Careless Sons
email interview
April 2016

Careless Sons do loud, foot-stomping guitar songs with sweeping pop melodies played with reckless abandon.

‘Heartbreak Major’ is the first release from the London ‘pop ‘n’ rollers’ on R*E*P*E*A*T Records, out on 12-inch vinyl and download from 27 May 2016.


R*E*P*E*A*T Commander-in-Chief, Richard Rose, taught singer/guitarist Dickon Collinson to play at the impressionable age of seven. Every week after school, they would meet in a freezing mobile classroom in the belly of the Fens to thrash out ‘Pretty Vacant’, ‘Substitute’ and ‘You Love Us’.

Fast forward a decade. Dickon meets singer/guitarist Rob D’Ath and bass player Ben Donnelly (childhood allies with a somewhat unhealthy teenage crush on The Beatles, Queen and Bruce Springsteen) at a university poker night. In the penniless aftermath, Careless Sons was forged. The boys write about love, loss, regret and redemption, with tunes that are at once ear-grapplingly melodic, aggressively forthright and yet hopelessly sentimental. Having toured their refreshingly charming brand of literate pop rock across the UK over the past two years, supporting To Kill A King, CHILDCARE and gaining BBC radio play.


'Heartbreak Major’ showcases the sound of an exciting young band beginning to stretch its legs, with a style akin to your favourite pair of jeans; distressed, full of holes and enviably sexy.

‘Rocking stardom roads ahead for this extremely gifted band’ – Forkster
‘Emotive and hook laden’ – Back Seat Mafia
‘A refreshing pop rock round’ – The Manchester Culture Show.

 

Rosey R*E*P*E*A*T asked them to justify themselves, and then Mr Rose collected in their homework for you all to see...


Lucy: Your band have been quite quiet for the last few months. Are you looking forward to playing gigs again?
Katie Jane Garside: I think I give very obtuse ans

 

Careless Sons – who, what and why?

Dickon, Ben, Rob – co-conspirators in the quest for the illusive out, the UK’s foremost indie rock statisticians, founders of the Careless Sons support group for former teen punks in admin roles. Why? What’s the alternative? Give us a reason, a shot at the morning and we’ll borrow the fare.

 

Who are your heroes, musical, cultural, sporting, political, other?

We’d sell our toes for dinner with the Boss and a slice of his lasagne. Emily Bronte, Alan Shearer, Stewart Lee and Frank Underwood are all invited.

Describe your sound to a deaf alien.

Like nothing you’ve ever heard before.

You are just about to release your debut ep as a 12” vinyl. What attracted you to this somewhat unusual format?

As Dickon is the only person on the planet that still owns and uses a minidisc player; that was out. Vinyl is having a renaissance for a reason. It is everything that digital media isn’t; seductive, intimate and immobile, an antidote to modern living.

Do you have any favourite 12” singles / eps / vinyl singles

The 12” ‘New Art Riot’ EP’ is a thing of sheer beauty.

What is the Careless Sons live experience like?

Imagine Han Solo playing Jenga with Henry the Hoover…. nothing like that but equally mesmerising and unpredictable.

Why is Betty so careless?

It’s a lack of consideration for consequence. Everyone is susceptible to moments of weakness, especially when they are experiencing some sort of seasonal apathy or dissociation from their own existence. It’s not just Betty either. Everyone is guilty now and then of not taking responsibility for themselves.

I am writing this in a chilly skate park in Northamptonshire. What are the most unusual places you have gigged and / or what unusual place would you like to perform?

We played a show at an ice rink in Westfield shopping centre – Stratford, in the run up to Christmas 2014. It was all through the PA, no amps, and sounded dreadful. As we cringed our way through three songs, toddlers would periodically wipe out in front of us, gleefully followed by their parents. It was utterly bizarre and hideously uncomfortable so we pulled the plug sharpish and ran away. We haven’t spoken of it until now.

Has the advent of the internet made it easier or harder for you to get yourself heard?

Easier in many respects, but it often feels like everyone is screaming at once. That said, having struggled in bands for years before the rise of Twitter etc, when it was nigh on impossible to get anyone other than your mates down to a gig, we now play in front of a growing crowd of complete strangers and that is solely down to social media. We grew up with the fanciful notion that one day a fat cat label exec would pop along to the Fist and Fiddle in Narnia on a Wednesday night, give us 100 grand and get us on Top of the Pops the following Friday. The romance has been stripped out of music to such an extent that it is no surprise the vast majority of bands around today sound, look and act, ‘grey’. It now feels like a career with the sole objective being to please everyone in the hope that they’ll give you a notional ‘like’. It grates to be honest.

How do you think you stand out amongst the plethora of indie rock bands?

People are crying out for a band that subscribes passionately to its own myth, a band to quit their job for, a band that their cretinous mates don’t get, that articulates everything they have ever felt yet failed to express. And that’s what we want as well, but it turns out a job is only worth doing if you do it yourself.

What don’t you want me to make you do again?

Perform at Westfield shopping centre – see our somewhat prophetic early B side ‘I Go to Pieces in Shopping Centres’.

If you could support any band (past / present), who would it be and why?

We’d loved to have supported Queen at one of their smaller early gigs just to see first-hand if that power was always destined to lead to arenas. And to get Freddie to teach us to sing like Aretha Franklin.

How can our readers get hold of your music? Why should they bother?

You can check us out at www.carelesssons.com, or on Twitter, Facebook, SoundCloud, YouTube, Mum’s Net, WikiLeaks, blah blah blah. Why? Because there is fuck, fuck, fuck all else to do.

What's best, chips or cream buns?

Chips by a mile, with curry sauce and speeding fines on the side.

You can listen to and order Careless Sons' new ep, Heartbreak Major, here.

www.carelesssons.com

https://www.facebook.com/Careless.Sons/

wers to questions...It's never about looking forward to it. Actually maybe I should change the
script, maybe we are looeir musicm the 3rd album?