Latest / HEAVY Music Interviews / The Freedom Of Expression With MARTIN JACKSON From CONFYDE

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The Freedom Of Expression With MARTIN JACKSON From CONFYDE · HEAVY Music Interviews

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That's so cold in that room. It's just it's school. Hello. My
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name is Martin Jackson. I'm from a band called Confide from the UK.
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We've just released a brand new single called Scalpa and it's all about the housing
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crisis. Martin, thanks for joining us tonight, mate, no worries,
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Thank you for having measure so as you say, can FINDE recently released your
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new song called Scalper Like I know it's only been but probably a wake bit.
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How's the early reception been. It's been brilliant, probably the strongest reception
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so far. I've been putting out singles We've can Fight since twenty twenty when
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it got rebooted, and this has been yeah, the by every measure,
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it's been the most successful so far in its first week, so it's really
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promising. So tell us a bit more about the song from a musical point
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of view and what you're doing for with it. So I knew given the
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subject matter of what I wanted to sing about, you know, the housing
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crisis and a sort of an eternal misery that a lot of people of our
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generation have to live with. It has to be there's a lot of anger
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and resentment around this ridiculous subject, so I knew it had to be angry
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and used to be a loud metal song, and I've not done a proper
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metal song quite a while, And so influences that can were like big chunkis
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that have proggyated to them, so mastered and influenced their Big sixth influence.
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A huge fan of tell fit Ninja and how they switch up genres between inside
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their songs and confide very very much a project where every single's almost completely transforms
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the sound, and I really admire what twelve fitt Ninja do with that.
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And so that was a big and puts something too, So you kind of
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got this ebb and flow. Often when you're dealing with a really sort of
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broken housing system, it feels like an absolute roller coaster. It feels like
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nothing's ever resolved, and so I like to feel like the song represents that
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in that there's some sections that are really heavy and in your face, some
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that are more majestic and like hopeful, and then there's others that are sinister
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and like in the pit and you know what I mean. So it feels
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like you can never really relax while listening to it. But at the same
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time, but at the same time, I wanted to have one thing.
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Even though I love all this music musical experimentation, I'm always really keen for
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all the songs to have really solid, memorable hooks, you know, something
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to people can sing along and shout along to in solidarity of a sort of
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subject matter like this. And so a big influence on that was probably alter
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Bridge and nothing more not as many people have nothing more incredible right lives are
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saying like, it's an interesting and world done song dynamically, like it changes
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timing and champire and structure regularly to create a monster of a song. But
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how difficulties that actually do within the song to have all those dynamics but still
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have it cohesive In terms of like writing, I'm just making it come to
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get it here. It's kind of sort of become it sounds really weird to
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say, it's kind of become my default when it comes to writing my own
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music, because that's what I want to hear, that's the kind of music
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I want to make. Like the previous single I did, Man Down,
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very very different beast. It kind of has a bit of a reggae feel
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in the chorus, and then there's there's the verse has got an acoustic folk
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thing, there's like a jazz hip hop thing going on, and then there's
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a big post rock ending with a choir at the end. So when I'm
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writing my own songs, I know that even when I set out to write
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something I think it's going to be more stylistically consistent, it always comes out.
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It's like, well, this section is gonna be jazz, and this
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one's gonna be metal, and this one's gonna be India or whatever. I
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guess it's just I do tend to write a lot on acoustic guitar and have
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just the main vocals and melody take the lead and then sort of build the
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stylistic deals are right, Scalpa a little bit because the rifts came first,
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then the vote came after that, so it was a slightly different best but
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the same sort of habit of going, okay, this next set got to
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It's just I like to think that it's not forced, Like I don't have
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to say what this has to have a ragtime section. Now, It's not
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like mister Bungle, even though I love mister Bungle. It's hard to explain.
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It just kind of comes out. I guess I'm not satisfied by sort
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of at least now. Anyway, when I'm writing a song that I know
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that it's going to be, I want to be a single. I'm not
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really satisfied with the course of sticking in one place for too long. I
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guess I'd rather be criticized for being inconsistent than for being stagnant, if that
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makes sense. Now, I'm either going to said like a genius here,
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I'm going to say like an asshole made, so forgive me either way.
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But it's all right. So I'm either going to say, is there a
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female voicing there as well? Or did you just get really high pitched?
