● What was the inspiration behind “The One”?
‘The One’ is a motivating melodic indie rock song that talks about battling negative thoughts and overcoming your demons.
Mental health is such a serious topic and needs to be talked about. We wanted to write something that people will be able to relate to but also to inspire and deliver a message of hope that things get better; you are capable, you are good enough and you will come out the other side of this fight – you are the one.
‘I’ll be ready to turn this around, my head is heavy but I can’t break now!’ Musically, this song allows us to show a different side to the band, proving that we aren’t just a one trick pony. This has been a key focus that has been at the centre of SFT since the very beginning.
● How does the role of music help move the mental health conversation forward?
We believe that music and all art for that matter can and has been used as gateways to explore issues that we often ignore or don’t openly discuss, including mental health. Music can be very healing for lots of people for many different reasons and if anyone can find some solace in our music that helps them in any way then that can only be a positive.
● We enjoyed the feel of the music, how did you create the unique guitar sound?
First of all, thank you so much for describing the guitar sound as “unique”! With the amount of guitar music there is out there, creating a ‘unique’ guitar sound is definitely a challenge and not necessarily something that has been a focus but instead something that has happened organically.
The track features 3 main guitar parts, Joe on acoustic guitar and Nic playing the clean and distorted lead parts as well as the slide guitar parts. For this song Nic used his PRS SE 245 2012 model with its stock pickups along with a Blackstar HT Stage 100 MKII. Extra effects came from a Boss MS-3 multi-fx switcher and for the slide guitar parts he used the Rodenberg TB Drive Shakedown Special.
An overall goal of the band has been to make each song sound unique in terms of styles and sounds used so that we don’t just create songs that all sound the same. This is such a core goal as well for Nic when it comes to writing his guitar parts. If he feels like he has heard or played the guitar part before then it immediately becomes dull and uninteresting to him. This forces him to push himself out of his comfort zones in an attempt to constantly develop his abilities to ultimately benefit the song being written.
Keep an eye on our YouTube channel where we plan to do song breakdowns soon and discuss the equipment and things that we use.
● How has your music evolved from the first single until “The One”?
First of all, the quality of our recordings (we hope) has improved. We recorded and mixed our first single “Kings and Queens” that we released at the beginning of 2019 on our own using a very old version of Pro Tools, Pro Tools 8 from 2008 to be precise. So not only were we working within the limitations of the technology we were using but also within our own limitations of knowledge and skills in recording.
For our second release, “Rumours”, which came out at the end of 2019, we recorded with Mark Morrow in Edinburgh. One of the first differences you hear is an acoustic drum kit being used rather than the electronic one we used for “Kings and Queens”. “Rumours” overall just sounds more slick and polished, partly because our creativity wasn’t being suppressed by our lack of recording tech knowledge.
We took our music in a different direction with 2020’s ballad “Criminal” which featured Aveleen Rose on guest vocals. In this track you can hear our first explorative footsteps into the world of production with the introduction of strings and synth pads.
We continued this development of our sound through 2020 and we feel like we have stepped things up another level, not just in terms of production but also songwriting with all three of 2021’s releases, “I Don’t Need You To Save Me”, “Non Applicable (Na Na)” and “The One”.
More than anything we are excited to hear how other people think our music has evolved since our first release and we can’t wait for you to hear what we have in store next.
● What does your music bring to the Scottish rock scene?
We are hoping that our music brings a fresh sound to the Scottish rock scene as well as a message of positivity. There is so much doom and gloom everywhere we look right now and we want to take that and turn it into something positive. It might sound strange perhaps to some people but one of our core goals is almost to actively not sound like other bands that are part of the Scottish rock scene. There are a number of acts that we admire but we don’t simply want to just try and do what they are doing, we want to create something different.
● Who are your artistic influences and how have they tapped into your music?
Some of our favourite bands are; Paramore, Black Stone Cherry, Creed and Stereophonics! We could spend a whole interview just talking about all of our musical influences as they are vast and varied. We feel a unique thing about us as a band is that we all have very individual musical interests with not too much crossover. The reason we see this as a positive is that our music becomes a melting pot of loads of different styles and artists which is what we think helps us to create our own unique sound.
As for non-musical influences, our families are all so supportive of what we do and their love and support is definitely something that spurs us on to do what we love and follow our dreams.
The biggest influence on what our songs are about are things we experience in our day to day lives, we want our music to be as real and raw as possible.
● How has COVID impacted your artistic journey?
The main impact it has had is that it simply delayed our plans and so in that case we have been quite lucky. Pre-pandemic, we weren’t at the place yet where the band was our livelihood and as frustrating as it was to somewhat put the brakes on things, we are so aware that other musicians and industry professionals have been hit much harder. The thing that the pandemic gave us was a lot of time to work on our live show behind the scenes and develop many new musical ideas, time that we may not have had if we were busy gigging last year.
Now we are just itching to get out and play more and more gigs and start broadening our horizons by venturing outside Scotland.
● What are your upcoming projects?
We may or may not have a new single and music video coming out at the start of the year… We are being vague because at the moment of writing this we
genuinely don’t know if we are going to be able to finish the video with threats of lockdowns looming again.
We are currently planning dates to head to the studio and record a bunch of new songs and the diary is already starting to get filled in with gigs for next year that we will be announcing very soon.
If you want more of Stay For Tomorrow in your life, earlier this year we started dipping our toes into the wonderful world of Twitch. We stream a variety of games and have plans to start doing some musical performances as well. Follow us at https://www.twitch.tv/stayfortomorrow to find out when we are streaming next and to get involved in the chat.
Follow Stay for Tomorrow on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and YouTube.
Jaylan Salah