THE SOCIAL ORDER
The Social Order are band from Scotland, consisting of three friends Sam Morris, Raymond Taylor and David Bellingham. The trio have created a sound of alternpop. TSO started back in August of 2013, Sam, the founding member of the group was performing around the pubs and club scene of Edinburgh. He released his first solo EP early in 2013 and during promotion work on local radio stations, he announced he had began his search to start up a new band.
We caught up with Sam to talk about the band, the music scene and more...
So Sam, we've just had a wee sneak preview of your new demo track and it's sounding great. You guys must be pretty pleased?
What I personally really like about what we are doing right now is the vast range of music we are producing, we can have a song that is really rock and roll through and through then others with a pop feel and some even go as far as a country record. But it's nice to have that range and experiment between them.
Sometimes variety is good - do you think you'll choose a genre and stick with it, or can you see it always being quite eclectic?
I don't really see us sticking with a genre full on. We will probably always come under alternative but I would like it to maybe over the next few years if we are to produce albums have certain sounds to certain albums and wasn't just an insane mash up or perhaps that would work who knows, we shall see
So do the different styles come from all of you? Is there anyone more into a particular style?
Yeah all of us absolutely, we are all just passionate music lovers who listen to every kind of music and I think that really comes through in our sound.
We always ask this, but what do you guys think about the Edinburgh music scene (and music scene in Scotland in general)?
Well the Edinburgh music scene I think seems to be growing compared to what it was a few years back, I think we have some real quality Edinburgh bands coming through at the moment. I think the Scottish music scene always has a positive feel, I think its in written in our DNA somewhere that Scottish just love their music.
True, it does seem like Edinburgh is producing some great music recently. How would you say the live venues are compared to, say, Glasgow?
I think comparing them is awfully difficult, I think they have really quite different scenes with their own kind of unique identity almost, on a grander scale of things its upsetting to hear about HMV Picture House of Edinburgh closing which means we are losing a real great venue leaving us with not many and of course Glasgow has some great bigger venues with SECC, Hyrdro the O2 ABC etc.
What's the local promotion scene like? In Glasgow, it seems like every man and dog is into music promotion
Yeah its very much the same thing here, it seems like you have millions of promotion companies around all putting on different nights everywhere, its hard to keep up sometimes
Do you guys use promotion companies or prefer to do things yourselves? It can be hard to get to some venues as you have always seem to have a promoter in the middle
Yeah well we are only recently started our phase of looking for gigs so at the moment we are doing it ourselves but we have realised exactly that, a lot of venues now only deal directly with promoters so it is proving quite difficult to get some gigs without some sort of promotion.
I have to agree with you there, especially annoying though if a promoter doesn't actually do much to promote the gig yet they're the only way to get to the venue
Yeah that's hard as well, I think you would need to find someone or a company you know is going to do the job well and not just put the night on and wear lucky socks on the day
Promoters need to do a little more promotion and a little less cash grabbing, and venues should stop just looking to get as many punters in the door with no regard to the music. Attitude like that stops the random punter from going to a gig and hearing music they probably wouldn't have heard before
That is absolutely spot on! Some of the best music I have heard has been just walking into a venue to hear music I have never heard before. At some point they have lost their way a bit I think & I think something probably needs to change or we could end up losing a music scene.
Too true. Luckily there's some good folks out there, but it will be a slow push to try and change the mentality of venues to try something new
Yeah it could happen though, the musicians and bands will realise who is benefiting them and who isn't, and hopefully that can be the start of getting rid of these phony promoters
So what's the plans next? Do you have any tours or anything lined up?
Still early in plans, would love to have a sort of tour and just play whenever we can, we are in Glasgow to Pivo Pivo on 11th February then back home to Electric Circus Edinburgh on the 27th of February, so we are officially on the look out for more and hopefully we can get them
Thanks to Sam for taking the time to talk to us. You can find more about the band at their Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/TheSocialOrderMusic
ShareTweet
