19th January 2023

Exclusive Interview: Ephemera talk writing and recording “Somewhere Between Order and Chaos”!

Need a demolition crew to destroy a brownfields site so you can build something new on the land? Yorkshire Hardcore quartet Ephemera are the band for you! They’ve planted the seed that Guerilla gigs maybe a way forward for both them and the scene so expect them to appear everywhere from the Chinese to the Undertakers in support of their new EP “Somewhere Between Order and Chaos“. Seasoned musicians who know the highs and lows of band life, they’re gearing up to decimate the weak and thin the herd with cuts like “Sick” and “Dragged Up” and kindly took a few minutes out of that busy schedule to chat to us about what goes on in the rehearsal room…

How did your previous experiences writing and recording “Why did you come here? Part 1” help to smooth the path of the new record? “We doubled our squad. Mason and cris wrote the first ep but all of us wrote the rest. We developed our sound from practicing many hours together. It’s amazing what 4 guys in a room can do, we literally write a song every week. I counted this morning and there is 38 new demos already on our band drive we will refine this down to a consistent 10 which will then become the next record”

How does the writing process of a new track start? Melody, riff or rhythm first? How does it evolve from there before you consider it the finished article? “We start with a riff and play it over and over all improvising and playing what we feel is appropriate. Then we record a terrible recording of this demo from the practice room. Then cris re writes this through logic as a demo and we repeat the process many times until we have a strong song. So just like baking a cake once the cake is strong we then add all the things on top. Melodies vocals, samples and these usually interact with each other to give the song a direction and theme”

How did you find working with Beauty School guitarist Grant Beeden Clayton to mix and master “Somewhere Between Order and Chaos“? What made you choose him in the first place? “Well firstly we cannot thank grant enough for making this record with us. He is truly a gifted and humbly talented individual. The world knows him from beauty school but we know him from his other band Zealous. They have a couple of singles floating around Spotify. Our favourite is scratch. The tones he got with this song made us want to work with him. He makes us all welcome in the studio and everytime it’s a joyful experience. Each song takes about 4 hours to record and track. We are a well oiled machine in the studio these days and if it wasn’t for grant we certainly wouldn’t be where we are as a band today”

If you had the opportunity to work with a guest in the studio next time around, who would you like to work with and why? “[Underoath vocalist and drummer] Aaron Gillespie , simply from a fan perspective. [Killswitch Engage guitarist and producer] Adam D from a production perspective. [Producing, mixing and mastering legend and END guitarist] Will Putney from an inspired perspective. Each of these guys would be an absolute dream to meet let alone work with. Let’s see where the future takes us…”

For us gear nerds out there, can you tell us what you’re using gear wise (pedals, strings, drums etc) to get your sound? “Fuck kempers. All old school. Pedal board with noise gate octave pedal, tubescreamer and orange heads and a big ass cab. If there isn’t feedback we don’t want it. Hardcore grunge all the way. We could go into detail but if you imagine how it was 15 years ago we are more like that than modelling amps and perfection. It’s important we play live hard and bring a show, the recordings are there to hear it refined. Live is there to experience it as a performance. We have to use coated strings as they don’t break as often and we can physically hit our instruments”

What difference would it make to you as a band if you could land an endorsement from a gear manufacturer? “Well something like this would be incredible, we would probably smash way more things up live if we didn’t have to replace them. Ha ha ha to be honest it hasn’t stopped us so far but we have to choose to hold back destroying our gear on the first day of a 12 date tour… if we didn’t have to buy our own equipment we probably be banned from most venues”

“Somewhere Between Order and Chaos” by Ephemera is out now via Kingside Records