Sheffield five-piece Sobriquet are shaping their cutting-edge sound on their recent EP A Hundred Thousand Tongues, taking primary influence from bands including Glassjaw, Finch and At The Drive-In, while introducing elements that nod towards choral music, J-pop and new-wave. We caught up with vocalist Ludovico Fahey ahead of their EP release to discover his first musical memory, the band’s plans for 2020 and more.
Firstly, tell us a bit about yourself and your band.
My name’s Ludovico, I’m an ex-choirboy who somehow found himself as the vocalist of a band who no-one can decide if they are rock or metal or punk or hardcore or what, or even how to pronounce their name. All you need to know is that we are five sweet boys who make absolutely disgusting music, and our name rhymes with ‘sew bricklay’. Hope that helps.
How did the band form and how long have you been together?
We all met at uni in about 2015 – chatting over drinks at the pub about our favourite Protest The Hero records eventually evolved into our drummer James tricking our now-bassist Michael into buying his rubbish old bass guitar. A couple of absolutely hideous demos and several excruciating debates over band names later, and now we have what we’ve stuck with ’til today!
Can you remember the first time you realised you wanted to make music?
My dad took me to see Muse live at Wembley in 2007. I was a kid and still singing in a church choir at the time, so music was part of my life for sure but something that just sort of happened around me. But at that age seeing a little man in funny clothes rock out in a stadium to tens of thousands of fans made me really feel for the first time “Huh, maybe I could do that?”, so I went and learned guitar and the rest, as they say, is history.
Who and what are the band’s main influences?
We absolutely love what the most cutting edge acts in the heavy music scene have been doing to push the sound to places it’s never been before, bands like Loathe and Code Orange for example, that draw upon so many different and unusual influences to make a sound wholly their own. Their stuff is definitely the largest contemporary influence on our sound but there’s bits in our songs that relate back to choral music, J-pop, hardcore, new-wave…I could rattle off a list of hundreds of different bands and records that have shaped our sound, but I still feel very much like we’re only part way to fully realising where we’re going in developing our own style.
What do you aim to achieve as a band?
At one time it was record a song, then it was play as many shows in as many different places as possible. Then it was conquer the earth, but I suppose that’s now been demoted down to survive 2020.
For those who are yet to see you live, what can they expect from a Sobriquet show?
Three words: Catastrophic Brain Haemorrhage. Because Michael is liable to accidentally whallop you straight in the bonce with the head of his bass guitar while you’re trying to sing the bloody song. If I’ve not already given myself concussion at some point during the night that’s sure to do it!
What’s next for Sobriquet?
Well most of our original plans that we had for the summer got kind of tossed out of the window what with The Big Sick and all, so we are making the best of a bad situation and being productive – we’ve already written most of the next record and the new one’s only just come out!
Sobriquet‘s latest EP A Hundred Thousand Tongues is out now, available to stream on Spotify HERE.
