Recently I was lucky enough to be able to chat with Gary Hill from 'Project Culture' where he was kind enough to answers some questions so you can find out a bit more about them and their music!
Introduce yourselves
Gary Hill - Lead Vocals and Rhythm Guitar
Andrew Lewis-Smith - Lead Guitar and Backing Vocals
Jamie Richardson - Bass
Toby Cashman - Drums
How did you all meet?
Gary: I met Jamie at the first social of the music society I started at uni, and Andrew and Toby replied to various ads I put up online looking for bandmates.
How did you come up with the name “Project culture” ?
Gary: Our band name has such a boring story. I was just on a website that generates random band names and eventually 'Project' came up as one of the words. I tried 'Project…' with a load of other words, until I eventually came up with 'Project Culture'. Everyone at school said it was a rubbish name, and that just made me like it even more.
We've been meaning to come up with a cooler fake story of how we came up with our band name.
You’ve just released your new single ‘Drunk on valentines day’ would you like to tell us what the song is about?
Gary: Drunk on Valentine's Day is about feeling unhappy on a day that's supposed to bring you joy. I came up with the title first and I just brainstormed all the things you might do while drunk on Valentine's day.
It's not my most personal or confessional song, but I'm really happy with how much I got out of the title and the concept.
How did you come up with the artwork for the song?
Gary: Our manager's friend Charlie Garrod did the artwork. I looked through his instagram and asked if he could make some artwork for the single in a similar style to an earlier painting he'd made. He did a great job!
What memories will you take away from the process of creating the song?
Gary: I'll remember being very satisfied with myself for completing the song relatively quickly, and actually meeting the deadline I set for myself; I said I'd complete it by Valentine's Day, and I ended up finishing it on the 14th February! It normally takes me ages to write a song, with the song and I going through a load of false starts, dead ends and rewrites, so finishing it in a week was a rare treat.
You’ve been playing a lot of gigs recently. What is it like to be back playing gigs?
Gary: It's been a lot of fun. We wanted to make up for the time we lost in lockdown, so we've been playing as many gigs as we can. Also, after a year of just writing and making demos of songs in isolation, it's been great to 'road test' this new material in front of an audience, and to see which songs work well live, and which ones are getting people dancing.
What has been your favourite gig?
Gary: New Music Fest in Reigate - our first ever festival! We had a big crowd who seemed to like what we were doing, and they bought a load of shirts haha.
If you could play a gig anywhere, where would it be and why?
Gary: Glastonbury! Or just any of the big UK festivals. More locally, I'd love to play some of the East London grassroots venues like The Old Blue Last, Sebright Arms or The Lexington.
What is next for you?
Gary: We're playing at The Victoria, Dalston on Wed 23rd Feb & The Finsbury on Mon 28th Feb. After that, we're gonna head back in the studio to record the next single. We didn't release anything in 2021, because we were focusing on learning how to gig again, so now we're making up for lost time with recording too haha.
If you would like to check out 'Project Culture' you can find them here:
Comments