This coming Friday, Nottingham hardcore pop punk band On The Open Road release their debut EP, ‘Hold On To This’. The five-track collection is the result of 3 years work for the young trio. Having spent their time refining their sound and honing in on a fitting sound, On The Open Road are now set to unleash ‘Hold On To This’.
The EP firmly has its roots firmly in the heavier side of pop punk with the likes of A Day To Remember, Neck Deep and Four Year Strong being cited as major influences. Nevertheless On The Open Road manage to keep a British edge on ‘Hold On To This’, with the end result being a bold, raucous EP from a band that is certainly worth taking notice of.
Ahead of its release this Friday (April 24th), Already Heard has teamed up with the Nottingham up-and-comers to stream ‘Hold On To This’ in full. Not only are we premiering the EP, vocalist/guitarist Tom Hawk has given produced a handy track-by-track guide about the EP.
Before I write about each individual song I just wanted to say that the EP, itself, sums us up from when we started as band to where we are now. The songs are all songs from the past two or three years that we wrote in the band and prior to band, hence the slight difference in sound in some songs.
Harm’s Way
We think of this song as the perfect beginning to our first EP, it let’s you know what our sound is in just over three and a half minutes. The song is the newest out of the other three high energy songs since we wrote it about a year ago. It definitely defines our sound (as mentioned before), whereas the other songs are a little bit different in terms of genre due to them being older songs that we wrote either before the band existed or simply before we defined our sound. It’s the song that sort of hints at what our second EP will be like… Moving on, the lyrics are about the bad things in life that try to get you down, but pulling through. They also deal with the fear of losing a loved one because of the bad things in life, hence the line “at least I know I’ll hold you for today, tomorrow I’ll be stuck in harm’s way”.
Baby This Isn’t A Game
This is your typical breakup/“fuck you” song. If you ever go through a bad breakup and you feel angry, then this is the song for you! Our bassist Dan actually wrote the lyrics to this song a few years ago and it’s the only song on this EP that I didn’t write (lyrically).
Hold On To This
This is a song about holding on to your dreams and never letting go, no matter what life might throw at you. It’s as simple as that really, it’s about following your dreams and aspirations, having faith that they will one day come true. Also, this song is probably the heaviest song on the EP and I guess that’s why most of us mark it as a favourite to play live.
Rollercoaster Girl
Well, I wrote this song when I was about 14 or 15, the year when I discovered blink-182. I was so pumped and excited about this new style of music that I had discovered (pop punk) and felt inspired to write a song based purely on the themes of blink songs, so naturally I wrote it about girls. However, at the age of 14/15 I hadn’t really had any intimate experiences with girls, so I didn’t really have anything to write about. None of it came from the heart like the other songs, the lyrics sort of just came into being based on a theme of most blink songs. For me it’s probably my least favourite song off this EP because of that, I find this song just being a bit of 14 year old boy’s fantasy inspired by blink’s discography. The breakdown however came into being just a few weeks before we recorded the EP, that was when we decided to put it on the EP because that’s what made it a lot better for us.
What’s Best For You
This song came into being after having multiple dreams of the same thing over and over again. I kind of just picked up my guitar one day and wrote the song in about 30 minutes and then spent the next few days going over the lyrics and re-writing any bits that I didn’t like. It’s probably the quickest song I’ve ever written, yet it’s the song with the most sense of emotion on this EP. It also bring the EP to a calm end after four high energy songs. If you’re a fan of sad slow songs like ‘I’ve Given Up On You’ by Real Friends then you’ll probably like this song.
‘Hold On To This’ EP by On The Open Road is released on Friday April 24th.
On The Open Road links: Facebook|Twitter|Bandcamp
Have a new video or song you’d like to premier on Already Heard? If so contact Sean Reid to find out more.
