What is the first single or album you ever bought?
The first single I remember owning is ‘Can We Fix It?’ by Bob The Builder, that was the only CD I remember having for a big period of my childhood. The first proper album was Darius’ ‘Dive In’, originally I had a recording of one of the singles from the radio on a cassette but one Christmas my parents upgraded it to the full album: I still listen to it now!
Which song do you listen to when you’re sad?
Any Catfish and The Bottlemen track works for this: there’s something I find so motivating in the rasping growl of Vann McCann’s vocals. You can really feel the emotion in every strand and sinew of their music but what I like is that it at no point seems to wallow in sadness, instead it turns on defiance, passion and anger. No-one likes being sad and this really gets me through.
What is your musical guilty pleasure?
Definitely Justin Bieber – he may be an abhorrent person at times but I can only think of one bad song that he’s ever released (‘Boyfriend’, for those of you asking). I’m not ashamed to say I know all the words to Ludacris’ rap in ‘Baby’ and I bought his first album ‘My World’. I definitely wouldn’t say I’m a Belieber but whenever new music is released it always finds its way into my Spotify library.
What’s your favourite album of all time?
Saint Raymond’s debut album ‘Young Blood’ is one of a small handful of albums where there’s not a single song I skip when I’ve got it on shuffle. Not only does it have timeless, feel-good bops but its punctuated so well by slower, more heartfelt tracks that really showcase Callum’s vocals over more delicate tracks. It’s a brilliantly well rounded album and I’d recommend it to anyone!
What is the song that most reminds you of your childhood?
I spent a lot of my formative years, and even my time at uni, inside playing FIFA, and the soundtracks have always been full of big songs. The one that stays with me most is ‘Black and Gold’ by Sam Sparro, from FIFA09: there’s something about that intro that really grabs me and 11-year-old Matt was entranced by the idea of fish growing legs and walking and apes learning to talk. Clearly, I hadn’t learned to understand metaphor yet.
What song most makes you want to dance?
Anyone knows me knows that in my heart is a massive indie-kid who lives for those select weekends of the year when Sugar plays wall-to-wall guitar bangers without the over-mixing of EDM tracks that usually get everyone else going. What gets me going is light, high-pitched guitars over a fast beat. This covers a lot of bases, The 1975 and Pale Waves at one end of the spectrum but the one track I can always trust is ‘Something Good Can Work’ by Two Door Cinema Club.
