I first heard of Stratford Rise a few years ago, but didn't check them out back then. Around 3 months ago I saw that a fan started diligently archiving all of their live recordings so I decided to give them a listen, and I'm glad I did.

I hopped on a call with Orion (vox/guitar), Rory (guitar) and Tom (bass) around a month ago. Below is that conversation.

How did you guys meet each other?

Orion: Does either of my friends Tom or Rory want to say anything first?
Tom: Orion is kinda the mutual friend of everyone, I wouldn't know Rory if it wasn't for Orion and I probably wouldn't know Ruben either. So you're probably better telling it.
O: Me and Ruben, we met through school when we were really really really young, I was maybe 13 or 14 and he was like 12. He was like the hotshot drummer that just joined my secondary school. We met having to rehearse for the primary school department of this big ass school. We were rehearsing for the kiddie pantomime and we both thought we were awesome.

(Pause for a few seconds) sorry I'm just trying to remember the early hangouts of me and Ruben. It was a really weird in-between point where I was quite a bit older than Ruben, well not quite a bit but the gap between 11/12 and 13/14 is only 2-3 years but it's massive, like you don't have a personality before that (laughing). We were jamming and making super awesome complicated stuff, I was like "this guy is the best musician I played with in my life". Then we would go and do front-flips on trampolines. I'd be at the bottom to throw the mattress underneath him - anyways I'm rambling. It was fun though.

Was this in Belfast?

O: We all live and we've all lived in, except for Tom, in Bangor. Bangor's about half an hour outside of Belfast. It's technically a city now but it really was like the largest town in Northern Ireland, unless I'm forgetting something else.

Tom's dad, who's this lovely guy called Marty Martin, helps us record and he drives us around with a van. He works in the college that my parents work at. He's in charge of the music department, he's like a technician kinda guy. My mum's like the deputy head of that department. (Laughing) it's not that nepo, I swear to god. I met Rory through another mutual friend who was in a different iteration of the band previously. We kinda came together as a big old unit with a few others at some point. A few people went through the bassist title before we settled on Tim.
T: He means me.
O: (laughing) Yeah he fucking hates when I call him Tim.

Were you writing your originals before you met each other, or did that start after you formed some kind of a band?

O: In any iteration, I've only played in a band with these numbskulls really. With extra guest stars here and there once in a blue moon.
Rory: Same.
O: We only played like one or two covers ever, and that was with half the members and half the skill. We started writing originals pretty much as soon as we possibly could. In the early times they involved a lot of Sonic Youth-esque tunings, a lot of corny shit like that (laughing). A lot of E-flats, no harm to any band that does that kind of thing but I find E-flat a bit of a... I don't know. What is it Rory?
R: It's a bit soppy.
O: Yeah it's like a soppy sound. We basically wrote an entire albums worth of material in E-flat, I was almost rolling my eyes listening back to the day after we shat it out to Bandcamp.

What are the main influences that you each have?

T: They'd be very similar, like almost identical between all of us. I'm trying to think of the main ones.. Probably at the start it would have been like Gilla Band and the New York no-wave scene. These days it's a bit more... Well it was XTC for a while, now I'm not too sure.
R: We all really like Grizzly Bear at the moment (everyone agreeing). We do have our individual tastes and things that we don't like about each other's tastes though, we're not like some weird hive mind (laughing).

Yeah I remember in the BBC interview there being a lot of divide.

R: Yeah Ruben likes metal, I like a bunch of random stuff as well. Many of us don't listen to metal that much so that's kinda the only divide. Back to main influences though (thinking)...
T: Palm as well.
O: Yeah we're going to see their new iteration (Kassie Krut), they're playing Bello Bar in August. We've loved Palm for a really long time. Tom showed me Gilla Band, and I thought it was fucking crazy. I couldn't believe it. They're so innovative, it's ridiculous.
R: Yeah the most formative would probably be Gilla Band. We were also very early to Black Midi. We used to listen to the old bootlegs, the NTS session.

We're talking pre-Schlagenheim?

R: Yeah. We still quite all like Schlagenheim, Ruben is a fan as well. Don't listen to it as much now, but they definitely left the mark.
O: If I ever get an itch for Black Midi I almost never listen to the album, I go listen to some bootlegs, maybe from my lovely friend Lucas Lockeridge's channel (laughing).

Yeah I do see Schlagenheim comparisons to your music online, and I assume you guys take that in a positive way?

