Glasgowโs The Exhales are a reviving indie-rock quartet composed of vocalist and guitarist Jack Hayes, bassist Aaron Melrose, guitarist Josh Parr, and drummer Robert Young. During covid-19 in 2021, the band was created when vocalist and guitarist Jack left his hometown of Barrow-in-Furness to form a band in Glasgow. There, he met drummer Robert, who was hoping to reignite his passion for music. Jack was followed by bassist Aaron, who had discovered a natural aptitude, and guitarist Josh, who, like Jack, had fled his hometown of Campbeltown in order to compose original music. The Exhales emerged on the Scottish music scene in early 2022 after guitarist Josh Parr joined the group. They achieved their first success by selling out their first gig at the iconic โKing Tuts Wah Wah Hutโ as part of the โNew Yearโs Resolutionsโ festival, which led to the band establishing relationships with some of Scotlandโs heaviest promoters DF Concerts and RCMS Presents.
Their characteristic infectious melodic hooks, nostalgic lyrics, and powerful percussion fills convey their own coming-of-age experience. The band independently released their debut single โSilver Smileโ on June 24, 2022. The song told a story of love and heartbreak, falling for the perfect girl and attempting to discover out their flaws. The release received accolades from BBC Introducing Scotland, Amazing Radio, and Unsigned Madness, leading to the band dominating several iconic venues across the central-belt playing to packed-out rooms, such as Nice โNโ Sleazy, Room 2 with โKing Tuts Wah Wah Hutโsโ being at the top of the list having played as part of their โSummer nightsโ festival, later supporting โThe Clockworksโ at the Glasgow date of their UK tour.
The band released their second self-released single titled โCall on Karmaโ on December 2, 2022. The song tells the story of fleeing the complexities of small town thinking, poisonous relationships, grief, and the realization that not everywhere is like this. At Glasgowโs Nice โNโ Sleazy on November 25, The Exhales rounded out a successful year with a headline performance preceding the release of their song. Check out the song and the exclusive interview below:
1. Can you tell us a bit about where you come from and how it all got started?
THE EXHALES: Well the band is a bit of a mix, we have Jack (vocalist & guitarist)ย who is from barrow-in-Furness, Josh (lead Guitarist) from Campbell town, Iโm from Glasgow and Aaron (bassist) is from Coatbridge, through a bit of trial and error it took us a while to find each other but once Josh joined the band it all came together, from there we kinda knew that we could start working on writing music and playing shows. โ Robert Young Drummer
I come from a small town on the west coast called Campbeltown, I joined โThe Exhalesโ February 2022 after seeing a post on a Facebook musician page looking for a lead guitarist for an indie pop band which intrigued me as when I clicked on their page It turned out i knew Robert (drummer) from college, as we were in college together so I immediately message them saying I was interested and that I knew Rab but, Iโm terrible with technology and I hadnโt seen that jack messaged me the week before, after I sent a post out seeing if anyone wanted to start a band within the same genre and style as they were already doing do. So Iโm glad they didnโt get someone else! โ Josh Parr Lead Guitarist
2. Did you have any formal training or are you self-taught?
THE EXHALES:ย I wouldnโt say any of us have any formal training outside maybe the odd high school music lesson; most of our practice as individuals came from sitting in our rooms listening to our favorite records trying to play along. โ Robert Young Drummer
Iโve never had a professional lesson at all cause in my hometown there wasnโt anyone who did lessons, so I taught myself from the age of 10 to play through Youtube Tutorials and constant practice in my room driving my family crazy sometimes but as I got better they enjoyed listening to me playing. Thankfully. I would still love to get some lessons as I am that type of person who likes to keep learning my instrument. Iโm fascinated with new techniques and styles of guitar playing.
My bass sat in my cupboard for quite a while. I didnโt really learn until joining the band and most of what I know by writing and playing alongside the guys. โ Aaron Melrose Bassist
3. Who were your first and strongest musical influences and why the name โTHE EXHALESโ?
THE EXHALES:ย I have three main influences that made me wanna play the guitar. First is Matthew Murphy from the Wombats who I idolise and think is the coolest person in the music industry, second is Matthew Followill from King of Leon who amazes me in every KOL song as his playing is experimental and catchy and effective. And lastly is David Evans (The Edge) and I think every time he plays he catches everyoneโs attention in the songs with catchy hooks and simplicity of chord progressions. I take a lot from each of these players and add my own style on top of it. My favorite motto in the band is โless is moreโ. I like to play for the song and not have skill or guitar over power other elements of our songs. I think all of these players have done that to a tee and thatโs what I try to bring to the band. โ Josh Parr Lead Guitarist
The name โThe Exhalesโ originally came from when Jack (Vocalist & Rhythm Guitar) and his girlfriend were watching a film that wasnโt in English so they had the subtitles on and when someone in the film wasnโt talking the words (Exhales) came up and Jack jokingly suggested it to his partner as joke and he loved it so much that it became the bandโs name.
