Your name:
Gavin
Connolly.
Where are you
from?
London, United
Kingdom.
Name of band:
Arcade Fortress.
Who is in your
band?
Gavin Connolly:
Vocals, guitar, colourful sock fancier.
Richard Fox:
Lead guitar, artwork, Grant’s chauffer.
Bill Sim: Bass
guitar, pizza acquisition.
Grant Salmon:
Drums, pizza consumer, misplaced sense of entitlement.
How would you
describe yourselves and your music?
Our band
functions on a strict diet of beer and banter. A phenomenon we call ‘the shark
tank’. No space for shrinking violets here. Underneath a veneer of general
debauchery, there is a great deal of commitment that goes into creating music
that we’d want to listen to ourselves. Every practice results in the beginnings
of new material, as well as honing our existing set. We’ve been together since
June 2015 and have around three albums worth of quality material, with more being
added all the time.
Who are your
main influences musically?
Musical
influences across the band are varied and eclectic. We all love Foo Fighters
and Biffy Clyro. I’m a Led Zeppelin fan. Richard likes Avenged Sevenfold. Bill
is mildly obsessed with Metallica. Grant loves Abba and The Beatles. Varied, to
say the least.
What do you hope
to achieve in music?
I feel there’s
space in the market for a new British rock band. We all have day jobs, but what
we aspire to is to be paid to make music for a living. I realise nobody is
going to hand us success on a plate, so we’re working hard to try and make that
happen. It’s not enough just to have good songs these days, everything on
social media has to be spot on too, so when we’re not performing, I’m usually
making sure everything is kept up to date. On the music front, I try to write
songs that stand the test of time, songs that I’d like to hear and buy myself.
Some albums are simply timeless; I still listen to Physical Graffiti (Led
Zeppelin), Dookie (Green Day) and Ten (Pearl Jam) regularly. I aspire to write
albums of that calibre. My dream is to be standing on a festival stage with the
crowd singing my lyrics back to me. That would be a major bucket list tick for
sure.
What has been
the highlight of your career so far, and why?
We’ve been lucky
enough to play at some legendary venues such as The Dublin Castle (a past
favourite of The Libertines & Amy Winehouse) and The Water Rats (where Bob
Dylan played his first UK show, and Oasis made their London debut) but my best
band moment so far was recording ‘Tinder’ at Ventura Soundhouse Studio. I was
laying down one of the guitar tracks and had a moment where I realised we were
creating something special. I may have had a small lump in my throat. In a very
manly and rock ’n’ roll way of course.
And what’s the
moment you want to forget?
On stage, at The
Angel in Hayes. We’d just finished playing our last song ‘Overdrive’. Grant
gets really excited during that one. At the very end he launched his drum
sticks into the audience. One of them split a guys head open. There was a fair
amount of blood. He’d had a good night though, so he was cool with it. We
bought him a beer.
If you had to
pick just one of your songs to represent your music, what would it be and why?
Tinder. It’s an
anthem. I could imagine playing it on a festival stage.
Where can we
listen to it?
Where can we
find out more about your music?
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