Interview | Odd Rival

We caught up with Odd Rival as they celebrate the release of their new EP ‘Keep Repeating’.

Last night, the band packed out Camden’s The Black Heart for their EP release show.

Ahead of dates in Hull and London, we caught up with Patrick Smith from the band to find out more about the band’s formation and their DIY approach.

Can you tell us how you guys got together?

We formed in February last year and since then we’ve just been completely DIY in our approach to things. We usually book our own shows, we do all our own videos and we record everything ourselves. Our EP was recorded entirely by ourselves in our rehearsal room and we mixed it all ourselves.

All of our artwork is based on our drummer’s urban exploring. Separate from the band, he’s done stuff like climbing to the top of the Shard, occasionally getting into trouble for it. It’s a cool aspect to some of the stuff we do because a lot of the music reflects living in London and I think the artwork really encapsulates that.

Can you tell us more about your new music video release ‘Out Alive’?

It’s filmed in the Barbican service tunnels and when we filmed it we just grabbed all our instruments and walked by these tunnels checking if doors were open, one of them was so we just went down. The first time we went down a camera saw us so we had to leave so we came back a couple of hours later and just avoided the cameras. It’s shot in-between bits like that. We just have to be careful when we do stuff like that.

How long did it take to film the video?

We smashed it in one day. There are a couple of shots that we set up for the way it looks, we didn’t film us sneaking into it but we filmed it so it looks like we’re plotting going in the whole time.

It’s always good fun. Alistair yesterday messaged me saying he’s trying to find a crane to climb up, he’s the one that’s into that the most and he’s a group of mates that do that kind of stuff. He’s really into his photography and me and Chris focus more on the music side. It’s a unique aspect of the band I think, I don’t know many bands that do that kind of stuff.

Odd Rival Keep Repeating EP coverAnd it’s Alistair’s work that is on the EP cover?

Yeah our EP cover is a picture taken from Fairmile Hospital. It’s been bulldozed down now, but it used to be a really famous mental health hospital. It was completely abandoned and they went into it and the picture is of a drawing someone did on the wall of their room and we thought it was a really interesting.

It’s been a busy year for you guys then!

As you phone me, I’m chasing up people as we’re booking our own tour. We don’t rely really on booking agents that much. It’s not something we say we wouldn’t do, but we just don’t wait around for stuff to happen. We’ve only been together a year and a half and already been on tour a couple of times, got our van, got our own rehearsal studio and we all live together as well.

The band’s EP ‘Keep Repeating’ is out now and streaming via SoundCloud.

‘Keep Repeating’ will also be available via iTunes and Spotify in the next few days.

If you want to keep up-to-date with Odd Rival you can check out the band’s
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