Editors Note: Hello everyone. Sorry it's been a while. I just want to very quickly say that Loud Mouth are the official media partners of a gig! The line-up includes Cigarette Social Club plus The Silver Lines and you can buy tickets here. https://birminghampromoters.com/events/dead-wax-rising-the-silver-lines-birmingham-2021-02-25/
Roma Cove are an Indie-Rock quartet from Birmingham who have been releasing great tunes since 2019. Lewis Peace (Lead Guitar), Lewis Moss (Rhythm Guitar and Vocals) and his brother Joel Moss (Bass) all kindly joined me for a conversation about George Michael, politics and the word cove.
How did the band name come about?
Lewis P: “We were originally called Hyde when we were just starting out… we stuck with that name for about a year. Then it came to going into a recording studio and Allister, who we record our songs with, said ‘I tried to find you guys on Facebook and it took about half an hour of scrolling to find you.’ So we decided to change it. We were all sat down at our lock-up and we had decided we really liked the word Cove. In fact, Lewis M (Singer) was against that word because the only time he had heard the word cove was like the coving you get on your ceiling. Joel just came up with it as an example and we just ran with it from there."
You recently released the single You and I. What is the next step for the band?
Lewis M: “Most of our steps have been scuppered due to what’s going on. We’ve been focusing on recording… more so than we would have been. We managed to get a recording session done in between lockdown 1 and 2… God, it feels like I’ve been in lockdown for years.”
Lewis P: “Yeah, I think the tracks have been mastered now so we just need to focus on a release soon.”
What separates this new single from the rest of your discography?
Lewis P: “Ooo… that’s a good question. It’s not the first release that we took seriously because saying that would be doing ourselves a disservice. This was the first one that we got back and I was like ‘fucking hell, this is incredible.’ It’s the first song we’ve written that you can go mental in the car too. Most people think its much better than our other stuff."
Who did the artwork for Stuck In My Mind?
Lewis P: “That was my girlfriend Ailish… she’s an art teacher. We didn’t really have a plan for any art… we were too busy focusing on the fun stuff and forgot there’s loads of admin when you’re releasing a single. She had this big art portfolio from when she did her A-levels and we literally just went through it piece by piece and found that in there.”
What separates you from all the other bands on the scene at the moment?
Joel (Bass): “There’s not many ginger drummers around.”
What has been the proudest moment for the band so far?
Joel: “It was the This Feeling at The Sunflower Lounge gig for me. I loved my fist gig as well. However, I will always say the This Feeling gig, I was well happy with that one.”
Lewis P: “Yeah, when we nearly sold out our headliner at The Sunflower Lounge I remember just sitting back for a bit and it felt amazing.”
Does the band have a favourite Christmas song?
Lewis M: “Yeah we do and we covered it last year. Last Christmas by Wham! We did a good cover of that. I re-watched the video of it the other day… I had decided that I wanted to turn off my guitar and take my microphone out of the stand halfway through the song. I just thought “I am never going to get this right.” So I practised it at rehearsals, just to get my George Michael going.”
How would you describe the Birmingham music scene?
Lewis P: “When we were first coming out, it was just new indie bands left, right and centre. Now there’s just so much variety in the type of acts coming out. When you’re in an indie band, you get the narrow minded vision that only indie music is popular in Birmingham. Then you see the metal bands coming through, the amazing grime scene, the solo artists… and it’s all sick. That just makes me want to be a part of it because there are so many sick acts coming out at the moment.”
What’s your worst song?
Lewis M: “You haven’t heard it mate haha.”
Lewis P: “It would have to be the first one we ever released, Blue Lights. It’s still out there on a Soundcloud page if anyone wants to hear it.”
Lewis M: “No indie band likes the comparison but we were trying to emulate the sound of Arctic Monkeys first album. It basically sounds like one of theirs that definitely wouldn’t have made it on the album.”
If you could change one thing about how you have got to this point, what would it be and why?
Lewis M: “I would have done it earlier because me and Lewis are older. Not that it matters too much because we aren’t that old. Having said that, I used to try and write songs but I couldn’t. It took me until I was 21 to write a half decent song.”
Lewis P: “Yeah we are both 25. Joel is… are you even 21 yet Joel?”
Joel: “(smiles)… I was 21 in October haha.”
If you could pick one actor to star in your next music video, who would you pick and why?
Joel: “Johnny Depp.”
Lewis P: “Idris Elba. He just makes everything cool… even if it was the shittest song you have ever heard, you would still watch the video because it had Idris Elba in it.”
Lewis M: “I really don’t know who I’d pick… obviously I know loads of actor’s haha… Tom Hanks?”
Lewis P: “That was the least convincing I know loads of actors answer you could have came up with.”
Album of the year?
Lewis M: “Ultra Mono by Idles. It’s just important, isn’t it. They are just an important band.”
Joel: “Blossoms new album bangs as well.”
Who is the audience for your music?
Lewis M: “Anyone.”
Lewis P: (Laughs) Yeah I was going to complicate what Lewis just said… Literally anybody who will listen to it.”
2020 has been a big year politically. Would you ever bring politics into your music?
Lewis P: “I don’t think it would go down very well. I think a lot of people who come to our gigs wouldn’t agree with our political views… that makes us sound like Nazis! I mean the other way… we often get people of an older generation who may lean slightly to the right whereas we would slide left. So I don’t think we would ever do it. Also none of us a particularly politically intelligent so it would be a little disingenuous for us to start writing about that as we have never been those people. ”
When can we expect a bigger project from you?
Lewis P: “We were going to release an EP this year and were planning to record in the early summer. It’s better for us to release singles at the moment. Singles get their 15 minutes and then they dissipate so we don’t want to spend a whole load of money on something that’s going to dissipate just as quickly. I think staggering releases is the best way of going about it. Maybe if we get more traction then we will focus on something bigger."
Interview by Aidan McGuire
Roma Cove Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/romacove/
Aidan McGuire Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/aidan._mcg/
Aidan McGuire Spotify - https://open.spotify.com/artist/1atUaV3lMEAUaKxCyHCsql?si=DWqxYjWHTiuSv85tR8IUdA
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