My influences come from metal, shoegaze, emo rock math and house which is not what youโd think listening to our music, but it has a huge part to play when we are practicing and writing new material as I am able to take those influences and mold it into something original. โ Aaron Melrose
Personally, I would say that Catfish and the Bottlemen, kings of Leon and potentially Foo Fighters where a huge influence when we first started out as a band as those were bands we all liked in common, but as we got to know each other and how we played we have started to find our own unique sound which takes from all of the many different musical influences that flow through us as a band collective.- Robert Young Drummer
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?
THE EXHALES:ย Everyone in the band are great players and we are all striving to develop and grow. This helps us write songs that are simple but effective, our music surrounds Jackโs incredible song-writing to tell stories and reflect the meaning of each song. As our skills strengthen and develop, it helps us come up with new concepts that will mature with the bandโs sound. Itโs really interesting and great to write and play in that environment.
Our sound started off as Indie Pop and is evolving to Indie Rock with a great groove, as our rhythm section has people dancing in the crowd and I am sure this time next year weโll have expanded on our sound to that fully. But donโt be surprised if we throw a curveball and pull other genres into our writing. โ Josh Parr Lead Guitarist
Our main aim is to create big beats and chanting choruses. We want everyone at a gig to be able to dance and enjoy what they are hearing. Josh and Jack ( the guitar boys) spend a lot of time shaping their tones to stand out and capture an audience. โ Aaron Melrose Bassist
As a band the elements that listeners should resonate with are the punchy lyricism which match the tones and rhythms of the guitars. With funky beats on the drums I feel listeners should resonate with the beat and have a dance while listening to our songs. I would personally describe our sound as an alternative pop, meaning that we have catchy chord rhythms and drum beats that make it a bit more heavy than generic pop on its own. Our new sound definitely takes the alternative and pushes it to the forefront. โ Robert Young Drummer
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 INDIE?
THE EXHALES:
When I joined the band they already had a setlist ready for their next gig and I had to learn each song within a month for that show. Jack wrote all the songs and is still the main songwriter but after 6 months of being in the band, we started to bounce our own ideas off each other and started to write as a band, our next release really showcases our ability to write as a full band, the journey we have been on and come into our own sound.
We still take inspiration from our influences, whether that be a tone or feel and we use that to create our own original sound. Weโve come up with some exciting new songs that we canโt wait for everyone to hear. โ Josh Parr Lead Guitarist
When you try to write something new, you might be subconsciously ripping off a song thatโs a fact, but we jam around in practice and what starts as an idea or concept gets developed as weย add our own structure, style and create something original. Jack comes in with the ideas and we work on shaping it into something original. We donโt restrict ourselves to one genre which has allowed us to create music we relate to and enjoy opposed to writing for the genre that can bottleneck a band.
I agree with the statement that most of us started learning by emulating others, watching live performances of our favourite artists and trying to take inspiration and influence from our idolโs performances. In the beginning we would often play parts from songs that we have learned and when doing that a new strumming pattern or chord progression comes to mind and then we work on that adding our own spin and style to it. Finding our own style was a slow process but as soon as we found it, there was no turning back.ย Right now we are striving towards our sound we would like as a band.
6. Whatโs your view on the role and function of music as political, cultural, spiritual, and/or social vehicles โ 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?
THE EXHALES:
I think music as a whole is so integral to society as its effect on everyone is different and that is what we want to be part of. Music helped me through everything in my life in the lows and highs and even gave me courage to do certain things and express myself more in my social life. The way the world is the now I think music is one of the few things that still bring people together and reminds us all that were all the same and that everyone feels the same at some point in their life whether its about loss, love, Joy and if at the end of the day, ifย we have an impact on 10 peoples lives with our music, I see that as a success.- Josh Parr Lead Guitarist
Jack can tell you a lot about his lyrics on a personal level, one thing that is admirably original. Our goal is to bring folk to a gig, put on a great show, and let people enjoy our, we donโt have aย political agenda. โ Aaron Melrose Bassist
I believe that the function of music is and can be universal in the way of it being political, cultural etc, I am reminded of an artist called Rodriguez whoโs songs became very influential and important to the South African apartheid, music can be anything and interpreted in many different ways, for us though as a band and the music we make, it definitely is from a personal narrative most of the time. โ Robert Young Drummer
7. Do you feel that your music is giving you back just as much fulfillment as the amount of work you are putting into it or are you expecting something more, or different in the future?
