Last Friday rising UK pop punks Highlives released their new EP – ‘Misguided Youth’. With big hooks throughout with songs like ‘Wake Me Up’, ‘Better Days’ and ‘Waking Blind’ offering thick sonic riffs. Lyrically takes a sincere route adding a raw substance to the quartet’s sound.
Having previously premiered ‘Walking Blind’ ahead of the EP release, Already Heard has teamed up with the band once again as they have provided us with an exclusive “Studio Report” for us.
Read on as Highlives discuss ‘Misguided Youth’ how came together.
As we headed into the studio, on some songs we were very prepared. For example ‘Wake Me Up’ is pretty much exactly the same as how it was written, as well as ‘Walking Blind’. However, Twenty Two’ went through a whole bunch of drastic changes from the point that we started writing it, to being the song that it is now. We added the finishing touches to ‘Better Days’ and ‘Heavy Weight’ a few days before hitting the studio, and not much changed after that apart from a few parts being added/taken away.
We opted for Nolly to produce, at his space in Bath, after being put in contact with him for a writing session through Joseph Buscema. We went to his over a couple of days and wrote a demo for ‘Wake Me Up’. We worked so well with him that we decided we had to record our EP with him!
For the recording itself, with the tracks we had demos for, we started straight away programming some basic drums and then moved onto the guitars and then bass. We kept editing the drums throughout the recording process so they fit as well as they could with the rest of the music. With the tracks we didn’t have demos for, I recorded a very rough guide track on guitar to a click and we followed the same process, using that rather than demos. We then moved on to doing vocals, starting with Liam’s and switching to recording Ben (Lucas)’ vocals whenever his were lead or if Liam simply needed a break. After we were finished with this, Nolly and Steve went to the Ranch Studios in Southampton to record drums.
This is the first EP where we have all come out being 100% happy with everything. It shows our progression as a band, as well as well as several different writing styles of ours. It’s also our longest release to date; our past two EPs have only consisted of two tracks. I think this release shows a lot more of our potential and is a clear step up from everything we’ve released in the past.
‘Misguided Youth’ EP Highlives is released for free on December 11th through Bandcamp.
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