Influences: 5 Albums That Influenced Homebound

Over the coming weeks, Already Heard will be highlighting a variety of bands set to play the Slam Dunk Festival later this month.

For some people, the Slam Dunk Festival is considered a pop-punk festival, and understandably it’s easy to see why. Over the past 10 years, it’s hosted a wealth of names from the genre; New Found Glory, The Wonder Years, Neck Deep, Four Year Strong and more. This year is no different with the UK arm of the genre being represented by the likes of Boston Manor and WSTR. Joining them will be Farnham quartet Homebound.

Now three EP’s deep into their career, Homebound are ready to play to bigger crowds with a spot on the ‘Breakout Stage’ later this month being a big opportunity for the four-piece. Their latest EP, ‘The Mould You Build Yourself Around’, is firmly rooted in modern pop-punk with maturing angst and authentic rawness.

As they prepare for their Slam Dunk debut, we asked the members about 5 albums that have influenced them along the way.

Paramore – Brand New Eyes

Charlie (Boughton – vocals): You’ll struggle to find four guys who like and listen to Paramore as much as we do. Although we’re big fans of their entire discography, ‘Brand New Eyes’ is an album we can all safely say has influenced us in our writing in some shape or form, if not, certainly inspiring us creatively. Whether or not it directly reflects in our music, it’s an album I go back to time and time again that has helped me to push on when writing.

Fightstar – Grand Unification

Tom (Mellon – guitar): I think it is pretty obvious to say we sound nothing like Fightstar, however this album still greatly influenced us all. The way Fightstar create so many different textures and vibes in one album is something we have tried to portray in our own music.

Taking Back Sunday – Louder Now

Tom: Everyone in the band is a big Taking Back Sunday fan, some of us argue over which is the better album; ‘Tell All Your Friends’ or ‘Louder Now’. For me its an easy choice with ‘Louder Now’. Everything from the composition to the production of this album is perfection. Louder Now’ has definitely inspired us a lot with some new songs we have been working on. Again it’s an album we can go back on when lacking some inspiration.

Blink 182 – Self-Titled

Tom: Picking just one Blink album was a hard enough choice, but for me, the progression of songwriting displayed on Blink’s self-titled makes it a very special album. The darker vibes of songs like ‘Stockholm Syndrome’ and ‘Down’ really struck a chord with me when I was younger and still do to this day. I think as a band, we can only hope we can show the level of progression that Blink-182 did from ‘Cheshire Cat’ to ‘Self-Titled’.

My Chemical Romance – The Black Parade

Joe (Aspell-Beaumont – bass): For everyone in the band, ‘The Black Parade’ was an album that we all grew up listening to. The guitar work on this album is something we have all take note on. The way some of the leads follows the melody of the vocals, and create almost a second vocal line is a testament to their songwriting. It is something we always take influence on.

‘The Mould You Build Yourself Around’ EP by Homebound is out now on Rude Records.

Homebound will be playing at 5:10pm on the Rock Sound Breakout Stage at Slam Dunk Festival on all three dates.

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