For our debut interview, we caught up with BANNERS to discuss releasing music, his rise in popularity and how he has established himself as a prominent artist. The Liverpool-born musician is known for hit songs such as ‘Someone To You’ and ‘Half Light’ where he makes his mark within the alternative and indie rock genre. Having toured a number of venues, across major European and North American cities, he has proven himself to be a renowned crowd pleaser.
Early into August, ‘C’est La Vie’ was released, now the newest addition to the BANNERS discography. Produced by Cam Blackwood, with songwriting aided by Trent Dabbs, the single was written on a secluded island along some other songs. BANNERS mentions that this track took “a day to write and came out of a songwriting session”. The energetic acoustic sound, reinforced by a catchy riff, is a great way to capture the ears of fans and undoubtedly attract new listeners.
Even more recently, he has been busy writing some new songs. “I came up with one just a minute ago that I think might be really cool”. Digging deeper, he gives an insight into an artist’s experience of the creative process. “You never really know when you first write them”. “You’re always a bit excited because they’re new and then you listen back tomorrow and it’s rubbish”. While this sheds light on the struggles involved with songwriting, BANNERS lets us know he has a good feeling about this one.
On interacting with the crowd during his shows BANNERS highlights how it can be easy to “just say hello and goodbye” at certain points throughout the set. To keep his nerves under control he likes to talk and interact with his fans. “I think it just breaks down the barrier a little bit between everybody, and if you can do that early on in the set, then people are just with you the whole time. You can feel a connection that then exists with everybody and that’s really the whole point isn’t it?” the singer adds.
Fans contribute towards the success of every artist. Among a number of crowd interactions, a personal highlight was in Amsterdam where he recalls the crowd “singing along and everything”. This moment was extra-special since BANNERS shared this moment with his parents who were among the passionate crowd.
Another notable memory can be traced back to The Scala, a venue in London. A close personal friend and guitarist by the name of Sam, became the subject of a round of applause. This was following an explanation of his unique story related to the venue. BANNERS was previously told of how Sam used to hand out flyers for the bands who were playing inside, all while wishing “that he was on stage playing”. On this occasion, Sam’s wishes were fulfilled. They “counted down to one, and everyone went crazy for him”.
Rewinding to the release of the hit single, ‘Someone To You’, BANNERS admits to liking the song more now than he did when it was released 6 years ago. This was the result of a 5-week writing trip to Los Angeles, where he met Sam Hollander, “an incredibly successful songwriter”. This came courtesy of Island Records, who he was signed with at the time.
As an introvert, BANNERS struggled with the process of working with new songwriters on a daily basis, and told us he walked away without “a single song from that trip”.
This was the case until his final songwriting session where he was accompanied by Sam. “On my walk to the studio I was listening to a podcast about space for some reason and then the song title came into my head”. The pair started working on the song and the result was “very very poppy”, which he was “unsure about”, even at the time of recording. Despite the doubts, this song has become a huge success, currently boasting over 700 million streams on Spotify alone. Reinforced by the “happy faces” around the crowd when the song is played live, BANNERS has grown to love the song a lot more now.
With some songs having been featured on soundtracks of TV-shows, movies, even video games, we asked BANNERS if he could choose one song from his discography that he would like to see used in the future. Only released this year, ‘Have You Ever Loved Someone’ was his song of choice. This decision was not only musically motivated, but related to friendship. “I wrote this one with my friends, Ollie and Nick. What I would really love is for that song to do okay, that would be my dream come true for those guys”. He would like such an opportunity for the song as it would hopefully present them with more chances to display their songwriting talents in the future.
As our final question, we asked BANNERS what his last listened to song was. His answer was no other than ‘Birthday’ by the Beatles. “I sent Sam a text message at 10 o’clock saying we should learn to play this song, so when we go back on tour and somebody tells us it’s their birthday, we can play that song for them!”. Putting a smile on someone’s face means a lot to the singer and being able to do that through music is “an amazing feeling”.
Written by: Suzanne Teernstra
Interviewed by: Vee Deuling
