“As cliché as it sounds, we just want to play our music to as many people as possible before we keel over and die,” grins Tim Bell, guitarist of Nottingham quintet Catch Fire, a posi pop-punk proposition formed earlier this year from the ashes of local heroes, Layby; “We have a burning desire to write and play music. It’s really as simple as that. I don’t think any of us can see ourselves doing anything other than this.” Debut E.P The Distance I Am From You boasts bangers such as infectious as lead single and future floor filler, ‘Bad Behaviour’, and the soaring, emo-tinged ‘Anaesthetic’, alongside 2 further tracks. Here drummer Ash gives us an insight into the creation of the eyecatching cover artwork, following its release earlier this month!
“We had the songs, we had the EP title, all that was left was the artwork. What were 5 artistically crippled guys gonna come up with? NOTHING. Thus, we summoned our Nottingham homie Stuart “Brown Lazer” Bell to save us.
We knew we wanted something very striking, and very chaotic to visualise what we’re trying to say in the EP. We also wanted something unique, and fun that represented us, that stood out. TDIAFY, covers the hefty theme of breaking up and feeling – you guessed it – Distant, from the world around you, and we wanted to bring this to life on our EP. Sometimes there’s so much going on in your life that you don’t get the time to admire what you have and what’s there, we also wanted to get that across too.
Also, we didn’t want to just have a cover that looked cool but was completely unrelated to the music, so we spent a lot of time working out how to bring some of the lyrics to life. For example, “Introspective Pt. II” features the lyric “Does the devil on your left, put your mind to any sort of rest?” and we knew straight away that this would look awesome on the front. So we asked Stuart to pair him up with an angel, and make “Clint” on the front look rather troubled and exhausted – to represent the hardship of making choices.
We also decided that we didn’t want the EP name on the front. When he sent us the artwork with our logo on, we spent a some time thinking where the title was going to go, but then we thought about how little you see album art with their titles on the back.
The reason we went straight to Stuart, is not just because he’s a fantastic artist, but because of his approach to his work too. Everything he does is completely by hand and we feel like that doesn’t happen much anymore. When he sent the first draft back, it didn’t include much, but what it did include completely blew us away and we knew we were onto a winner. So thanks again, Stuart!”
Catch Fire released ‘The Distance I Am From You’ on February 5th 2016.
Get it now: Physical: https://smarturl.it/CFTDIAFYPhysical | Digital: https://smarturl.it/CFTDIAFYDigital
Watch Debut Video ‘Bad Behaviour’ Now: https://smarturl.it/BadBehaviourVideo
More info: https://www.facebook.com/catchfireband | https://twitter.com/catchfireuk
