Gloria

Austin, Evan and Will, a three-piece band from Lancaster, England, who are inspired by the likes of David Bowie, Jimmy Page, Queen and Radiohead as well as many others, have just released their debut EP, entitled 'Looking Forwards / Looking Back', and are set to take the world by storm with it, having already amassed over 90,000 streams on Spotify with their debut single, 'Gloria', which is also the name of their band.

"One of the main stages of our band is creating sounds around a song rather than creating a song around a sound. We look at each song as individually rather than a piece which will sound homogeneous and the same. We come at each song with a different perspective, so it's impossible to say what our sound is," Will explained when I asked about what sound they want their music to have.

Austin elaborated, "we want the music to be very emotionally pulsating. We don't want you to just listen to it, we want it to be an experience, so our sound is very based around how we want you to feel and how we feel. Our music is written for an attentive ear, and that is what we always go for... and that comes along with social media, doesn't it? There's so much out there now that it is integral to be individual."

It is difficult for me to explain the sound which Gloria put across, but it is very obviously inspired by a lot of glam rock artists, with a very strong guitar sound. This is because the band all come from different musical backgrounds, "I didn't grow up in a particularly musical background, I discovered music for myself. My dad listened to a lot of classic rock; acts like Bon Jovi, Queen, I guess you could call them the big 'uns. We're influenced a lot by them, which is, I think, quite similar to what Will would say. I've got massive links to folk music, too. Simon and Garfunkel are a group that I love. My guitar teacher was a fan of 60s and 70s music, so I got into that during my lessons. I went onto Bowie, as you can see," Austin then waves his arm around in the general direction of behind him. I lean in a little closer and can see that he has posters of David Bowie hung on the walls. "But now, I'm quite into hip hop," Austin continues, "I love the blues, too, the same as everybody else. R&B, too. There's a lot of fantastic vocalists. Michael Jackson was huge for me growing up. Specifically with 'Story For Strife' [the lead single from the new EP], writing-wise, people like Billy Joel and Elton John are massive influences." When I listened to the new EP a few days later, the notes from the interview beside me, I could hear all of these great acts in the music. I am always fascinated by how inspirations shape the way a musician writes, and how it can sometimes be so blatantly obvious which artists are their idols.

Will agreed with Austin's earlier comment regarding folk music, "I listened to a lot of folk music, and classic rock. Jimmy Page, John Paul Jones, etc. Into the 90s sound, there was a lot of Tom York (of Radiohead) that I like, and so many more. One of the key things of Gloria is that there are so many influences that we just couldn't name them all."

"That comes along with social media, doesn't it? There's so much out there now that it is integral to be individual." - Austin

Austin and Will have mentioned many of my own favourite artists; and so I ask them if there are any albums specifically which have had a special influence on the band. We settle on the top 5, and then that changes to the top 10. Evan, who joins the Zoom meeting just minutes before it ends, adds a few more. We're now up to the top 12, but it is made very clear that they're in no order.

"It [being a musician] doesn't feel like a job. When you go in 'to work', you really go into a studio and just have what is a really great time with friends. It is mind blowing that this is my profession, because I have wanted it for such a long time. The best part of live shows is when you step into the lights and people are just going mad for it, that feeling's unmatched. I feel like it's what we're here to do." Austin says, relaying the story of skidding across the floor on his knees whilst watching a Bon Jovi concert that his dad had on DVD and stating that he knew from around that time that being a musician was something that he wanted to be.

"Having the trust in yourself to do something that isn't considered normal is my favourite part [of being a musician]. The idea of not being normal teaches you a lot about life and the arts, that's why it gives me so much happiness. I get to work with people that I love all the time, I get to work with my brothers." Will then goes onto talk about what his favourite part of live shows is, "I like feeling the volume with the songs that people are more familiar with. What we want to do with Gloria is give people an experience, and when they get that experience, that feeling is unmatched."

"At a live show, when everybody's screaming and singing along, your heart is full at that moment. There's definitely an ego side to the live shows and being a musician as a whole, but it's more of an appreciation for what you've put so much work and time into." Austin says, "and we love interacting with the fans. We're massively active on social media, and it's amazing to see people sharing us and listening to us. We don't want anybody to hesitate to get in touch."

The new EP, entitled 'Looking Forwards / Looking Back', has been in the pipeline for a long time, "with COVID and everything, we were on the tracks with it for a lot onger than we initially thought. But our method of songwriting has developed quite a lot," Will explains, "at the basis, we usually have one person - the main contributor - who starts a song off, and then we spread the song around the group as quickly as possible and grow it individually, each of us working on our own parts, before we bring it back together. We then get a demo, and sit on it for a while and think about how to improve it, and from there we get something that we want to record."

"We want to embellish songs to make it individual and not just somebody else's. Anybody can play some chords, but we want our songs to be our own," Austin adds.

Because of the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, the band haven't been able to record music together in almost a year, though did get to go to a residential recording studio and get some work done when the restrictions eased. "I bought a MacBook and we all use technology so we can home-record," explained Evan, who by this time, had joined the Zoom meeting with a total of about five minutes until the end of it, "we've had to change the way that we work, just as everybody has."

"We're musicians,", Austin says, "we're not key workers. Those people need a huge shoutout. As a society, we're massively indebted to them."