It’s no secret that genres ain’t what they used to be; what this means for new music in 2016, is that we’re all witness to artists bending and building once familiar tropes into all sorts of new and different shapes, thrillingly unaware of the supposed lines in the sand. Sheffield’s Story are very much a product of these shackles being off, the quintet openly wearing a cache of influences on their sleeve. Channelling the likes of Mallory Knox and Young Guns as readily as Architects, A Day To Remember and Alexisonfire, Story create a seamless pop rock / metalcore / post-hardcore mash-up in the process. Here they discuss the recent release, track by track…
- Article 10: The EP opens with Article 10, our personal favourite! This track alone combines everything we write, including the slow, melodic clean riffs and the chunk, in which we shine. The song revolves around the idea of someone using you to the point where you give up and move on with your life, leaving them in the past. Our lyrical inspiration comes a lot from our past experiences, which in this case is always being there for someone, yet when they finally pay attention, you’ve been ignored too many times. This song is quite new to our live set and so far we have had nothing but good vibes from the people we have played it too. We recorded with Chris, our drummer, as we did all our tracks. Personally we think this is our best song, that being the reason it’s our first single from Hopeless But Hoping.
- Push Me Away: The EP then takes a turn as we enter Push Me Away and with this song you can expect a punchier sound, with a lot more kick from the word go! The song was written in our practice room after numerous sessions of trying to write new material. The inspiration came from the way Bill was feeling at the time: the lyrics span out from his emotions and feelings as the song is about someone pushing you away, after you’re giving your all. We always play the song first at live shows as it grabs everyone’s attention and sounds fat, as we like to say. Overall we are very happy with this track.
- Community: Community for us is quite a heart-warming song, as it reminds us to stay humble in the fact that it is the fans and people that carry us. Playing this especially in our hometown is an overwhelming feeling with it being all about their help and support – we can’t thank them enough. This song is all about the music scene coming together as one and how we all experience the same dreams, aspirations and how we all have the willingness to succeed. We thought the outcome of the song was incredible and Liam Leverton’s screams definitely added the impact we needed. Liam is a good friend of ours and is a well-known vocalist within the Sheffield music scene. We always play this track last in our set, as it seems to raise the roof with the catchy choruses, heavy breakdowns and the emotional gang vocals it ends on.
- Letting Go: You can expect a slower, softer tone from this track that builds up to an emotional outro, leaving just Bill’s voice and a single guitar. This is the song that took the longest for us to write, as we felt it had to be perfect to really send out our message. Our lyrical inspiration comes from something everyone has experienced: facing the fact that they are never coming back – be that loss of life, connection or even heart break. This came from taking advantage of what you have and once losing it, realising how selfish you have become. We played this for the first time at our headline show in Sheffield and it was emotional for all of us including the crowd, to see people take it all in was again an unforgettable feeling and we are extremely happy with how this track has turned out.
- Hopeless But Hoping: For ‘Hopeless But Hoping’ people can expect “an exit an half”. The second to last song on the list and the title of our EP, we create a catchy chorus with heavy verses, swooping into a deep spacious outro. The song is all about how no matter how hard life can be at times, we should always hope for the better, as everything happens for a reason. The lyrical inspiration came from literally every single dark time in each of our pasts, and building on them in the most positive way possible. The last 30 seconds is definitely something that will not easily be forgotten. Being the heaviest track of the EP, we think it’s a great crowd pleaser live as it really gets the crowd pumping.
- Carry Me Home: As our final step out of the EP we have chosen `Carry Me Home’ which leaves quite a mellow feel, having no heavy vocals yet a smooth flow of melody. Carry Me Home is different to the rest of our songs, we wanted to create a softer song that still had power behind it and a catchy chorus that people could easily sing along too. The lyrical inspiration came as a thought of past memories, and ‘home’ being the memories we wish to return to. It was always the song that we never knew whether or not to put on the EP, but after playing it live several times and hearing the outcome, we thought we needed to put this one out there, as people were demanding for it to be recorded and released. This is definitely one of our favorites to play live.
- Story Released ‘Hopeless But Hoping’ on 4th March 2016. Get it:
- Digital: https://itunes.apple.com/gb/album/hopeless-but-hoping-ep/id1076836803
- Physical: https://storyofficial.bigcartel.com/product/hopeless-but-hoping-ep-pre-order
- Watch Video ‘Article 10’ Now: https://youtu.be/2JoFaIbz5qo
- More info: https://www.facebook.com/StoryOfficialUK | https://twitter.com/storyofficialuk
