WE ARE THE OCEAN (12/05/15)

A few days after the release of the new album, we had the chance to meet Liam Cromby, singer of rock band We Are The Ocean to talk about the new directions, their taking on the musical ocean, aboard their “Ark“.

How are you doing, with the UK tour coming?

Liam Cromby (vocals): I’m good, yeah. All the best for being here. It’s a beautiful day, and it’s always a chance to be able to come to Paris. It’s nice! Yeah, we have a tour coming up very soon in the UK ! We start in two days, so we’re going home tomorrow, straight to practice off the train. We’re looking forward to it.

Are you excited about it?

L: Oh yeah, absolutely! I love the headline tours. It’s quite short, it’s about ten days touring around the UK, but it’s some nice venues to play, so it will be fun.

You were noticed through MySpace at first, when did you think you had to become professionnal?

L: I think when we first started, that wasn’t our main goal. It’s not something we were thinking about. We wanted to become a band, but not a professionnal band from the beginning. That wasn’t until we took our first tour in the UK. And that was quite big venues. I guess that from then, we kind of looked to the band in another way. We thought that maybe something is happening here and from that moment only we realized something happened and we took things a bit more seriously.

Your success growing, did you see things such as the Leeds or Reading Festival coming? Was that a goal? How did you react?

L: No, absolutely not. You can’t imagine things like this. You think about it when you’re starting a band, that’s what you’re dreaming of, but we’ve never thought we could have get there, and when you do it’s like “WOW!”. But yeah, it’s great.

Talking about succeeding, you released your 4th album yesterday. Congratulations. Could you please tell us more about that album?

L: We’ve been working on it for two years. We’ve recorded the album last year in the summer for two months in a place called Mill Farm Studios, where we’ve been already twice before for our previous albums. Our producer is a fantastic guy – a wizzard in the studio! This time round we wanted to push ourselves with the recording sense. When you’re listening to the record, it sounds like a band, a human band. There’s a human element for me, from our songs. Before it, we recorded some eclectic tracks and edited it very clean. But this time, it was kind of the opposite. We did it all live in the liveroom, it’s been a lot of time working on the songs and practicing to play it together. So I love it, I love the album. I guess it sounds like a wild sound, very natural, which is something we’re quite proud of. The reason why is that there wasn’t any rule, there wasn’t any boundaries we wanted to think about. We wanted to sound exactly like this. Like a rock band in this sense. It was more about finding something good out of an idea and think if it was a good song or not. This time it’s more of a rock stuff, like rock n’roll blues, like some nice folk acoustic art, with some massive epic pieces to stand over a mountain. I think that was our dream to do that. Just like experimenting and do something new.

You talked about having no rules. Do you think that maybe in the musical industry nowadays, there are too much rules and pressure on bands, to make them fit in?

L: I don’t know if it’s about rules… I think it’s more of the fact that bands need to feel too safe sometimes. They have that sound and don’t really dare to move on, try and experiment. I guess that’s a thing in our band that in every album we kind of try to create something. Because it’s a piece of art, at the end of the day. It’s like a plain canvas. When you’re looking at it, when you start, and you can go for anything you want. There is no rules. It can be whatever you want it to be. I think that maybe not everyone can see it that way, but for us… I  don’t know, we feel like we’re artists,  and we just want to do some amazing musics, something we can share with everyone else.

And how do you work then? Is everyone attached to a specific task?

L: I guess like back on the previous albums, I did a lot of the writing and then spite all the vibes, and then we kind of work together. But on this album it was really cool, really fun, we just sat in a room in which we played for hours, and then when someone came up with his idea we just caught it up, and the others started working on it, and trying to create this song. Actually we did a lot of the writing while we were in the studio. It lasted for two months, which is quite a while and sometimes we found a song just through one riff and the rest of the songs were writing while we were in the studio.

While sitting in this room, what was your inspirations?

L: I get inspiration from everything. From being outside, from meeting new people. I like to read. I read a lot of… 60’s-70’s kind of stuff like Thomas Thomson, Jack Kerouac… Do you like Kerouac?

Yes, mostly his book called “On The Road”.

