ONE ON ONE: AN INTERVIEW WITH RILAS EDGE!

HOW DID YOU DECIDE TO FORM THE BAND?

Alfie Harris: Me and Charlie have known each other since we were like four, so we started writing music together when we were about 16 – and then we decided to go to Uni to go study music and then we met everyone else here, really. Me and Ollie had the similar taste in music with Charlie – we like The Strokes, Arctic Monkeys, Kings of Leon – and we sort of went from there, slowly but surely everyone else just came together.

I WAS WONDERING WHERE THE BAND NAME CAME FROM?

Ollie Hedin: It’s a mountain in Bulgaria, and when translated it means ‘well-watered mountain’ because there’s lots of streams on it, and that’s it really.

Jacob Green: We’re all quite well-watered individuals aren’t we? We stay hydrated.

AS A BAND, WHO ARE YOUR MUSICAL INFLUENCES?

Alfie: I think we’re all very different, right now. I really strictly like Arctic Monkeys, Foals, The Strokes, Kings of Leon – anything really from the noughties have been a massive inspiration.

Ollie: For guitar it’s just bands with two guitarists from early 2000’s indie, some heavier stuff sometimes, some hardcore music - The Beatles.

Charlie Kennedy: You’ve got quite a grungy background haven’t you George?

George Maclean: Yeah, I’m more into kind of 90’s grunge like Alice In Chains, that kind of thing. I like new metal as well – Deftones, they’re my current favourites. These guys have educated me on more current stuff, which I very much appreciate.

Charlie: I listen to a lot of the same stuff Alfie did, I guess because we grew up kind of together, trying to write music together, we’ve always had quite a shared kind of view on what we like.

Alfie: We go to the same festivals, the same gigs – if I find a band I’ll tell him, he’ll tell me about a band, that sort of thing.

Jacob: When it comes to writing I definitely gravitate again towards the Foals, the Bombay Bicycle Club kind of stuff, but when it comes to day-to-day I find myself listening to a lot of chilled out indie folk, like Laura Marling, The Staves, Lucy Rose, stuff that is very pleasing on the ears – nothing too loud, too shouty, just very relaxing. And then I come to rehearsals and completely switch that off and get a bit louder.

WHAT’S THE INSPIRATION BEHIND YOUR SONGWRITING?

Alfie: A lot of the songs we write are predominantly about relationships, not just in the sense of romantic relationships but with family, friends. I think relationships are an important part of life and how we move through it, and we’ve all got so many stories to tell through that – and it’s something that I’ve grown up with from my family that the relationships you make with people stick with you, and they get you further in life, and the memories that can be made from it. I think that’s what makes our songs quite relatable in a sense so everyone can relate to that feeling of being out of love, being angry with a friend, or being happy about finding a friend or new girlfriend, boyfriend.

George: There definitely is sort of a consistent ‘moving on’ narrative.

Charlie: Trying to put a positive spin on it all, they’re not all doom and gloom.

Alfie: There’s always a story to be told, there might be doom and gloom in the beginning but there’s always a positive spin – you get over this, and you move through this.

HOW HAS YOUR PROCESS OF MAKING MUSIC CHANGED SINCE YOUR FIRST RELEASE IN 2020, IF AT ALL?

Jacob: It’s a lot more collaborative – I’m the latest edition to the band, it’s been a nice journey of Ollie would present an idea of a whole song and we’d kind of all fit in within that, and the way we write songs now is Ollie will bring the shell of it, and then we all put our ideas in and we kind of collaborate together. Charlie will be like ‘I like this drum idea’ – and then we trial that, and George will have his bass ideas, and then we all just kind of pick and choose and we have one guitar part that sticks for a bit, and then we all change that up. And then what we’ve found live, with tonight’s show especially is, we’ve got to the point where we can kind of adapt and play our songs slightly differently for the live stuff, just to make it more enticing and engaging for everyone – and that sort of affects the songwriting as well, and the way we kind of re-jig and hash songs to various audiences.

WHAT’S THE STORY BEHIND YOUR NEW SINGLE, ‘THE END’?

Alfie: I think it was about last year we had a few ideas come together, me and Ollie went to the studio and it was just sort of –

Ollie: You’d written the whole thing on acoustic –

Alfie: Yeah, for the gist of it, for the verse and the chorus – I think it was just sort of talking about the coming to the end of a relationship, it’s always sometimes a bit fiddly at the end because you kind of want to cut ties and everything be nice and lovely, but that never really happens in reality and it’s sort of trying to make sure that you’re leaving in one piece rather than try and stick around to put everything back together.

Ollie: And we just sped it up a load, and we haven’t used that drumbeat on a song before so we used that.

Alfie: And the idea to have that huge crescendo at the end, just something really erratic and to cut through feels really cool. I think we thought that in a live sense as well that would be really cool for people to see.

