Foto-© Kris Kesiak

Sänger Jack Sedman und der Gitarrist Harry Drap sind schon seit Jahren beste Freunde. Aus dem Nichts haben die beiden angefangen Songs zu schreiben. Ein Vorgang, der äußerst organisch vor sich ging. Es folgten einige EPs und ein Album. Jeder ihrer Songs strahlt eine ganz besondere Wärme aus und verzaubert den Hörer auf eine ganz spezielle Art und Weise. Heute folgt auf das 2016-Debütalbum Tell Me It’s Real nun endlich das neue Seafret-Album Most Of Us Are Strangers – wir haben das britische Duo zum Track by Track gebeten:

1.) MOST OF US ARE STRANGERS

Most of us are strangers, is based around hiding emotions or troubles to save inflicting the worry on others. We go about our daily lives interacting with the same friends, colleagues and loved ones, but most of time the appearance that we give is not a true reflection of how we may be feeling on the inside. If we were to share our true feelings, our triumphs, battles and our defeats there’s a big chance people’s opinions of us would completely change, thus making most of us strangers. We tend to hold things back because people are all too quick to judge. To us, although melancholic, the song is hopeful and says “It’s ok to open up and it’s ok not to be ok.

2.) BE MY QUEEN

This track is one of our favourites off the new record. It’s seemed to write itself in the studio. When the guitar part was found I started experimenting with melodies and it lended itself to a more rhythmic fast and almost spoken tone – something we had never attempted before. This contrasted with the the almost shouting chorus gave the impact we hoped the track would have. Definitely going to be a favorite one to play live!

3.) WHY DO WE STAY

This idea had been hanging around for a while and was just a guitar part for a very long time but when we sat with it in the studio we started hearing it in a new way. It was inspired by situations I’d witnessed where a person I knew felt trapped due to the circumstances in their life and me trying to tell them things are going to get better. It was hard to write because you have to put yourself in that situation in your mind and it’s a difficult place to be and not feel helpless. The track starts with just raw sounding guitar and ends with swirling atmospherics and a heavy beat. It’s another brilliant one in the new live set.

4.) FALL

Fall was written at a time where a label had walked away from us and we were told no one would want anything to do with us after being on a major label. We had a decision to make; either believe what we were told or carry on regardless. We carried on. Angst and pressure come through the track in both the vocal and production. We hadn’t considered having this on the album but once we were listening through everything we’d recorded it seemed right to include it and now we can’t imagine it not being on there.

5.) MAGNETIC

We wanted to have something that people could jump about to on this album and let loose. Magnetic is that track! It was so much fun writing and recording this song – it had us all up showing our best moves. It’s quite different from the previous stuff but we’re not afraid to try new styles and if it makes you feel good then why not! It was inspired by that draw you feel towards someone when you fall for them. That feeling like there’s no escape. It’s both thrilling and terrifying simultaneously but you know there’s no way you could walk away.

6.) GIRL I WISH I DIDN’T KNOW

This was one of those tracks that we found the guitar verse part for first and both loved it being so simple. We then joked about it and slightly panicked because we knew we had a big job on our hands doing the song justice. Jack took the track away that night and wrote the lyric and the following day we recorded it. Another favourite from the album.

7.) LOVE WON’t LET ME LEAVE

Love Won’t Let Me Leave was a track we had written a long time before we went into the studio to record the album. We’d written a lot in the build up to the final writing and recording session but this song stood the test of time. It fit so well when we were listening through to the tracks and deciding on what to have on the album that we couldn’t leave it off.

8.) MONSTERS

We’ve had this song for a little while and it always goes down a storm live! When we wrote this we were pushing ourselves out of our comfort zone and seeing what we could get away with when writing and putting music out. Inspired by anxiety and pressure of the outside world it’s a dark sounding track with Harry’s crazy fast finger picking..it had to be on the record.

9.) CAN’T LOOK AWAY

This track was written before we went into the studio but was another that sat really well with the rest of the tracks. People loved it when we released it so we didn’t want it to be left out. Originally written on guitar, we started playing this one on the piano in our live shows to give the song a twist to those who’d heard it before coming to see us. Another great one to perform live.

10.) LIE TO ME

Lie to me was recorded towards the end of the recording time for the album. We wanted a track with a whole different feel, something that could stand out on its own. We decided to try and achieve this using more stripped back production and more natural sounds. So much fun to record and once we had the first line ‘Even in a crowded room, I’d recognize your perfume’ the rest seemed to write itself.

11.) LOVING YOU

As soon as we found the piano chords and the first little bit of melody to ‘Loving You’ we both felt it had chance of being a really strong song. (Note to self – never tell yourself a song is going to be great until it’s finished). We took our time with this and tried to be as direct in the lyric and chord progression as possible and after a couple of days we felt we had it where we wanted it to be.

12.) UNBREAKABLE

Unbreakable was a song that ,like most songs, started off as a rough piece of guitar playing. There was something about it when I heard the chords so I kept it in my mind knowing one day it would turn into something. When we were up in the studio I showed Harry what I had in my head and he played it better than I could ever hear it. Once it was being played out in the open I could conceptualize it a lot more clearly. The sketchy and blurry words that kept coming to mind in the past started to make sense and eventually after a couple of days we had it recorded and finished. I absolutely love the middle section of the track and remember getting goosebumps listening back to it for the first time.