Name: Absolution Inc
Formed: October 2014
Hometown: Belfast
Genre: Pop Punk
Line-up: Ross Moore, Harry Mitchell, Jordan Montgomery, Ben Johnston & Logan Kerr
◀ Q & A ▶
▶ Tell us about your artist/band name?
Absolution is a great word – meaning to uplift blame or forgive, we feel we can all relate to a time when we need forgiveness.the “Inc” doesn’t mean incorporated we just liked the word “inc” at the end.
▶ When did you start playing music and how would you describe your sound?
We’ve all been playing music individually or in other groups before but collectively playing together since around October 2014. We are a pop punk band.
▶ What releases have you put out so far?
So far we have released two EPs and 2 singles. Very quickly after becoming a band we released our first EP ‘7.13’. It is something we are incredibly proud of and although the quality isn’t the best it features most of the real crowd pleasers. So after that we released the title track as a single in February 2015. Then after a pretty hectic 2015 in terms of gigs and what not we released our second EP ‘Maze’ which has been doing really well in terms of radio play.
▶ Is there a particular live show that stands out amongst all the rest?
Being able to say we have played with Joey Devries is a great accolade to us…it was a very memorable performance for us. It was such a huge venue and really different from everything else we had done before that. It was probably the first time we experienced people we didn’t know personally singing our songs back at us.
▶ Can you talk about a Highlight and a low point of the journey so far?
Probably the first time we went to Dublin, we were playing with Watch The Sky & Beware Of You, in a sold out Workman’s Club it was a pretty surreal experience and the crowd really got behind us despite not knowing the songs as well. It was an unreal feeling being pretty far from home and connecting with so many people, it was probably the first gig we have played without a tonne of our friends and people we know in the audience. Every time we play Dublin now there’s always people who come up and tell us they were at that show which is just amazing.
We try not to get down when things don’t go according to plan, so thankfully we have had no real low parts in our career so far but we will be prepared to push through together if something does arise.
▶ If you weren’t a musician(s) how would you spend your spare time?
I believe that we’d all be trying to make a living out of another passion of ours – music is how we relax, get excited, lash out, or just completely escape, we’d all be trying our best to find something capable of replacing that
▶ If you were to go on a world tour and you could pick any 3 acts come along, who would they be?
Beware of You, A Plastic Rose & ROAM.
▶ What would be the 3 strangest things on your rider if you were able to make any demand?
We actually really struggle with this aspect of being a band like it is kind of strange knowing you can basically ask for whatever you want and that some poor venue assistant is going to run round buying it for you. Our requests are usually really moderate, we totally suck at being diva rockstars.
▶ Is there a particular aim or goal which you hope to achieve through music?
We would love to be able to tour properly out of our own country – that would be a massive milestone for us, outside of that we are just taking everything as it comes. Honestly what we have achieved to date far outweighs our initial expectations for the band.
▶ Who has been your biggest inspiration as a musician?
We are really fortunate in the sense that all of our musical inspiration has come from a tonne of different sources but primarily I guess you could say Mark Knopfler, The Ramones, The Undertones and a lot of modern pop punk bands.
▶ Are there any other Northern Irish musicians we should check out?
Golden South, 1440, Lying With Lions, Brand New Friend, The Mad Dalton, The Pelham Blues & Not Today.
▶ What is next for you?
We have a new single ‘Hearse’ coming out in May time, we have really taken a departure from our normal sound and we have recorded this differently. We also decided to bring a new producer into the fold who has worked with a tonne of our favorite bands like ROAM before so hopefully people like it. The details about the release should start appearing on our social media pretty soon and other than that we’ll just be playing more shows with the expectation to start recording our debut full length in late 2016/early 2017. We recently signed a new management deal with Down The Lane in Belfast and a PR deal in London so we have a tonne of meetings coming up planning what’s next but we can’t really announce much more than that.
◀ LISTEN ▶
Facebook ▶ /Absolution Inc
Twitter ▶ /@Absolution Inc
