We caught up with Sisteray, to see what the four-piece had coming up for their fans.
You are a band that seem to love playing live, in regards to all the things bands have to do nowadays, how big a role does performing live have?
For Sisteray playing live is the start, middle and platform for everything we do and playing live, creating a special and unique event, is becoming more and more essential for any band. There’s also the financial aspect, with music streaming, You Tube and whatever else taking over the way people listen to music, the only possibility for us making a living out of music one day is to play live. Luckily for us, playing live is our favourite part and the best chance to meet the people that care, discuss, debate and have a beer or five.
You have another show on July 6th at The Half Moon in Putney, a stellar line-up featuring support from Little Triggers along with Fick as Fieves, SAP and an acoustic set from Dirty Orange. How excited are you for this show?
We are always excited to play shows, especially with bands we’ve heard about before and have a good reputation. Each show we do now has to trump the last one (not build a wall around it). We were due to play a gig in Liverpool with Little Triggers and were really looking forward to it. Unfortunately the promoter lost the plot a week or so before and pulled the whole gig but we’d already booked our seats on the Megabus so we went anyway and did the gig. We hooked up with another band from Liverpool called The Racket who turned out to be great and similar in spirit to us and pulled a few people so it all worked out in the end. It’s also a while since we travelled to SW London, so all the signs point to a great show and the following night we are playing in Paris – so it’s the Putney To Paris tour!
Getting people to gigs can be very hard nowadays, so why should people make an effort to get to The Half Moon on July 6th?
To be honest there’s nothing else really like a live gig and definitely nothing quite like OUR live gigs – you can’t bottle it and put it on YouTube. One way or another it’s important for people to interact, in person. What’s impressive about this night that Modern Age are putting on is that it’s a stella lineup and great value for money. If you managed to view any footage of our recent set headlining the Good Mixer at Camden Rocks, you will see what what raucous fun it can be. Plus, we’ve still got some 12-Inch vinyl of our 15 Minutes release that we can sign… with a Sharpie or in blood if someone wants because Dan is usually bleeding from somewhere after a gig..
When performing gigs across the country, how do you make each gig unique and make them their own?
We have played with different ideas. For a while leading up to and just after releasing the “15 Minutes” project we did 15 minute sets to showcase the whole thing. For full live shows, wherever we are, we make sure we are there before and after the gig talking to people. If you know your audience it makes the show much more personal and we are always happy to communicate with people via Facebook and Twitter beforehand.
Besides gigs, we are heading into festival season, so are there any other appearances that fans can catch you at?
Our favourite season! We are involved with a new festival in Bow, East London called Shindignation at the beginning of August and were pleased to be one of the first headliners they asked, though there are few brilliant surprises they’ve got in store. Last year we played Leeds Festival and this year it also looks like we’re getting Reading as well and that’s been one of our ambitions. Keep checking our social media for that.
What is the plan for Sisteray over the next 12 months?
We are just going to gig relentlessly, make the shows bigger and better. The reaction to our ’15 Minutes’ release was phenomenal and we got a load of great reviews. We had an idea, a concept, a plan when we recorded it and it is amazing how many people seem to have bought into it. We also have to thank Elliott at Vallance Records for a lot of that because he had the faith. And it continues… everything about 15 minutes was about time and so we’ve got an edit of one of the tracks 3:00 White Knuckle Joy Ride coming out as a ‘single’ in July – which is exactly three minutes of the 15 and is going to be a smash on radio (we hope). There’s also a sick remix of it by Feral Five, another great band. It is all systems go at the moment so we just have to take it as it comes. The only guarantee is that we will be playing live… everywhere!
One of the things about the music industry that we love is how it is a community. To show respect to other acts, who would you recommend for music fans to also check out?
We love this question. Sometimes it happens, sometimes it doesn’t, you balance between loving bands like a fan and looking at what they do and saying “how can we be better than that?” We like to be there for bands that we love but also don’t want to be part of a clique… there’s a few of those around and usually they sound like the emperors new clothes. From day one we have loved The Wholls, they make great music, defy genres and have just released a stunning debut album, we also like Sons who make a ridiculous racket for 2 people and there are a whole bunch of female musicians making great sounds like Berries, Calva Louise, Skinny Girl Diet and we recently caught The Cosmics set on TV from Glasto, they sounded great and Erins voice has a real Blondie feel to it. We did the Sisteray DJ set at Nambucca when they played and they sound even better when you’re in the room
Lastly, in recent events, a lot of musicians have spoken about politics. Do you think music and politics should go together? Or are they two completely different things that should be kept separate?
Without labelling ourselves, you can’t be a ‘working class’ band and ignore what’s going on around you, it would be great to write love songs but they just don’t materialise for us. We speak and write about what we believe in to anyone who will listen. It is great to see a country so happy to debate their beliefs. Musicians are in a position where they are able to talk to loads of people at once, so why not talk about things that matter. Our music is not overtly political, rather an insight to what we see going on each day. You don’t have to force agendas on people, just get them talking about what they believe. These things will affect us one day, so why not talk about it while having a sing song and knees up at the same time…