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There is my friend Danny. Towards the end of the song, she is
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reading a quote over an acoustic guitar passage. So, yeah, that's my
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friend Danny. She's a social media influencer on Instagram and stuff, and she
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does the quite a bit of voice acting, amongst other things. And I
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thought, yeah, she's the perfect person to get into it because she really
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resonated with the message of the song, and so yeah, she originally was
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just going to be me reading it out, but I think it'd be more
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impactful if I had another voice in there, and especially if it was a
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woman's voice to particularly contrast with mine, I think she did a great job.
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Yeah, yeah, don't standing good. I was typing, I wasn't
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female, and I wasn't I wasn't saying you say, I don't like seeing
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you've got a scalpel monopoly board typed in there in the background. So it's
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had a bit of it emerged to being released with it. Well, I've
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been thinking about it. I mean, it's been something it's like sort of
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asset that I've been using for content around the single. So a lot of
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the way I've been promoting the song is, you know, it's all about
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the micro content, you know, your Instagram reels and your TikTok's and your
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YouTube shorts and stuff. So we're making whereas previously I've done like an official
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music video for every song, and this one will eventually get official music video
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eventually. I've been using this in a lot of the mini videos I've been
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making, and it's also been in my photo shoots as well. Plus it
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will in the video. And if you like, I've been wondering you could
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sell it the merchant. I think I might get dude by the monopoly company.
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It's the idea is that of how our sort of housing system and housing
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market in general isn't really a market. It's just it's it's a casino really,
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and a lot of these people are going into too much detail. Probably
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you know, provide as much value to our housing systems as scalpers due to
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the music industry, so that if that makes sense, I like it.
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Now. We's sort of touch on this a bit before, but it should.
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Five songs features different elements and influences, like do you sit down and
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say, right, yo, this one, I'm going to write a jazz
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metal song and you write to that plan, or do you start writing and
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then whatever comes over here into the song it changes? So quite often I
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will like have sort of a vague vision for how I want the song to
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sound and how I wanted to go about, like I have like a sort
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of vague blueprint for how I wanted to go about. But then quite often
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I do likely to like to leave some things open so that some surprises can
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come out, so the song might end up going in a direction I didn't
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Foreseeing me is one of the same things. Pross and making like this sometimes
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I didn't don't even where this is going to go. Like a good example
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is a song I really two years ago called Eunice f F Kingdom, which
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was like a sort of protest song. I had a big, like jangly
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acoustic influence. There was like quite a bit indie rock influence there, like
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stadium rock. There was some blue slide blue slide in there that I didn't
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expect to put in. But the ending, I had no idea what to
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do for the ending, and I really wanted this song to be like accessible,
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but in the end they ended up just putting like a disgusting metal breakdown
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at the end. It was like, how do we like to start with?
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I tracked the song entirely just as acoustic, and I built the song
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just acoustic guitar and my voice, and then built the arrangements around there.
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But I still didn't have an ending for it, and that's what ended up
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happening. I was like, Okay, well, we can bring that back
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the bassline from the verse and use that as on heavy guitars at the end
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and use the hook from the verse on top of that, but shout it
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instead. And it really worked, and it was like I think it brings
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the song to a really great clothes But I had no idea that was how
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I was going to end the song. Sorry, I like the creative process
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to almost be a discovery process as well. That sounds really pretentious, but
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but yeah, I like with Scalpur, I knew how I wanted it to
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sound. It was going to be angry I had i'd come up with if
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I was really it was really groovy when it came to the toure of the
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song and I went into the sort of damn session not knowing how I'm going
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to finish out the different pair of different parts we're going to sit and that,
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to me is the most exciting part of it. I think, even
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though i've i've and even though i've I know what the song is gonna be
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about. I know vaguely, I've got a sort of blueprint. It's really
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nice to to to take myself on a journey. Man. I hope that
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makes sense anyway, But eventually it did. It came back around and made
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full perfect sense in the end, just like his song There we Go,
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There we Go, it all, it's all. It's all a rich tapestry.
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So how do you actually like have you got have you got a cut
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off gauge? Like, how do you know if you've gone too far with
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one styling the song and or not far or pushed the boundaries too much?
