{"id":28696,"date":"2013-05-30T19:06:00","date_gmt":"2013-05-30T19:06:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/alreadyheard.com\/staging\/interview-the-cape-race\/"},"modified":"2018-03-21T22:08:01","modified_gmt":"2018-03-21T22:08:01","slug":"interview-the-cape-race","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alreadyheard.com\/staging\/interview-the-cape-race\/","title":{"rendered":"Interview: The Cape Race"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"image\"<\/strong><\/p>\n

In a time when bands are becoming more self-sufficient and rely on growth by word of mouth, Manchester band The Cape Race<\/strong> have combined the two with the creation of\u00a0Ten Letters<\/strong>, a collaborative music group which allows fans to support the band with the main emphasis being the opportunity to spread the bands music one person at a time.<\/p>\n

Fans can offer their creative resources to suggest ideas for promotional content or help out behind the scenes which allows them an insight on how things happen within the music industry.\u00a0<\/p>\n

For The Cape Race<\/strong>, it’s a brave yet interesting move but with a sound that matches their ambitions, it proves to be a unique idea. Their forthcoming record, ‘Home, Truths’<\/em> follows their 2011 mini-album ‘Now, Voyager’<\/em> and builds on its foundation; powerful, cinematic rock with a honest and sincere approach.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Guitarist Matt Sayward recently spoke in-depth to Already Heard<\/strong> about the Ten Letters concept, its formation, its influences, the importance of social media,\u00a0‘Home, Truths’<\/em> and much more.<\/p>\n

AH: Hi Matt. Can you tell us what your role in The Cape Race is?<\/strong>
Matt Sayward: I write songs and play guitar in the band.<\/em><\/p>\n

AH: You recently announced plans to release new material through your own label – Ten Letters which has been described as “the world’s first collaborative, fan-powered record label.” Care to tell us more?<\/strong>
Matt: It’s kind of a shared opportunity. At the moment, The Cape Race doesn’t have much of the traditional team in place that you\u2019d have when you\u2019re releasing a new record from an industry point-of-view, in that there is no-one external working our PR from a web, print, radio or TV angle. I’ve spent the last 3 or 4 years working with an indie (LAB Records) so I have a good understanding of the role a label plays for a band and vice versa. Whilst there\u2019s no-one in the industry doing those things for us, what we do have as a resource to draw upon is a good number of folks who are genuine fans of what we do. I tend to find that a healthy percentage of people who are deeply passionate about music are also interested in a career in the industry, and it\u2019s rarely easy to get your foot on the ladder in that respect. The main problem with trying to do everything in-house is simply that there isn\u2019t the hours in the day to get everything you need to done. So by inviting those people to help out at out a label, we get some much-needed help from a different source than you\u2019d traditionally get it. If something comes of it, the people onboard get to take that experience forward to whatever it is that they want to do next.<\/em><\/p>\n

AH: How did the idea come together and what influenced it?<\/strong>
Matt: On a personal level, I\u2019m kind of obsessed with what\u2019s coming next, and I spend a lot of time thinking about it and looking for opportunities to stay ahead of the curve. Not just from a music industry standpoint\u2026 things like \u201cHow will the distribution of media evolve in the next few years?\u201d, \u201cHow will the technology in our pockets change in the immediate future?\u201d, stuff like that. <\/em><\/p>\n

In the case of Ten Letters, I imagined a scenario where the industry infrastructure as I know it just didn\u2019t exist, was a complete non-sequitur, and thought: \u201cWhere do you start from here?\u201d And the answer to me, strangely, was the same as what the best way to grow is with that infrastructure in place – to win people over a fan at a time, and grow through the people that love what we do sharing it. Growth by word of mouth is the best way to be discovered if you want to have any longevity in my eyes – then it\u2019s based on real people and genuine fans. You can get a degree of hype via bought-and-paid-for press opportunities and advertising but to me it seems hard for that to lead to a sustainable career. You fall as fast as you rise most of the time. If you want to receive attention from the mainstream, and you want that to last, then I think the best way to go about it is to have your own little niche, and to grow it until it\u2019s too big to be ignored by the mainstream. <\/em><\/p>\n

AH: Some may think the idea is ambitious and requires a lot of effort to succeed. Is it a case of you only get out of it from what you put into it?<\/strong>
Matt: Definitely. It will take a lot of hard work to succeed.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/p>\n

AH: How much of an influence is the use of social media on the Ten Letters label model? Is it vital for the label to work?<\/strong>
Matt: Pretty key for the word-of-mouth growth stuff. Actually, taking it further than that, we use a private Facebook group to communicate between members, and we used Twitter to find the people to be involved in the first place. So it would be only fair to say that it\u2019s been vital for us.<\/em><\/p>\n