L: (laughs) Yes, “On The Road”! That’s what I’m reading now! I’m reading it again! But yes, I guess inspiration can come from anywhere. Basically, I listen to a lot of music. I like a lot of oldish kind of sounds, and I guess that was part of the inspiration for the album. Mainly in recording the album live. We listen to so much music from the 60’s-70’s, like… the way it sounds, Led Zeppelin’s albums, it is so real, so raw! And I really like it. I guess yes, but Joni Mitchell also, and James Taylor. There is something raw out of all their musics. And I guess that’s why I love them so much. Bob Dylan also. Johnny Cash. So I guess yeah inspiration is coming from all these things.

And among the new artists, is there any artist or band that caught your attention?

L: New ones? There’s a couple of bands. For example there’s a band in the UK called Marmozets. And they are so cool, I really like what they’re doing. There’s not a lot of bands doing it, but they are doing really well and this is kind of breaking out of the mold, and they’re offering something new – which is something I really like. Then… I’m also staring at some rock bands coming up from Sweden, you  know there’s Graveyard and Blues Pills, they’re really coming back to some classics, with rock n’roll sounds, Blues Pills especially. I like that it’s a girl singing. Her voice is like WOW, very strong. Blows up. OH AND I should say, as well, there’s also another singer. She’s from Ireland but she’s living in London now. She does some of that funky pop style and I think she’s really cool, it’s amazing. So there’s a lot of bands or artists that I find fine.

Would you like to tour with one of them?

L: I’d love to! I think we will give it a try, and do some stuff with Marmozets for example, or any of these bands. I’d like to. I think we’re sharing that same spirit.

So you think music has to do with the spirit, the soul?

L: Yeah, absolutely! It’s a spiritual thing. Something that has to do with life itself. But yeah, also in the creative process, It’s more coming up from the inside, like a beat.

What is the main message you want to share with your fans through your music?

L: I thing it’s like : there’s no rules to anything. Be creative, and be yourself in any way you like, in the way you act, the way you pause, the way you walk, the way you talk, I think freedom of expression is really important, and I think from this album it’s what I’d like to share, to make people understand that.

Apparently, you’d like to help people through your music – do you think music could save people?

L: Save people? I ought to think it does, yeah. It helped me. And yeah, some songs help you to go through hard times. It’s a beautiful thing. I bet like Bob Marley, this kind of music, I don’t know about you guys, but when I put it on, this is like you’re less tense, and feel better. We feel the happiness of the song, it’s good. There’s really something authentic I guess.

These words really are keywords for you, isn’t it? So what makes the identity of your band is being raw, authentic and creative?

L: I think so. When we first started, it was just being in a band and see where this would lead us, where it goes, but then we’ve learnt that being in a band is more of the creative process, and obviously being able to do that on stage as well, and that’s the best part. And of course, it’s a moment when we have to be authentics.

About being on stage, what is your best memory from tour?

L: Probably… We’ve played a couple of shows with Muse a few years ago, in Europe. And we supported them in Rome in the Stadio Olimpico. We went there a few days before the show, so we stayed at the hotel. That entire week was amazing, and we played the show obviously, in front of sixty thousand people. That was amazing.

And in Paris, is there a place you’d life to play?

L: When we played with Our Last Night, we played in a place…a boat… That was super cool, a great idea, a place like this.

Oh, le Batofar! Speaking of which, Our Last Night were there a few days ago… And they played in a boat again, Le Petit Bain ! But this one’s acoustic was way better than the other!

L: (laughs) Really? What a coincidence! These guys are really cool, and are doing great music. I really like “Elephant”! They’re doing a great job, too. About the venue, it’s true that the sound wasn’t the best, but we were close, it was nice, and the place too.

And what are your goals for the future?

L: We have to carry on what we’re doing now, just carry on, keep on with our music. Try the album on scene, playing bigger shows, meeting different people. I think that’s it, life will be going on.

Among the new songs to try, which one do you expect the most? Which one of your songs would represent your band the best?

L: There’s a new song in the album called “Hope You Well”, it’s a nice one. When we recorded it it was two in the morning, and we went through this song several times just to get the feeling right and we got it finally. When you get that feeling, it’s the best of all. So it would be this one.

Last question, our media is called “RockUrLife”, so what is rocking your like at the moment?

L: What is rocking my life? Books. Books are rocking my life at the moment.

Website: wearetheocean.co.uk