Brighton four-piece Verses released their debut full-length album, ‘Feel It Faster’, just over a month ago. We had a quick chat with frontman Jason Danzelman to find out how this summer is treating them. Enjoy!
Your debut album, ‘Feel It Faster’, recently came out. How did it feel to actually release a full-length?
It has been a long time coming so it’s a massive relief to finally have it out there! We started this band over four years ago and actually recorded the album a whole year ago so it feels amazing that everyone can now get their hands on it.
How have people been reacting to it so far?
The reaction has been incredible! When you go through a quieter spell – the calm before the storm, as it were – it can be hard to gauge whether people are still interested or not, but once we actually put the album out we were like “whoa, we actually do have lots of really amazing fans”.
What are your personal favourite tracks from the album?
The song that all four of us can probably relate to the most is ‘These Shores’. It’s a summery tune about missing the times when our circle of friends in our hometown seemed to be a lot closer than it is now. There are others that are a lot more personal to me like ‘Always Disconnect’ and ‘Distance’, that feel kind of therapeutic to sing, so those are some of my favourites for sure.
You recently finished a tour. How was that? Did you play much from the new album?
It was great! It’s really cool to see this whole thing growing more and more every time we’re out on the road. We tried to hold a few album tracks back for further down the line but we played quite a lot of them, and it was awesome to see lots of people singing along to all the songs from the album and not just the singles. I guess it shows that our fanbase is full of genuine music lovers!
You’re playing some festivals this year. What are you most looking forward to? And what has been your favourite festival experience so far?
Yeah we did Slam Dunk, Hit The Deck, Takedown and Camden Rocks which all totally blew us away! We’re doing 2000 Trees which is one I’ve always wanted to play, and Boardmasters was one of our favourites of 2012, so we’re massively excited to be back there this year. Our best festival experience so far has got to be Download last year. As a pretty new band we were expecting maybe a half full tent, but it was totally rammed! Plus it was my birthday, not a bad way to spend it!
What does the rest of 2014 hold for you?
We’re going to be pushing this album out there as much as we can. It’s still early days for it. We’re in talks about some exciting things for after the summer so the plan is to keep building and getting out there to as many new people as possible, whilst also making sure we’re always giving something back to our existing fans who’ve been with us for a while!
You’re still a relatively new band. What do you feel the future holds for you? And where will you be ideally in 5 years?
I think we basically just want to still be relevant. So many bands seem to come out of nowhere and disappear again well within a five year timeframe, and we don’t want to be one of those bands. Hopefully the slow and honest way that we’ve been building this will make sure that doesn’t happen and we’ll still be able to make records and tour for many years to come. I can’t imagine not doing this. I think I’d go crazy, it’s the only thing I’m any good at!
http://www.facebook.com/versesuk
http://versesband.com
LAIS MW