Who are Burning Buildings?
Burning Buildings are a band, and there are three of us, and we are friends who play music together.
How did you form, and why Burning Buildings?
We formed because we all live near to one another in the middle of nowhere, so boredom (and musical interest) brought us together and that seems to be working so far. We called ourselves Burning Buildings when a house burnt to the ground while we were trying to think of names. It's pretty terrible, but it's just as bad as "The Red Hot Chili Peppers" and they seem to do okay for themselves.
You've got a very diverse sound - listening to last years' self-titled EP sees you go from pop-rock, to 90s hardcore, and there's even an 80s style sax solo in there! Who would you say have been your biggest inspirations or influences as a band?
We try to be intentionally spastic and change styles as much as we can. We all listen to pretty different styles of music, so we get bored if we do the same thing too often. Repeating ourselves is the only sin when writing our songs, so a lot of ideas that probably shouldn't make it past the drawing board are included just for their being sheer fun to play. Collectively, our influences are probably Bon Iver, Weezer, Tall Ships, most 90s "grunge", and Joanna Newsom.
Do you guys like A? They had an album called 'How Ace are Buildings' which had a picture of a burning building on.
We remember A. They didn't want that job at Starbucks. Worked well for them!
What have you got up your collective sleeves for 2012?
2012 has so far been trying to agree on how to write songs, and now we've written a handful that we're happy with, so we hit the studio pronto-soon to release a split with some friends of ours, and then hopefully another EP. We're not happy with how many shows we're playing either, so we need to sort that out even pronto-quicker.
Am I right in thinking you live somewhere between Liverpool and Manchester? If so, what are the benefits of such a geographical location?
We live in Warrington, which is bang between Manchester and Liverpool. While you'd think it's great to be so close to two huge hubs of creativity and fun, actually it's just aggravating; it's like being stuck in limbo. But we love both, and try to play there as often as we can, and hopefully one day have enough money to pick one and move there and set up camp properly.
Can you recommend any great bands from your neck of the woods?
Other bands that we'd recommend taking a listen to: Doctrines, who are lovely, crispy, shouty, jangly punk, and gentlemen all round. Vasco Da Gama from Liverpool are excellent for those who like a bit of math thrown in. Knife Crimes are lovely filthy metallic hardcore, in a good way.
And finally, if you were a building, which building would you be and why?
If we were a building, we'd be the Chrysler Building, because it's so pretty.
Last year's Burning Buildings EP is available for free download, or physical purchase for a modest £4, from burningbuildings.bandcamp.com. For more information on Burning Buildings visit facebook.com/burningbuildings
Illustration credit: Robert Brown (http://pygmyking.blogspot.co.uk)