THE EXHALES:
I absolutely agree that it does, it puts us all through all the emotions when writing, sometimes itโs hard to get our concept across but when we get it we are all filled with excitement and joy and itโs allย worth the hours playing the song over and over again to finally agree were all happy it is the best the song can be. I think we all are expecting that over the years to come we will still have these emotions about the songwriting process but we will conquer them quicker and as long as we are all 100% interested in the band, we will be as successful as we can be.
Playing live and recording have been totally different experiences. I would like to think weโre constantly improving our live sound though. We want to start harnessing a particular sound for an album, but we canโt help but be quite experimental and chop and change โ thatโs where we all have fun at practice. โ Aaron Melrose Bassist
Music will always give back as much fulfillment as the amount we put in, we are expecting a lot of exciting things coming this year and canโt wait to experience all the different types of shows and music that will help us develop our sound in the future.- Robert Young Drummer
8. Could you describe your creative processes? How do you usually start, and go about shaping ideas into a completed song? Do you usually start with a tune, a beat, or a narrative in your head? And do you collaborate with others in this process?
THE EXHALES:
We tend to have two ways, first is chaotic, we will all just jam and one of us plays something that we all think is class and we start to shape that idea into a song, we record it on out phones and take it into Jackโs home studio and develop it endlessly to see if we can get something that we are all proud of.
Then the second is more structured where someone mentions a song, album or concept that they want to emulate the story, tone or beat and we sit listening to the artist or develop the concept further and identify what we like and donโt like, then we sit in the studio and come up with chord progressions and hooks that give us the same feel. For Example I said to Jack I really wanted a song that would sound like it would make you wanna drive in a fast car and Jack came up with โSilver smileโ โ Josh Parr Lead Guitarist
Similar to what Josh has said, Jack comes in with chords and lyrics, Rab (drummer) pulls out some good drum beats and we play around with the structure adding our own ideas until we have a finished product, itโs a very satisfying experience. โ Aaron Melrose Bassist
The creative process for us takes many forms, sometimes we start off with some chords just playing around with them, other times a beat on the drums can start some inspiration for a tune, the collaboration comes in with our newer songs as we all have an input to where we want the song to go. โ Robert Young Drummer
9. What has been the most difficult thing youโve had to endure in your life or music career so far?
THE EXHALES: To be honest itโs sadly comes down to the money aspect of it as you need to devote a lot of your hard earned money into it for practice, maintenance, travel and gigs and since none of us are rich and are all working class people we have very little to put in but still we find a way to make extra money to put into the band fund and we all support each other financially as we each know what itโs like to live off scraps and living paycheck to paycheck.
Learning to play as a band and not in my room over a Spotify track was a learning curve. I wouldnโt call myself a musician as Iย donโt know theory, but playing around in practice and playing live has taught me a lot. โ Aaron Melrose Bassist
The most difficult thing I have had to endure in my music career so far has been December just past, I got hit by a taxi and couldnโt practice or accept any shows for a full month due to a major concussion, once we came back we had to make sure I was alright to play and the noise wasnโt to much for my headโฆ P.S the taxi got written off, Iโm SOLID haha! โ Robert Young Drummer
10. On the contrary, what would you consider a successful, proud or significant point in your life or music career so far?
THE EXHALES: Personally, I would say the relationship we have with each other in the band from members to our manager and the people who have supported and helped us. We have really made a family support system which helps us all with being able to devout the time and effort which people who come see us live tell us that the atmosphere created from the stage reflects our closeness as a band who enjoy playing music together. We are all just looking to make great music and enjoy our time doing it, rather than trying to be a superstar and if we keep doing what weโre doing, and do it well, success will hopefully follow. We really love all our fans who spend their hard earned money to come see us live and the numbers we get sometimes I canโt believe!ย โ Josh Parr Lead Guitarist
Playing gigs and writing our own songs, being able to share our music that we have created as a group of 4 to friends and family, is what Iโm most proud of,ย but making good, loud noises in a practice space once a week really takes the weight of work stress away as a teacher. โ Aaron Melrose Bassist
Personally, our first ever gig as The Exhales as we know now. We played at King Tuts Wah Wah Hut which is the most iconic venue in Glasgow, Scotland. This is a proud point in my music career, we sold out that show and it was a great debut for us, after that our headline show at Room 2 is definitely up there with a successful and proud point in all of our lives! We hope to move on to bigger and better events and venues and canโt wait for what the future holds. โ Robert Young Drummer
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