Our man Lewis chats to Liverpool punk/ska band Old Radio.
LMc: 2021! And everything is going to be back to normal! Well hopefully. What are the plans for OLD RADIO this year?
Old Radio: It’s been a while since we were a fully active band. Life always finds a way of getting in the way of plans, but we've got quite a few songs bubbling away at the minute. The only goals we have at the moment is to get these songs finished, until we have an albums worth of songs that were genuinely proud of. If/When we get to that point, there's loads of shows and tours that we'd love to do but we've got to be realistic about the practicality of making that work around everyone's family life. With that said, if you know of any gigs that you think we'd fit into, we're always open for bookings! 😂
LMc: According to Bandcamp, you guys have been active since 2011, are there any plans to celebrate 10 years of OLD RADIO?
Old Radio: Shiiiit. 10 years already? We'd love to do something to celebrate that. Maybe throw a bit of a birthday party for ourselves at Outpost and have a big three-tiered birthday pizza. Who knows? It's taken me that long to respond to these questions, we might be 15 years old by the time people read this.
LMc: In 2019 Rich Goodwin (bass) announced he was leaving the band. One can imagine it to be an emotional time especially given how close the band are. Did this move effect OLD RADIO?
Old Radio: Honestly, Rich's move affected the band on a personal level over anything else. We've always been mates first and a band second, so when Rich told us he was moving, we didn't really think about what we were going to do as a band at first.
In the end, we asked Lunt who we've known for years, because we wanted to keep that "mates-first-band-second" vibe going as much as we could. It definitely helps that he's a fucking brilliant bass player too.
Musically, it's definitely impacted our sound. Lunt has brought a lot more pace to the bottom end, but I think it's more than that. Him and Ste have a connection that seems to be bringing more skate punk vibes to the surface that might not have been so obvious in the past.
LMc: You guys released your debut , Consume and Keep Smiling (2013), through Anti-Pop records. How did you guys find working with the label?
Old Radio: In a word: "Easy". Everyone at Antipop was dead sound, and really easy to get on with. We'd already played loads of gigs for Antipop when we first started, and we recorded the album with Phil Hartley in a bit of a hurry because we wanted sometime to take on tour. I remember turning up to an Antipop gig at Mello Mello after a day of recording and Alec was working the door. He said "How's the album coming along?". I said "It's nearly done man. It's sounding good", and he responded with "Do you want to put it out through Antipop?" and that was it. All done!
LMc: OLD RADIO blend lots of different styles of music together. Does the sound go down well with the ‘genre’ purists?
Old Radio: It's funny you should ask this, because I think about it a lot. I think it comes down to having short attention spans. Constantly getting distracted by different vibes or influences that were picking up on when writing. It sort of leaves us in a bit of an awkward limbo when it comes to gig line-ups though.
If we play a ska show, we stand out because we don't have an brass and there's loads of yelling and screaming. But if we play with crusties or hardcore bands, we seem like the lighthearted dancey band.
Ive spoken to people who have declined working with us because we're "not traditional punk", and I've also been told "sorry, we don't really deal with the old school punk sound", so I don't really know where we fit in.
If I'm being totally honest, we're not really arsed about it either. We play what we play because we enjoy it and as long as there are people in front of us that are enjoying it too, we'll carry on whenever we can. I haven't really got time to be bothered by people that don't like it.
LMc: OLD RADIO have played some great line ups and festivals, are there any that stick out for you guys?
Old Radio: Oof. That's a really difficult question to answer. The gigs that stick out for us are more based on how much fun we had, or how weird the show was. That's what makes the memories.
The Absolutely Spannered festival definitely stands out. I think they only did it once, which is a shame because it was a brilliant atmosphere like a family camping trip if the family had hundreds of people in it.
LMc: Who are your favourite bands active on the scene?
Old Radio: Between the five of us there's gonna be loads, but honourable mentions for Grand Collapse, Pizzatramp, Darko and Moscow Death Brigade. Locally, shout out to Luvdump, Flat Back Four, The Hunx, Code Break and Down and Outs. Honestly, it's the "active" part of that question that makes it difficult to answer in 2021.
LMc: Where can people find OLD RADIO? And where can people buy merch/records?
Old Radio: We've got our socials on Facebook and instagram but we don't really post unless we've got something to tell people about, so it's been a bit quiet. Deffo give us a follow if you'd be interested in any future plans though! In terms of merch/records, we're out! We've not really had anything physical to sell for a while now. You can stream the album in all the usual places, like Spotify and iTunes and that, or you can pay-what-you-want to download it through Bandcamp (Editor: Links below)
Words: Lewis Elliot Mcwilliam, Photos RBY
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/oldradioband
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/oldradioband/
Bandcamp: https://oldradio.bandcamp.com/