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Like is there is there a cage? Good question? It depends what I
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want for that song, right, because certain songs you know wouldn't suit one
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particular stylistic deviation or not. There was like, there's a song I did
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a cover of years ago called Sweet Nothings which has a sort of like death
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tonesy vibe, a bit of a sort of oh Path vibe Alison Chains,
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and that's the more constant oh wise song has got a heavy chorus, there's
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like a contwisted hard rock where it like a mister verse. And that was
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it. Really. The subject matter was so serious and like personal, I
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felt if I deviated much further from that, it would have diluted the message
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of what I was thinking about. Even though the song does have like stylistic
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deviations, they're a little bit more like congruent. If you're like, it's
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not as I say, confide, doesn't mister bungle, I'm not just leaping
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into like gypsy jazz out of a death metal passage, right, but if
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I was. There's a song I'm currently writing. I don't know if we'll
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ever actually come out, because again it's a bit silly, but I wrote
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it just for fun, and it's again it is a bit more like Mister
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Bunglo twelve in Ninja, where one part I'm doing like a just like a
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sort of like a status quo like and then it leaps into like this math
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rock section and then this like as primus style based group. But the reason
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I was doing stylistic deviations as ridiculous as that, it's because the subject matter
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of what I'm singing about is ridiculous. Like the song is working title is
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Nimby Nation, so if you know what nimbies are, but it stands for
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not in my backyard, and it kind of relates parper and you get the
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people who for pressure local authorities or local developed not to basically anything near ever
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and it's worse than the housing prices anyway. But because people's interview their opinions
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are so ludicrous, the musical landscape has to reflect that, like they're there,
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they're in my opinion, their views and the actions on the world are
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so incoherent and inconsistent and contradictory. We need to make a musical landscape that
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reflects that, so we will go from like the sort of dad rock thing
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and go into like this angry math or bit so again I'm using long winded
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examples, but it all depends upon what I'm singing about. So is Scalp
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a part of a bigger album picture made or she has stayed alone song.
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I have no album properly planned as of yet, simply because it's a huge
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investment and if I do eventually release an album, I have to be confident
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that it's going to see a return on that. So it is basically all
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the singles I've done over the last three years have all been standalone singles to
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help grow the project and grow the audience and the fan base. But what
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I am thinking of doing is maybe after the next two or three singles,
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sort of doing like retrospectation. It makes sense, like a really lifted run
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of physical copies but who really want, But also means that those songs to
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gather an album on Spotify on services in one place, because the way some
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streaming services are stup, obviously you've got all these individual releases each with one
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song on it can be a bit of a fact to go in and out
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and listen to each one, whereas if they're all in one place on an
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album, then it's a much more cohesive statements. So maybe I'll do like
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a post say so retrospective sort of compilation album and then see what things are
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like after that, whether it's worth while investing in another album release or just
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keep pumping out singles. It depends. The industry is so different to how
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it was, you know, even just ten years ago, twenty years ago,
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that you have to think really carefully as to where they're actually going to
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do an album, Otherwise you end up sort of what's called exhausting the creative
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and just putting out all that work and music all at once, blowing your
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load too soon and go. So what it means is like we live in
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such a what's next? Culture, don't we Like as soon as we release
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a thing, people are like, Okay, well that was brilliant, What's
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coming next? And like if you release an album that's an insane amount of
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work for not you know, you have to judge whether you're actually going to
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get a return of investment and if it's actually going to grow the band or
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not the way it's going to be fit competitive to the investment, which is
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why I'm focusing some singles because I still have like huge catalog songs like from
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to is the next single. In that way, I'm not just dumping out
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twelve songs at once, having them all mixed, mastered and produced, and
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having content for all of them for maybe not as much return or maybe the
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same return as just putting out one song. So I feel like that's the
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smart strategy for now. Anyway, by an actual touring band, like you
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just play live or are you just a video project? I won't. We
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do play live. So even though I write, record, produced basically everything
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and promote the band, we do have a live band the place I wish.
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I wish we had more time to play more often. I guess I'm
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so busy with chops. So but we did three festivals this year which was
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cool. That was Mangarta Festival in Nottingham, Tramliness Finish Festival in Sheffield and
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Why Not Festival up in pike Corn that was particularly good. So there's three
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other members. You've got a chat called Dan Brown on drums. He's absolutely
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fantastic. Scalplay is the first single to feature him on the drums. Previous
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singles have had like program drums. This one his one is like his probably
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this is the actual taking Bade in the studio. I think he did a
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brilliant job. He also Playsbeccan l nothing and the car player is called Slate.
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There's quite a few can five have two g parts, so great to
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have a guitar there. There's also songs just one so means like I could
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put the guard down and just and interact with the crowd as a proper frontman.