AH: For The Cape Race, how important is it to be self-sufficient?<\/strong>
Matt: It\u2019s not the be-all-and-end-all, honestly. Especially in fields that aren\u2019t our area of expertise. It\u2019s not that we aren\u2019t open to signing to a label, or working with a press team who can bring things to the table. Ten Letters can be, and is, completely transitional. We called it a label because we\u2019ve started it off by releasing songs through it, but I guess something more vague like \u2018music group\u2019 would be more appropriate. It just does what it needs to do at the time. We could sign to a label and take it with us as an imprint, or we could change its role altogether. Its main goal is to expose us to new people. There\u2019s always new ways to do that. Over self-sufficiency, the most important thing to me is that we can be nimble and adaptive. Alongside creative control, obviously.<\/em><\/p>\n

AH: Fans can collaborate with the band in variety of ways. Could you tell us how they can get involved?<\/strong>
Matt: Creatively, in any useful way that they can think of; they\u2019ve been pitching video ideas, alternative ways to promote ourselves and the ways we can market ourselves\u2026 Elsewhere, they\u2019ve been helping diminish our workload with a few of the more menial and time-consuming \u2018officey\u2019 jobs; collating and updating our press list and so on. It\u2019s essentially a startup. If you have an idea, share it with us and you\u2019ll probably see it executed. You\u2019ll probably head up running it, too.<\/em><\/p>\n

AH: How valuable is having trust in fans\/collaborators in making Ten Letters work?<\/strong>
Matt: Really valuable. Having such an intimate involvement means getting access to things before they\u2019re released et cetera\u2026 we have to hope we have folks onboard who aren\u2019t going to leak the record!<\/em><\/p>\n

AH: As a whole, Ten Letters is an intriguing project. How has the feedback been since its launch?<\/strong>
Matt: Overwhelmingly positive, and very curious. A lot of people seem to be interested in how it will play out. Hell, I am.<\/em><\/p>\n

AH: Going back to The Cape Race, you spent last summer recording your d\u00e9but full-length (‘Home, Truths’<\/em>) and is the follow up to your mini-album ‘Now, Voyager.’<\/em> How has the band developed inbetween releases?<\/strong>
Matt: Artistically, I just think we\u2019ve found our feet as songwriters. It\u2019s the most accomplished version of us.<\/em><\/p>\n

AH: However ‘Home, Truths’<\/em> does include songs from ‘Now, Voyager.’ <\/em>Why have you decided to keep those songs rather than a complete new set of songs?<\/strong>
Matt: ‘Now, Voyager’ was (I hate this term) a bit of a soft launch for the band – it was our first release and we\u2019re under no illusions that we aren\u2019t a big name yet. I think there\u2019s some really strong songs on that record that deserve a bigger push and to be heard by a bigger audience. And there\u2019s no reason not to give them that chance.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/p>\n

AH: The first song released from the album is ‘Digging For Gold.’<\/em> What was the reason behind choosing this as the first song?<\/strong>
Matt: It\u2019s one to announce to the people that know about us that we\u2019re back. It\u2019s a fairly long song at just under six minutes, so it isn\u2019t one that we were thinking would be a traditional single\u2026 and honestly, we wanted to hold those ones back while built our momentum up as much as possible. It\u2019s also a fairly good representation of the album as a whole; there\u2019s elements of our whole sound baked into that one\u2026 the quiet \/ loud dynamic, delicacy and fragility running parallel with urgency and abrasiveness. <\/em><\/p>\n

AH: The song is about dealing with the lost of someone close; mourning their absence. Does it give a good idea that ‘Home, Truths’ is a lyrically a deeply personal album?<\/strong>
Matt: Yes, it is indeed. We usually like to leave things a little vague so that people can find their own meanings, but I think lost is something everyone can relate to. The album is incredibly personal – there\u2019s a lot of metaphor that stops it being a completely literal autobiography, and there\u2019s a fair amount of social commentary in there too, but all-in-all, it\u2019s very much our story. David has done an incredible job on this record lyrically. <\/em><\/p>\n

AH: When can we expect to hear more about ‘Home, Truths’?<\/strong>
Matt: You can expect to hear more very soon indeed. Our next single is called Home Truths (Like the album but without the comma) and we\u2019ll be announcing the release date for that very soon. I just saw the first cut of the music video this week actually. It was directed by our talented friend and sixth member Duncan Howsley – and it\u2019s my favourite video of ours to date. Very excited to let that loose on the world.<\/em><\/p>\n

AH: Alongside the release of the album and Ten Letters, what else can we expect from The Cape Race in 2013?<\/strong>
Matt: A ton of music videos, and shows where the people would like to see us.<\/em><\/p>\n

AH: Any final words to share with the Already Heard readers?<\/strong>
Matt: If you haven\u2019t heard us yet, and anything you\u2019ve read here has piqued your interest, it would mean the world to us if you would exercise your curiosity in one of the various places we reside online, which I\u2019m presumptuously assuming Sean will be kind enough to link to just below this!<\/em><\/p>\n

‘Digging For Gold’ <\/em>by The Cape Race<\/strong> is available now on iTunes<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Further information on\u00a0Ten Letters<\/strong> can be found at\u00a0www.tenlette.rs<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The Cape Race<\/strong> links: Official Website<\/a>|Facebook<\/a>|Twitter<\/a>|Tumblr<\/a>|Youtube<\/a>|Bandcamp<\/a><\/p>\n

Words by Sean Reid.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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