Introducing #162 - MCRAE — When The Horn Blows

Let us introduce you to Manchester’s MCRAE a four-piece who eschew the swaggering indie-boy Oasis imitations so often seen in the city, in favour of something slightly subtler, more intelligent, and that bridges the gaps between punk, indie and pop effortlessly. They talked us through their music.

Hey MCRAE. How are you? You’ve just released your new single. How does it feel to have it out in the world?

We’re great! We hope you are too, and thanks so much for taking the time to talk to us! Feels so good to have some new music people can get their teeth into and the response to this has hurried up the release of our next track too.

The track’s called ‘Lucy’. Can you tell us what it’s about?

Sure, it’s kind of written from the perspective on an onlooker watching an intoxicated/optimistic guy on the pull

Your sound has changed somewhat from your earlier, more punk influenced stuff, was that a conscious decision or something that’s happened naturally?

I think when we wrote this EP in the 2nd lockdown it was largely over laptops which is completely different to our usual process. Aidan really had the ground work and the vision for this one and is responsible for the bones of all of the songs from the upcoming EP! By the time we’d all worked on it and brought it to Matchbox we all knew it was going come out more pop than before but who knows maybe a year inside mellowed us a bit.

You come from Manchester, how influential has the city been on the band? Either musically or culturally?

Culturally for us it’s been absolutely essential, not because of what’s come before or where we are - but because we are actually all from tiny little mill towns and villages -so we were getting used to the idea of playing one gig every few months to no people until we made Manchester home and things started to come right! Our best gigs are always Manchester.

What are the key musical influences when it comes to your music?

Subconsciously I think we all bring aspects of our musical upbringing into our songwriting, like most of our peers from the north we all spent our pre-adolescent years listening to Arctic monkeys, The Strokes, Pulp, Oasis etc and we definitely gained our inspiration and admiration of guitar music from bands such as them. However, we try to keep our direct influences to a minimum in the writing process as we only get excited and motivated for ideas that sound new and exciting to us, the less recycled or re-worked the idea is the better (not to sound cliché!)

How would you describe your sound to someone who has never listened to your music before?

Our sound seems to be familiar yet foreign to most people who hear it, it has all the energy of modern alternative guitar music such as Catfish and the bottlemen or the Wombats but with the catchiness and rhythm of pop ranging from the 80’s until now. Lyrics range from the everyday introspective to the meaning of life, love and everything in between. Whatever people take from our music we just hope they enjoy 3+ minutes of light, fun escapism whether they’re driving to work, getting ready for a night out or going for a walk. As big music fans ourselves we know that’s what we look for and try to give that to everyone that hears us.