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Slayden great guitar player, but he's mostly known for playing drums for a
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comedy metal band here in the UK called Footprints in the Stead. I don't
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know if you've heard, but stock a few times and then I'm basic.
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Got a guy called Jack who I've known for a while. Played with him
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in a band about eight years ago, and when really you know, I
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was looking for a bass player for Confide. He was one of the first
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people I asked, And yeah, he's been playing the songs great. He
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does a lot of the sort of backing screams as well, and yeah,
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it's been it's been great to play shows with them. It's just about fitting
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it in amongst the crazy busy schedule that I've got, because I really wish
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I could. I'm hoping towards the end of the year we'll do like a
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mini tour in the UK, like November December time, even if it's just
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like a hand like five to eight shows, as well as like obviously Nottingham
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like probably notting him gig and sort of rally running the troops as it were.
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I would love to do more touring. It's just a case. It's
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just a case of finding the time amongst everything else that I'm doing. Well,
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do you actually live in nodding him? You've said nodding him a few
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times. Yeah, Yesham, I've got a friend that's not too far from
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nodding him. May oh no, it's that's very close to me because I
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live here a place called Beaston, which is in brock Stone, which is
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the same bar as Toten. So let's I can hop on a bus and
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be in Toten in fifteen minutes, right, yeah, because I stayed there
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last time. I was over in a beautiful area lovely. Oh yeah,
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it's lovely. You're especially close to Attenburg and Nature Reserve there which is a
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really really nice place to go for a walk, and there's a there's a
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cute little tea room and lots of lovely birds you can go watch if you're
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in that mood. I'll let him know before I let you go. Brother.
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I've started up three separate Spotify playlists based on songs from artists that we
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speeches, So using your own songs, give me a song for a playlist
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to get the party started. One playlist get get the party started, one
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to save your marriage, and one could potentially end your marriage. Oh okay,
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I started to get the party started, so you'd probably choose Unashamed.
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It's quite an old song twenty sixteen, but it's quite quite a grooving,
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funky track. Lots of like sex positivity in that one, so that's probably
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to get the party startles song called Unashamed to save your yeah, will probably
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be down and that's about rating ourselves from like toxic indo stereotypes and being truest
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us. I wrote that one not long before I went into therapy. So
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what was that? So I got our last year? What was that one?
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Oh? So that one's called man down, Yeah, And I feel
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like a lot of relationship problems could be solved by like shaking off a lot
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of these toxic stereotypes who built around gender, you know what I mean?
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And a song to end to your marriage what we're saving it, we might
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as well ended as well. Uh yeah, depends, you know, if
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if you wanted to or not that song to engine marriage. Think I reckon,
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I reckon we should go for sweet Nothings on that one. I'm gonna
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gonna put a positive spin on this because sweet nothings is when it's all about
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realizing you've been gasolit right, and so maybe you're leaving the relationship for your
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own mental health. There we go, very unashamed, unashamed man down and
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sweet nothings. Yeah all right, man, Well thanks very much of your
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time tonight. Man. Scalpa is out now and she's an absolute beast in
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the song. But anyone unfamiliar with Counfide that's without y C O N F
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Y D E checking out the back catalog because it's an absolute cracker of a
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band. So thanks you time, brother, no worries, Thank you so
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much for having me, Chris. Always a pleasure to chat with you.
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It is that's so cold, don't tell not wrong. It's just y'all to
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school yourself. How much you take you to some night to play to you
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chat every place starts? We could play a day take to anser. I'm
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gos freedom. What's about you? Would you ever offered me when you choice
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to engage with you? It's not funny as Bible in this field about his
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as you proberly think I'm singing about. The governments are over non constant rations
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lest you rent, so all the coinsy straits together got so old. I
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don't take the rooms you stop. Y'all live, y'all live, tell me
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about your risking everything you do is my say of your only live aments that
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your once again and trugery could tell me about your risk of everything. You
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too passify. If you couldn't you charge of me with a very funky can't
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we read? Pocket has spoke Christ all my soft love time made nor work
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where you as well about place starts wen your guards in the rise. Your
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heart's like God, I said, as the life of any country has all
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become private property, the landlord, like all other men, love youree where
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they never third. A demand to rent, even for a natural program is
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a pass uses explorations, the one that that's always say, enough is enough
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that you want to call this class. Now, outside the cree, ain't
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nothing for gating, so Stows. The market has spoken and short lines are full plating