Jacob: Ironically we are starting the set with ‘The End’, it’s a great set opener but the title doesn’t lead to that.

George: I just want to say as well, I’ve never said this to you guys before, but I really appreciate the fact you let me smack a cowbell [during].

Jacob: Come and see us live to see George absolutely smack a cowbell.

WHAT’S YOUR FAVOURITE GIG YOU’VE EVER PLAYED TOGETHER?

Jacob: Mine is definitely Bracknell at The Acoustic Couch – we ended the set on ‘The Chain’ by Fleetwood Mac – the whole set was such a great time, the audience in the crowd were behind us the whole way it was a real good party – but ending on The Chain was just, the feeling of that last chorus, I hadn’t experienced until then and I haven’t experienced again, so in that sense that gig sticks out for me.

Charlie: I don’t know if anyone else agrees with me but I think The Roadtrip & Workshop, straight after Covid, because we started releasing in Covid because we had all these tracks ready to go and we were just like, this sucks, but let’s continue what we’re doing. So we released the songs and it was the first show were we could see everyone singing the lyrics back to us and it was just an unbelievable feeling.

Jacob: And it was our first show as a five.

Charlie: First show as a five as well, exactly that – it just felt right and we were in this little sweatbox of a room, loads of friends and family screaming the lyrics back to us, which just felt really special at the time.

Ollie: I liked Icebreaker Festival in Portsmouth, it was probably one of the best days of my life.

Charlie: That was an amazing day

Jacob: We saw a seal, we played a killer set –

Charlie: Brighton’s up there though

Jacob: We are very, very lucky to say we’ve had some incredible gigs and the one Ollie’s talking about – we smashed the set, we hung around and chat with some really cool people, made some new friends, it was the hottest day of the year – a real sweaty gig, and we went to the beach, we all went for a nice little swim and then we were sort of paddling, and a seal popped its head up and said hello. It was just a magical day.

Alfie: I’d go with The Roadtrip & Workshop as well, it was a special moment I think. George?

George: The Gighouse, for variation

Jacob: Gighouse was a mental show, our biggest attendance, it was good.

George: And it was the first show [played] there as well.

WHERE’S YOUR DREAM VENUE TO PLAY A SHOW?

Charlie: Brixton Academy for me. It’s always been – I’ve been to so many shows there, I’ve always wanted to play it, it’s just a dream venue.

Jacob: My favourite venue in London is Somerset House on the river, it’s huge open area courtyard surrounded by grand buildings, I’ve been to a few gigs there and when the weather’s nice like a cool sunset evening, it’s one of the most phenomenal views and then to absolutely rock that place would be incredible.

Alfie: It’s not a venue but I’d love to do Glastonbury, my dream would be to play Park Stage at sunset – really cool, something like that.

Charlie: Stonebridge Bar on Thursday would be unbelievable.

Ollie: Yeah, I’d pick an outside one, that has a sunset. Probably an amphitheatre, those big outside ones.

George: I’m Brixton Academy, absolutely. 90% of my favourite gigs have been there, so.

[Everyone, unanimously]: Save Brixton!

Alfie: Save Brixton just for us to play there.

CAN YOU TELL ME ANYTHING ABOUT THE EP YOU’RE RELEASING SOON?

Ollie: Yes – five tracks, they’re very good. They’re a lot more rock-y than the last two singles we’ve put out, ‘Share The Night’ and ‘Take Time’.

Charlie: We’re proud of them and excited for you to hear them.

Jacob: We’re drip-feeding a few more singles.

Alfie: I think it’s another step up from our last EP that we did, and another direction for us to go in so, yeah really excited.

Jacob: Same, very excited.

WHAT DO YOU WANT FOR THE FUTURE OF THE BAND?

George: I really want to meet Dave Grohl, that would be great.

Jacob: I think we’d get along with Dave Grohl really nicely as well – or he hates us. I know it’s Dave Grohl but any PR is good PR, we can be like ‘Dave Grohl hates us, and you should come see us to see why’.

We were having a very avid discussion last night funnily enough about what we’d have on our rider, and it got very glamourous, like subway platters and champagne. Alfie wants a separate tour bus for himself which would then turn into the after-hours tour bus. There’s endless things – I love my job, but I’d love to be able to quit my job to do this.

Alfie: It doesn’t matter whatever the size of the band is, just to be able to do this for a period of time would be amazing, just play at every festival in the UK and around Europe and be able to release a few albums, that’s definitely a dream.

Ollie: Pretty much the same, just get to a point where we can live off of it and be constantly touring.

George: Just being with our mates.

Jacob: Just the five of us together, all the time. We’re very excited for what’s to come and it’s all coming up Milhouse.

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