Interview: Armstrong

1: How did you decide on the name, “Armstrong"? 

The name ‘Armstrong’ came to us after a load of shockingly bad band names, so we decided to pick the first word we saw while flicking through a drum magazine – we happened to land on drummer Bob Armstrong. So basically, we’re named after a guy called Bob.

2: What inspires you to create? 

We pull our influence from artists like; Sam Fender, Bon Iver, Bruce Springsteen, The Police and Catfish and the Bottlemen. But we get our inspiration from lots of different places: watching bands we like, live performances in general make us want to work harder. From a songwriting perspective even just watching films & tv, wanting to write about the stories and the topics that come up.

3: What advice would you give to someone who wants to be in a creative profession? 

The best thing is making the music you want to make. If you’re in a band, find people you get on with, and have fun with it! The whole point of a creative profession is to enjoy what you do and finding your voice, your sound within that. Find what artists influence you and just see what you can create! There’s so much fun in that. 

4: Do you feel open minded about what you listen to? Do you like going out of your comfort zone? 

We like to think that we listen to a huge range of genres, even just to see what’s out there. Between us we all have our favourite artists. For example, our drummer listens to anything from Jazz to metal. The more open minded you are, the more of it leaks into your music, refining / developing your sound.

5: What outlets do you find out about music from? (Record stores, magazines, samplers, etc.) 

Most of the music we discover comes from friends and on social media now, just from following and engaging with small bands / promoters / blogs and even the ability to share playlists and songs in posts and stories really allows us to consume so much more music!

6: What was the inspiration for your song “Bear”? 

Whilst our drummer Ollie was studying music in the USA in late 2019, we had the chance to sit down and develop ideas acoustically. Bear was one of these - first we came up with the riff that's present throughout the song. We wanted to step away from the sound of our first EP and Tom suggested adding in some saxophone to mix things up. The track ended up containing about 9 layers of saxophone, all recorded by our friend Thomas Fletcher - this immediately separated it from Glendale. Bear is definitely more the direction we want to take our sound. 

Our newest single Bear is about a lifelong friendship between Tom’s Dad and his best friend Bear, who was diagnosed with leukaemia. The song captures the emotional anguish of discovering Bear’s illness, reminiscing their youth and precious friendship. Bear encapsulates the determination of a friend, doing whatever is needed to help someone you care about. Tom’s Dad took up a strict lifestyle for months so that if it was needed, he could give Bear bone marrow, hence the core lyric “Take all you need to keep on, ‘cause I need you more than my bones.”

 “Bear” is of course about a specific relationship but it’s really about any friendship or any partner or anyone special to you and the love you have for them, and what you’d do for them.

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Listen to Armstrong’s Guest Playlist: Guest Playlist: Armstrong