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This Friday 27th Perth band Longstay will be releasing their debut album ‘Calling Me Home’ with their album launch party happening tonight at the Salutation Hotel as part of the Southern Fried Festival.
I caught up with Longstay a week back at Clearwater Recording Studios to chat about their new album and upcoming shows. Longstay have been a five piece for just over a year and a half. The band draw on a variety of influences from Blues, Country and Rock. They explored the country genre after being at The Southern Fried Festival two years ago and it has stuck ever since. Longstay continually tap into as many sub-genres in country as possible, ensuring they draw on all of their musical influences, and continually develop their sound and musical abilities.
Favourite song on the album?
“Remember is our favourite and we think it’s one of the best songs on the album. We are really looking forward to what people think of it. A lot of people came in to make Remember what it is. In fact a lot of people came on board across the whole album to make it what it is. Dave McFarlane who was our engineer also played fiddle on three tracks and Chris Small played some brass on a track. It’s not just us on the album there’s also 4 other musicians.”
Where did the artwork come from?
“It’s a picture from Northern Skyline Photography based in Northumbria. They were very generous, they only asked for their name on the back and a copy of the album because they liked what we did! They never asked for any money so we are really thankful for that.”
What about the name?
“We almost developed into complete mayhem in the group chat over the name of the album because none of us could decide. So we took a vote and ‘Calling Me Home’ stuck. It’s a line from Remember. All of our ideas were lines from Remember or Mariah. We were dead set on not having the name of a song as the title. We think ‘Calling Me Home’ works best with the artwork as well.”
And it was recorded here?
“It was recorded here at Clearwater by Dave McFarlane and Gav as a producer. It took 7 months to record, we started it in November and we finished it in May. We should thank the people behind the scenes as well, John Ross and John Thomson from Goldrush Records. They were a big support in getting us to do it. We spoke about doing an EP for so long and we never did it until they gave us a kick up the ass. A huge thanks to all the parents involved as well, karting us all over the place making sure we get everywhere.”
What’s happening for the rest of the year then?
“We are going to be promoting a lot and playing a lot. We have a few more gigs but we want to at least try and double what we have got. We want to have a gig every other weekend for the next year. Going as far and wide as well, down south especially. We have all left school so we have a few years of just really hard work.”
Happy with the album?
“Yeah, it’s more than we expected!.”
I was given a copy of the album from Longstay before I caught up with them. The whole album is brilliant from start to finish with songs such as ‘Forever’ and ‘A Ring of Fire’ really standing out to me. I’ve had the privilege of blasting out this album in my wee Ford Fiesta around Perth and I would highly recommend grabbing yourself a copy tomorrow. Longstay will be launching their album tonight at the Salutation Hotel alongside Whiskey Shivers – why not pop along and have a listen for yourself!
You can keep up with all of Longstay’s latest news on their Facebook page.
