Featured Band: Major

It’s certainly a momentous day for All Apologies, it’s our first ever interview. It’s with Major, the Emo quartet from Belgium were kind enough to answer my questions, a review of their debut EP ‘To The Wall’ will hopefully be put out later tonight. Thank you, and without further ado: Major.

 
When did you guys meet? 

Me (Gust) and our bass player/singer (Basil) were together in a band called GreatDivide before Major started. We were both getting into more emo-ish and grungy stuff so we talked about starting another band. Before we even had one rehearsal Basil came up with the name Major. From that point on, about 2 years ago, the band was formed and we just needed to find some other members. We didn’t really know Niels back then but we were friends on Facebook for one reason or another. He shared music videos from bands we really liked so we decided to ask him if he was interested and at that point, Niels didn’t really have another band, so he was immediately up for it. We were left with finding a drummer and through some friends of us we found Ernest. Ernest played in bands before but wasn’t really doing anything at the time so he was excited about playing in Major. So that’s kind of us. Except for Basil and me we didn’t really knew eachother before starting this band. Needless to say we became great friends from the start on.

How long have you been together?
 We’ve been a band for two years but things got serious since like a year and a half or so. We started playing shows a little over a year ago. We had a little hiatus from September untill January because our guitarist has been living in Vienna for half a year, but we’re back now!

Who are your biggest influences?
 We all like sad stuff, that’s for sure. There are, of course bands that we are all fans of, for example the current emo bands like Basement, Balance and Composure, Citizen, Turnover, Grandview, etc… But we also like different stuff like Drake or Rihanna.

How long did the EP take to record?

The whole process took us about eight months. We wanted to do everything ourselves so the whole process took a little longer than recordings usually do. We started off in July and the EP was finished in March. Our guitar player (Niels) was in Vienna for five months so during that period we weren’t really doing a lot as a band.

 Talk us through the process, did everything go as planned?

 We only used our own recording materials and we recorded everything in our own rehearsal room. We chose to record the EP song by song, which may not have been the best choice. During the mixing process we started to notice pretty soon that all songs had a different drum sound, which was kind of a bummer, but we tried to fix it, and it turned out quite well. Because none of us had much experience with recording, we had to figure out the know-how during the recordings. This was also one of the main reasons why it took so long. After all everything turned out great and it was a good learning experience for all of us.

  

 What’s the reception been like so far?

 The reception of our EP has been pretty good. Of course it’s cool to hear our friends and family like it but apart from that we also had some responses from people from other bands or just people that are familiar with this kind of music. Most of all we’re hoping to get some cool shows out of it.

Any funny stories to tell?
 One time we went clubbing with the crew and Niels got in trouble with an older guy who was dancing there. Later that night the same guy stole the girl Basil was hitting on. We kicked his ass and Basil finally lost his virginity. 

Is the Belgium scene a good music scene to be in? Would you say it’s overlooked at all?
 We have a lot of indie and alternative bands. The emo scene though is not that big, but growing, and very dedicated! When you go to an emo show you see the same people over and over again, which is cool because you really get to know everyone. I don’t feel like it’s overlooked because all the bands we love play shows in Belgium when they’re on tour, which is not the case in all countries. We have some good bookers and promotors here too, like Mendville Shows and Flood Floorshows.

Is there a great reception for your sort of music in the area, or was it difficult finding like-minded people?
 So like we said, the scene is not very big in Belgium. But most people are very open minded music-wise. In our direct area there’s not a lot of local shows in the genre but because Belgium is rather small it’s like a two hour drive at most to get to a show.  

Would you say there are any advantages being a band based in Europe?
 There’s definitely an advantage to being based in Belgium. Like, we’re close to the UK if we would want to tour there and if we would want to tour Europe we wouldn’t have te cross the canal. Also I feel like the emo-scene in Europe is growing so there’s people to contact in almost every country.

What are your future plans as a band?
We’re hoping to play a bunch of shows in the future. At the moment we’re trying to book a rather small European tour too, but more on that later on. A little further down the road we might do another EP and we’ll hopefully be able to bring out a physical release!

  

Major’s debut EP: To the Wall is available for download here

Stay tuned for a review in the next 24 hours!