Dear friends, today we have a British rock band with us… “Unquiet
Nights”.
To be precise, the project was born in Belfast, Northern Ireland, also
passing through Italy.
Enjoy the reading!
Hi Luke. First of all we ask you how the band was formed, let's briefly review your story for our readers.
Luke: I had been in a band with Rodger from 2002-2004 called Lovechild. After that I was releasing material online under the name Unquiet Nights. In 2010 we went to a studio in Belfast to record the drums for what would become the first album “21st Century Redemption Songs”. I finished most of it on my laptop in Italy. It was a test of faith to see if the songs would get good radio exposure first, which thankfully they did, and that encouraged the start of touring from there.
Which are the artists who have mainly influenced your musical formation?
Luke: Rolling Stones, Genesis, Tom Petty, Bobby Womack, E-Street Band, Rory
Gallagher, Peter Gabriel. I remember near the time we were starting Unquiet
Nights we went to gigs by Paul Weller and The Hold Steady in Belfast and talked
about those a lot. They were definitely an influence.
Can you tell us your favourite albums you grew up with and what listening to those songs still evokes in you today?
Luke: The first memory of music was Roy Orbison “Black and White Night”. From there I started listening to Springsteen because he was in that band. Genesis released the single “No Son of Mine” soon after which still has the same impression on me now as it did when I was six. When I started learning to play guitar properly I would play along to the Rolling Stones album “Sticky Fingers“ the most.
image from: facebook.com/unquietnights
Do you like discovering new music? Is there any current artist or
band that you particularly appreciate?
Luke: The Gaslight Anthem, The Black Keys, The Hold Steady, Noel Gallagher‘s
High Flying Birds, The Courteeners.
Apart from these there are a lot of artists that have one or two tracks
I love and will repeat, but not that many new guitar bands I love overall. That’s completely the fault of the music
business during the last quarter century.
I let myself be influenced by modern pop too, on the recent single “Four
Winds” there are strong elements of EDM.
I appreciate a lot of Alicia Keys and Lady Gaga stuff. Not many young
guitar bands have caught me recently though, hopefully that changes.
On your Facebook page, there are many photos of Luke building his music studio from scratch. For a musician it must be a great satisfaction to be able to tailor his world. Tell us how it went, would you change something? have you reached the level you were looking for?
Luke: Credential Sound turned out great. The first thing we recorded in there was “Four Winds” which seems to have done well for us. It’s great being able to leave all the equipment set up exactly how it was when you found a good sound. We have gotten songs by just hitting record and start playing that would never have happened by doing things remotely. One of them is “In Spite of It All”, but there are loads more which no one has heard yet.
How is the creative process of your songs usually? Do you always start first from the writing of the lyrics, from the melodies or does each song have its own story?
Luke: It has been done all of those ways. Sometimes I want to build a song around a chord progression, and other times I know a particular vocal line or phrase but I don’t have anything else and start building everything to suit the first idea. Sometimes when we have a musical track almost finished, I have been able to take lyrics from another idea and sing them a bit differently so they fit over the first musical track. Most of the time though, I just have a bigger collection of incomplete songs that I can’t finish, that’s the true story!
How do you usually develop the idea of and who makes them?
Luke: The second album “Postcards in Real Time” is a distorted photo I took
while in the first version of my studio and watching the Pacino movie “Dog Day
Afternoon” one night. It was at the same time of writing some of those songs so
it seemed to sum up my life at the time. I think the “Four Winds” artwork is my
favourite so far, we just did it ourselves and there was no photo shoot
involved, just incidental photographs taken while we were recording. The same thing with “In Spite of It
All”. We’ve done things the professional
way before, and to be honest now I think it suits our approach better to let
the fact we’re creating something with guitars and drums be the story in
itself.
images from: unquietnights.bandcamp.com
For vinyl loyal collectors and audiophiles - are you planning on
making one in the future?
Luke: I love vinyl and have a collection myself, but the economics of vinyl
hasn‘t suited us so far. The way we do
it with lossless is that we sell our own USB Flashdrives which have our whole
discography in lossless FLAC on them.
This way any time we feel like releasing a new single or album, we can
just update the same branded flash drives with the new material and not have to
make large capital outlays on every release. I would love to have a vinyl
option and I know some of our audience would buy it, but I’m seeing a strong
trend towards digital lossless and think it’s more sustainable for us. For our second album we did a much bigger
physical run than on the first album, but the way the music industry shifted in
the years between meant that we ended up selling much more digital than the
first album, and many less physical units. We might have vinyl one day, but
we’re not sure which release it might be.
Let's talk now about your stylistic development which over the
years has grown with you up to today. What has changed compared to your
beginnings in 2011 when "21st Century Redemption Songs" was released
and after the 2015 album "Postcards in real time"? I mean not only
musically but also within you, how have you lived these last two years of
forced stop on a creative and emotional level?