R: Yeah I wouldn't say we actively take influence in that sense. Obviously when you listen to something like that it probably has an effect on you subconsciously and you make decisions based on what you heard. But like with any of our influences, we don't sit in and go "we're going to write a song that's exactly like this". Right guys... have you been doing that behind my back? (everyone laughing)

Relating to that, what does the songwriting process look like? Do they come out of nothing during jams or does someone come in with the core of the song and you build on it?

R: Both, sometimes they come from jam sessions, usually someone comes in with a concept or a sound. It can be quite annoying to write with because it's such an indescribable thing like a random pedal sound (everyone agreeing).
O: I can understand now why Gilla Band takes eons to get anything written. Because trying to write with noise can be so fucking annoying, it's like molding clay man.. If you're writing songs with riffs and chords, they're kinda like pre-molded pieces of plastic, like lego or something. But with noise it's like I'm running my hands through a bucket of mud, and I have to make this into a Venus de Milo? Like are you serious? It's a real team effort when you make noisy songs. With Tom's songs he comes in with a stronger idea, (laughing) half of mine are kinda shat out that then have to be fleshed out during practise unless they wither and die before that. Every idea has a shelf life, sometimes we work on them sometimes we don't.

When an idea happens you have to make it happen more and more before it gets really stale and boring, and you shelve it for a fucking eon (laughing). I'm really talking from experience here, there's quite a back catalog that we shelved because we couldn't figure out a way of doing it.

If I were to go to Belfast (or Bangor), which venues and bands should I check out?

R: For venues we'll do Oyster Sports Club, Deer's Head... Voodoo is a good one as well.
O: Black Box puts on really good gigs (everyone agreeing). Moving On Music is there as well, that's really good, a lot of experimental stuff. Accidental Theatre as well, they do a monthly night called Handmade Music. It's like a BYO, experimental music night kind of thing. I've played it a few times in this improv ensemble. That's a lot of fun. In terms of venues, what else... SSE Arena man, it was fucking awesome when we played the SSE arena, one million people came to see us, our legions of fans, it was crazy. I got to sign Elton John's chest as well, it was brilliant.
R: There's a good independent venue called Runda Studios as well. For bands, we are big Junk Drawer fans, Makeshift Artbar are awesome.
T: Enola Gay as well, are up north. Makeshift Artbar and Enola Gay are probably the closest to us genre-wise.
R: There's a band I've been obsessed with... What was it..
T: Are you thinking of Search Results?
O: Yeah they're not north, they're from Dublin but they are fucking spectacular. They put out an album the same day we put our EP out, and it's a fucking belter of an album, it's great. I've had it on repeat for like 4 days.

Do you have any rituals that you do on the day of the gig to get into the zone?

O: (Laughing) not to be gross here but I think some of us like to go to the bathroom for a very long time on the day of the gig. It's gotta happen. It could be any of us... certainly not Tom.
R: I was gonna say a nice big lunch. We're usually not too bad with stage fright though, we're a pretty composed bunch.
O: Yeah it's a shame, I don't really get nervous. I actively try to puke on stage but it never happens.

What's been your most memorable gig so far?

T: Off the top of my head, the Anseo gig ages ago, that was a highlight for me. Then we did one for halloween-
R: Supporting Jesus Lizard was obviously very memorable (everyone agreeing).
O: Yeah and they were big ass stages. The most recent two shows we did. Seeing these were just last week (Workmans Cellar and Ulster Sports Club), maybe that's an insight into my memory and how awesome it is. I was particularly happy with those two performances though, and the audience was happy because they were smiling. We got quite a few more people than we expected.
R: American Bar (everyone laughing).
T: Although that was memorable, long story short no one showed up. It was very small as well, it was pretty awkward.
O: Rory had to be off the stage because the stage wasn't big enough to have all of us on.

You just released an EP, what's the plan for the future? Are we getting more EPs or are we getting an album next?

O: Who's gonna tell him (laughing)? I'll break the news. We were in the studio this week, we were gonna shit out EP2, get it all recorded-
R: Well not "shit out".
T: "Meticulously craft" is the word.
O: Yeah we're going "meticulously craft" this beautiful piece of art. We were in today.
T: Who knows when it will actually be out though, we take a long time.

When did you record the one that just came out (EP1)?

T: (everyone laughing) technically it started around 2 years ago, we're aiming for less than that this time.
R: Yeah we won't take as long.
T: It should be within the year. Before Christmas.
O: But don't hold that to us though. We were in today and Ruben one-take wondered every single track, literally one take. It was a beautiful thing to see, I was dancing and crying it was brilliant. I went and bought flowers and I threw roses onto his drumkit. I didn't do that.. but that was awesome. Maybe it'll be out next week, who knows?