In Conversation With: Stand Atlantic
Stand Atlantic recently released their album ‘Skinny Dipping’ via Hopeless Records, we had a chat with vocalist Bonnie Fraser about how they pushed themselves as a band on this release.
What’s the most drastic changes between recording an EP and your debut album?
I think for us it was just about making sure we raised the bar again and stepped it up, which is what we will always try and do but it was a bit more strenuous when you’ve gone from five songs to fifteen or so haha. We also got to experiment a lot more with things we didnt get to explore in the EP - just different dynamics and structures and showing that we aren’t just one trick ponies haha.
Were there any unexpected surprises you encountered during the course of writing and recording ‘Skinny Dipping’?
Well we thought we’d had the whole album pretty much done - then we flew to the UK to play Slam Dunk, came back and wrote one more song which was Lavender Bones and it ended up being our first single and arguably our collective favourite of the album.
What kind of statement do you want to make with this debut album?
I think the same as what we try and do as a band in general - just be yourself. Its okay to let yourself feel vulnerable sometimes, its okay to hurt and its okay to feel good about yourself, just be real.
In explaining ‘Skinny Dipping’, Bonnie said ‘addressing your own truth can be a very daunting thing and feel so isolating.’ What’s been a daunting truth to accept during the process of writing the album? How did you overcome the fear to accept yourself?
I think accepting yourself is a long process and isn’t necessarily like accepting one thing about you its kind of just little things here and there and yourself as a whole so its probably a life long process haha. During the album writing I was struggling with some inner demons, I’d done some things i was not very proud of to say the least, got hurt over it, struggled with my own sexuality and not only accepting that but being open about it also had a huge impact on me as a person. I think both the guys and myself all had some rough things going on throughout the writing and recording process and just decided to focus all the energy on the album.
What has been your most liberating experiences aside from accepting difficult truths about yourself?
Crowd surfing on an inflatable pineapple.
There seems to be some very personal stories told on ‘Skinny Dipping’, are these experiences and feelings shared across the band or are they more an insight into the mind of whoever was writing the tracks?
I think some of the tracks do relate to how the guys have felt before but essentially as I’m the one who writes the lyrics they are most certainly all stories based on my literal life and as you said very personal haha.
Bonnie began explaining the line ‘temporary fleeting thrills keep me bruised and make me ill, my skin has lavender tones’ on Twitter but mentioned she ran out of characters, can you go more in depth about the different metaphors and meaning behind ‘Lavender Bones’?
Its kind of saying like, I’ll do all these things that make me feel good in the moment but after that can leave you feeling negative and they don’t have a positive impact on your life and can just feel like a regret at the end of the day - and Lavender is referring to bruises, kinda juxtaposes the fact that a bruise is painful and not a very nice thing but Lavender is something people associate with beauty and pleasant things.
Taking inspiration from ‘Bullfrog’, if you guys were animals, what animal would you be and why?
I think we’d be otters because they hold hands while floating so they don’t drift away from each other and we are very codependent haha. But I’ve also recently heard some really horrible things about otters so I might have to rethink...
In ‘Speak Slow’, there’s the line ‘grey is not a shade I want to be’. If you had to choose a shade to describe yourselves and your sound, what colour would you choose and why?
I think maybe green because its a blend of yellow which is a warm happy colour and blue which is cold and can be a bit sad haha.
What are you most looking forward to achieving next year?
Doing some headline shows is gonna be really interesting! We’ve never done any proper headline tours before so we are really excited to see (hopefully) some kids come out to our own shows and see how much we’ve grown as a band!
Feature by Athena Kam
‘Skinny Dipping’ is out now via Hopeless Records and they have just announced a huge EU tour for 2019-
Live Dates -
29th Mar - Leeds Key Club (UK)
30th Mar - Manchester Night People (UK)
31st Mar - Newcastle Think Tank (UK)
1st Apr - Glasgow King Tuts (UK)
2nd Apr - Nottingham Bodega (UK)
3rd Apr - Birmingham Asylum 2 (UK)
4th Apr - London Underworld (UK)
6th Apr - Southampton Joiners (UK)
7th Apr - Bristol Exchange (UK)
9th Apr - Antwerp Kavka (BE)
10th Apr - Eindhoven Dynamo Basement (NL)
11th Apr - Hamburg Headcrash (DE)
12th Apr - Berlin Musik & Frieden (DE)
14th Apr - Cologne MTC (DE)
15th Apr - Paris Le 1999 (FR)