Luke: The first album “21st Century Redemption Songs.” was more dense with guitars, and
at times harder to have mixed with so many layers. The second album “Postcards in Real Time” was
a good evolution on that and the arrangements leave space for the lead
instruments to be heard. Creatively with
the pandemic we were fortunate in that the studio was finished so Rodger and I
could do a lot of recording while things were locked down. The part about it I
hated though was that Francesco (Bass/Keys) was stuck in Italy because of the
pandemic and we couldn’t have him come over and try the new studio, and also
that we had hoped to tour from Italy again.
In Italy you are best known for the song "George Best City" featured in the Sky documentary, hosted by Federico Buffa, on the football champion George Best. What does the figure of Best represent for you?
Luke: The song is a true story about myself flying into George Best City
Airport in Belfast in 2005, but I thought that Sky Italia used it perfectly in
their documentary about George. As Buffa said at George’s graveside in Belfast
during the last scene “Maradona Good, Pele Better, George Best.”
George actually was the best player in the world in 1968 (Ballon d‘Or), which
is a massive thing for a tiny country of about 1.5m people. A positive reason
for people to know Northern Ireland during the 1970’s. I was lucky enough to
meet him at an awards dinner, and the signed menu is a favourite possession of
mine. He was an extremely humble man, and I remember him being more interested
in talking to junior players like us about how the season was going than
talking to the sponsors who wanted his time. Some people think he shouldn’t
have an airport named after him, but to me that’s what he earned at the very
least.
image from: facebook.com/unquietnights
photo by Raw Power Photo
The song got wide ratings and acclaim, how did you realize that you were reaching notoriety by entering the hearts of many people?
Luke: People use the Shazam app to find out the names of songs they can‘t identify on TV or the Radio. As soon as the song was released, “George Best City” was getting thousands of “Shazams” and we had no clue why at the time. We didn’t know that Sky Italia, BBC and some other broadcasters had started using the song quite a lot. We searched the name of the song on social media and saw thousands of people talking about it, especially in Italy. We ended up getting to know some of them in real life. Even now when we see “George Best City” on Spotify has got about 30,000 unique listeners, I think about the fact that all those people in one place would fill a lot of football stadiums. For an independent band with no promotional budget and no distribution that still feels like somehow we punched above our weight.
"In Spite of it all" is the new single you recently released (early 2022), taken from the album First-Ten (2012-2022), a collection of songs from your career. I think the message contained is to enhance one's uniqueness and not to conform but above all to go ahead with your head held high despite everything, not to let yourself be discouraged ...
Luke: “In Spite of It All” was a totally improvised song that came from Rodger and I thrashing around in Credential Sound. He said something into his drum microphone that sounded like “I saw Rachel”. It probably wasn’t anything like that, but to me Rachel was already born. So the song is a story about her particular talent for giving good advice. She is explaining how there is a price to everything, including experiences. Many of the experiences are not worth having in the first place, and when you do make a mistake, it’s best to make sure you never make the same mistake twice, because life is short.
How important is it for you to communicate a clear message in the songs and how much do you like to leave a free interpretation?
Luke: Every song must have the foreground. Striking a balance between the personal and the universal is probably at the centre of song writing. Like in real life, things come in and out of focus, so there will be lines in the song that are more abstract than others, but I get frustrated when I think artists are hiding behind abstraction. I always try to have parts of the song that resonate very clearly what the premise is.
image from: facebook.com/unquietnights
Tell us some funny anecdotes related to your live performances and
what, if any, is an experience that has particularly marked you.
Luke: We did a gig in Italy for this festival called Notte Bianca (White
Night). I was walking beside Francesco
in the car park and I said to him “my guitar case feels very light tonight”.
Obviously I opened it and discovered it was empty, so I felt very smart.
Luckily asking Francesco to play the whole set on keyboard is the same as
asking him to breath, so I was able to use his guitar instead and the gig
turned out well.
An experience that marked us was being asked to go live on Sky Sport 1 in Milan
about 530km away, and having the car break down half way there. None of the
rental places had any car available so we had to pay for a chauffeur driven
Jaguar and nearly didn’t arrive in time.
We did the show though and it felt like a big achievement at the time.
images from: facebook.com/unquietnights
Which band or musician would you dream of performing live with?
Luke: The Rolling Stones. Although there would be hundreds of others too.
Are you planning any new singles coming out? Dates on schedule?
Give us some anticipation.
Luke: We have a lot of material already
recorded and some of the songs that will come out in future I think are among
our strongest. I have an idea as well to release a completely live album maybe
recorded in Credential Sound. Dates for touring aren’t scheduled but when they
are, surely they will include Italy.
Thank you very much for the time you have dedicated to us Luke.
We wish you to make all your dreams come true and make your music known to the whole world more and more! In Italy there are many waiting for you on stage ... see you soon!
M. L .
for Art-Waves cultural association
(thanks to Michela)
Unquiet Nights "In Spite of it All"
Luke Mathers (cantante e chitarrista)
Rodger Firmin (batterista)
Francesco Piciucchi (bassista e tastierista)
CONTACTS UNQUIET NIGHTS:
unquietnights@hotmail.com
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