment you want to forget?

We've been quite lucky overall. There was one time when we had to drive 500 miles in torrential rain in our van with no windscreen wipers we'd happily forget, thinking about it. But it makes for a good story.

If you could choose one of your songs as an advert for your music, what would it be and why?

Weirdly enough, we've actually had two songs of ours (They're Young, They're In Love & Now, Voyager) used for adverts for American Idol and Mentos. So I guess those two!

Where can we listen to it?

Your best bet is http://www.youtube.com/thecaperace - then you get music videos too.

Where can we find out more about your music?

Twitter - http://www.twitter.com/thecaperace
Facebook - http://www.facebook.com/thecaperace
iTunes - http://www.thecaperace.com/itunes
Soundcloud - http://www.soundcloud.com/thecaperace
Instagram - http://www.instagram.com/thecaperace
Official Site - http://www.thecaperace.com/

Anything else you’d like to say about your band that I forgot to ask?

We have a new album coming this year. We're very excited about its release and there's new songs dropping real soon. Keep up with us on Facebook & Twitter and be the first to know what's going down.