An interview with Just Suppose
An interview with Just Suppose
What inspired the name of the band? What are your influences?
‘Just Suppose’ came one rehearsal when we suddenly realised we should probably have a band name before we start trying to promote ourselves. “Juxtapose” was thrown in as a suggestion, but it sounded more fitting to a metal band, so Ewan (our singer) said “how about Just Suppose” as a bit of a joke – and it just stuck. In retrospect, the name works well for us as a lot of our song lyrics have an element of hope and “what if” to them. As for musical influences, between us we come from a range of different musical backgrounds so there are a lot of different “pieces” in there, but our main influences for overall sound come from the likes of Radiohead, Coldplay, Foals…
How do you approach songwriting? Are there any themes that you are keen to explore when you start off?
Our songs generally begin as a simple idea – a riff or chord progression – that gets sent into our band group chat, and if we think it’s worthy we take it and play around with it in rehearsal. Lyrics usually come last in the process and sometimes can be directly influenced by the sound of the song (‘Shockwaves’ – for example – from the driving drum rhythm). Theme-wise, we like to explore the state of the human condition, societal anxiety – all the fun stuff – wrapped up in a lot of metaphors. We’ve been known to use poetry as a basis for a couple of our songs also.
How do you approach songwriting? Are there any themes that you are keen to explore when you start off?
Our songs generally begin as a simple idea – a riff or chord progression – that gets sent into our band group chat, and if we think it’s worthy we take it and play around with it in rehearsal. Lyrics usually come last in the process and sometimes can be directly influenced by the sound of the song (‘Shockwaves’ – for example – from the driving drum rhythm). Theme-wise, we like to explore the state of the human condition, societal anxiety – all the fun stuff – wrapped up in a lot of metaphors. We’ve been known to use poetry as a basis for a couple of our songs also.
Why do you write the sort of music that you do?
It’s just what comes naturally to us really! Originally the band was formed with the intention of creating stuff somewhere along the lines of ‘Catfish and the Bottlemen’ but gradually over time we’ve drifted closer to the realms of indie pop (due in no small part to our singer).
How do you decide what songs to perform live and how do you transpose them into that live setting?
We have a sort of staple set of songs that we think are our best and swap out others when we have new things to try out, then throw in a couple of covers too. Overall, our songs aren’t too tricky to transition into a live setting because of the way we tend to write them – as a band. We do have one or two extra “spicy” moments in some of our songs though that you’ll only hear live!
How do you decide what songs to perform live and how do you transpose them into that live setting?
We have a sort of staple set of songs that we think are our best and swap out others when we have new things to try out, then throw in a couple of covers too. Overall, our songs aren’t too tricky to transition into a live setting because of the way we tend to write them – as a band. We do have one or two extra “spicy” moments in some of our songs though that you’ll only hear live!
What plans do you have for the future?
We have some more releases in the pipeline, hopefully looking to write an album in the not too distant future. And then there’s gigs – very excited to get back to whatever those used to be. Jokes aside, we really hope that this year we can push ourselves to become the best version of us yet – it’s been far too long and we’re itching to get back out there and make some people happy!