Drawing inspiration from a diverse range of influences, Casual Riots craft a sound that’s both nostalgic and fresh, tapping into the soul of indie rock while never shying away from experimentation with genres such as funk, drum and bass and jazz.
Their debut EP ‘Pleasure for Leisure’ is the perfect example of this and the band were kind enough to talk us through some of the artists and songs that inspired it.
Bicep – Glue
This tune was an anthem to all of us during summer of 2019, so it’s no surprise that it has had such an impact on our writing, we probably listened to it well over 100 times. The production of the drums and the warmth that follows was so encapsulating that we wanted to make something with similar effect. We wrote our song ‘Sunshine’ with glue in the back of our minds hoping to write something that gave our listeners the same feeling we had back in summer 2019.
Gill Scott-Heron – Lady Day and John Coltrane
This has been a favorite of ours recently, it was blasted numerous times in the car on our way to record ‘Rut’ and ‘Sunshine’ and has now made it into our set as a cover in one of our gigs. The hooky riff that kicks the song off followed by the simple but funky progression has been a massive inspiration to the formula to our writing.
Idris Muhammad – Could Heaven Ever Be Like This
One of the greatest songs of all time. It has everything you need, fat drums, singing guitars, heavenly melodies and a fantastic instrumentation. The titled track from our EP ‘Pleasure for leisure’ was inspired heavily by this song and the desire to create something so magic and fun to play. This is the type of song that really takes you on a journey.
Fontaines D.C. – Skinty Fia
It is undoubtable that Fontaines D.C. have had an influence on most if not all recent up and coming bands. This song was so different to anything else on the album which, inspired the vocals on our single ‘Sunshine’. The low-end baritone vocal just gives off such a difference to anything you usually hear, and we just wanted to do something a bit out of our comfort zone. It wasn’t easy to push the low-end vocals through the mix, but we got there!
Inner city Life – Goldie
From an amazing drum and bass album, if not one of the best, this song also inspired our song ‘sunshine’. The drums firstly, but the floating feeling that this song gives with its synths gave us such a cool feeling when paired with the madness of its drumming. How Goldie made such a sound almost lo-fi was something we had to try incorporating into our own writing.
King Kurtis – Whole Lotta Love (cover live at Filmore West 1971)
A fantastic cover which inspired the drum break in our song ‘Rut’. This live album has also been a massive soundtrack to some of us and immediately after listening to this track we thought that we needed a drum break in every song, unfortunately we have only used it in one, for now…
King Kurtis – Memphis City Stew
When we were in the studio our producer Darragh Tibbs played this track to us as reference point for drums to which we were super on board with. This is a classic track and one that we all love. Thanks to Darragh, the drums sound for this song became the blueprint for our song ‘Pleasure for Leisure’.
The Murder Capital – A Thousand Lives
This song also inspired our tune ‘Sunshine’. The lo-fi sound of the track alongside the production of the drums was something we used as reference when writing this song in our practice room. We wanted to create a similar feeling and sound in our own tune that followed a similar drum pattern.
Flaming Lips – Race For the Prize
The opening of this song is so powerful and raw that we wanted to create something that sounded just as massive with a melodic synth to match. That is how we came up with the intro for our tune ‘Over You’which, was the last song we wrote for the EP. It also has the massive intro followed by a smaller sounding verse just like this tune.
Tame Impala – Let It Happen
Tame Impala are another one of those bands that undeniably inspire most bands and artists coming through today. Let it happen has a riff that repeats throughout almost the entirety of the song and it’s only a few notes. Very similar to the riff in the song ‘you keep me hanging on’ by The Supremes, it gives an instant hook that catches your ear straight away. Both these tunes and this riff inspired the riff in the chorus of the song ‘Over You’ from our EP.
