Exclusive Interview with CANDID

Candid, a Coventry-based indie band, aims to represent their city with pride across the nation. The five-live piece’s performances continue to leave an indelible mark despite comparisons to bands such as Stereophonics, The Academic, and The Amazons. With a growing fan base in the United Kingdom and a presence in the United States via the NFL and SiriusXM, the band is poised to achieve new heights in the coming year. After the success of ‘Wasted Time,’ which gained over two hundred thousand streams within six months and inclusion in Spotify Editorials such as The New Alt and New Noise, Candid are prepared to return to battle. After two years of excruciating delays due to national regulations, the band’s recent hometown headline was received with a sigh of relief from both the band and the 1,000 strong crowd in attendance. This was a major success for an unsigned band’s DIY highlight concert. The performance was a huge success, and the band is now eager to move on to bigger and better things. Having supported The Snuts, Tom Clarke (The Enemy), and The Fratellis, as well as appearing at the Isle of Wight Festival, BBC Radio 1’s Big Weekend, and YNOT? Festival, the band gave a powerful conclusion to the year with their largest Birmingham Headlining to date on September 10th. Check out their song ‘Tonight’ and the exclusive interview below:

1. Can you tell us a bit about where you come from and how it all got started?

CANDID: So, Candid’s initial conception was in the secondary school in Coventry myself, Sam and Dan attended. With me and Dan being brothers, we’d played music together from the second we were able to around the house, at Christmas and all that classic stuff you’re forced to do having learnt 3 chords in school. We played locally for a few years covering our favourite indie tracks and started to take it seriously once we found our drummer, Alex, who brought so much life and energy into the outfit. We’ve worked flat-out for years ever since, and recently acquired a fifth member in Max, who added a synthy psychedelic sparkle that we have been missing to separate us from the classic guitar driven sound we’d otherwise been using beforehand. In its final formation in the time of writing this our sound has developed hugely and we feel like we finally know who we are.

2. Did you have any formal training or are you self-taught?

CANDID: Guitar wise, I’d had lessons since the age of 10 and stopped formally learning when I was about 15/16, the same with my brother Dan (lead guitarist) and Sam (Bass). Fun fact – we were all taught by the same guitar teacher in our school. Bons has been hammering the drums since he was old enough to, there’s videos of him at like 6 drumming to queen on YouTube. I think Max is predominantly self-taught. I think unless you’re super dedicated to an instrument you reach a level and tend to find a glass ceiling, breaking through takes years of extra love for the craft. I got more into songwriting and exploring that side of the instrument, which doesn’t require formal training, more just exposing yourself to as much inspiration as possible. Vocally, not an ounce of training, however I’ve always wanted to have a go at some training, more out of curiosity than anything.

3. Who were your first and strongest musical influences and why the name
‘CANDID’?

CANDID: The Beatles were my first musical obsession, before that I was probably into whatever was on the radio. I had a few indie songs on my Sony Ericsson, whatever I could get a mate to bluetooth over, probably the Pigeon Detectives, The Hoosiers or some Kooks. Discovering The Beatles made me pretty much obsess over music & bands ever since, leading me to find Oasis, The Smiths, The Rolling Stones etc. Although you may not hear The Beatles in our music, Candid very much wouldn’t be a thing without them – very much like any other band ever since! With me and Dan (lead) guitar coming from the same household, our Dad listened to The Smiths a lot which has bled into our influences and playing style.

4. What do you feel are the key elements in your music that should resonate with listeners, and how would you personally describe your sound?

CANDID: There is a lot of transparency in the sound and lyrics, it’s open and honest. We’ve recently started to fuse a lot of synth into our otherwise guitar driven sound, which has made the world of difference. We can go from soft acoustic to all out spluttering riffs, both of which we attack with the same mindset of carrying a message of emotion.

5. For most artists, originality is first preceded by a phase of learning and, often, emulating others. What was this like for you? How would you describe your own development as an artist and music maker, and the transition towards your own style, which is known as ROCK?

CANDID:

Oh yeah, everyone starts out emulating. It’s the only way – make mistakes, be called a rip off and then find your feet. All bands tend to have a reason they started or a band that made them want to be in a band. I would encourage any starter artists to spend as much time writing initially and aiming to really understand who they are, what their narrative is and discovering a potential uniqueness in their sound. It’ll save a lot of time – we learnt through years of trial and error. Being too close in sound to others, not really knowing who we are or just not having the right advice, it can trip you up.

6. What’s your view on the role and function of music as political, cultural, spiritual, and/or social vehicles – and do you try and affront any of these themes in your work, or are you purely interested in music as an expression of technical artistry, personal narrative, and entertainment?

CANDID:

A little bit of both. We do like to explore certain social situations and political situations, but this is done almost subliminally. It’s not pushing views onto people, maybe more of a commentary. We’ve discussed mental health quite a few times as a band, especially in a song called Through All The Fighting – this song provides support to those in a dark time as it’s so open and honest it would show the listener they’re not alone.

7. Do you feel that your music is giving you back just as much fulfilment as the amount of work you are putting into it or are you expecting something more, or different in the future?

CANDID:

Not at the moment, certainly not financially. It’s an investment game being in a band. How much time you invest, how long you wait, how hard you work determines the end results. We’ve changed a lot in the way we work recently to try a new approach, doing the same thing over and over expecting different results isnt persistence, it’s a waste of time. We see a future in CANDID, we just understand we’re not a band who it’ll happen to overnight.

8. What has been the most difficult thing you’ve had to endure in your life or music career so far?

CANDID:

In our music career, probably the general ups and downs. Realizing the time and years of effort and sleepless nights it takes to make a small difference to your career overall. Becoming fixated on numbers, followers, having to be a TikTok personality, all of the modern requirements of a band that deviate from being a musician has been quite hard as of late. It’s very taxing. That being said, we’re very aware of the reality and do consistently work hard and adjust our perspective to keep going.

9. With social media having a heavy impact on our lives and the music business in general, how do you handle criticism, haters, and/or naysayers in general? Is it something you pay attention to, or simply ignore?

CANDID: Always ignore that sort of interaction, everyone has an opinion and music is an opinion based art, its part and parcel of it. Social media is good for raising and building awareness but creates real bad working habits, fixating on numbers, streams, followers, constantly comparing and never quite feeling good enough.

10. Do you think is it important for fans of your music to understand the real story and message driving each of your songs, or do you think everyone should be free to interpret your songs in their own personal way?

CANDID: Everyone should be allowed to interpret the music as they please I think, it’s what makes music so great. The fact that a song can mean something totally different between two different people is fascinating, it’s up to the listener to relate to the song in their own way rather than being given strict instructions.