AKA George has released his debut EP ‘Bad For You’.
Out now via Anti Fragile, the new EP introduces George’s varied musical style as each track flows with passion and raw emotion, presenting an electrifying release with pulsating tracks that’ll leave you hooked.
To celebrate the EP release, we caught up with George to discover 5 tracks that influenced ‘Bad For You’.
Blur – Song 2 | Listen via Spotify
When I was writing ‘Bad For You’ it started getting a bit long. The chord progression in the song made me think of Blur, which is why I started listening to ‘Song 2’. I love the energy of that song. It’s only 2 minutes long – you can do everything in 2 minutes. If you’ve got an energetic song, why drag it out? And it’s the reason I pushed my vocal as well. There’s a little homage in the “woohoo’s” on ‘Bad For You’.
The Hives – Hate To Say I Told You So | Listen via Spotify
When me and my mate Chris were coming up with ‘Bad For You’, it made me think of The Hives immediately. Like ‘Song 2’, the vocal on this song is quite extreme and that’s something I wanted to capture on ‘Bad For You’. Really, ‘Bad For You’ is almost an amalgamation of Blur and The Hives with my own spin on it.
The Rolling Stones – Sympathy For The Devil | Listen via Spotify
When I started recording ‘Up All Night’ I wasn’t thinking about The Rolling Stones at all… In fact, it sounded more like that song by Body Rockers. But after I changed the drumbeat to something that was tribal it made me think of ‘Sympathy For The Devil’. The song is so iconic and it’s quite sprawling and shaggy and loose and ‘Up All Night’ has similar energy about it. I like songs from that era, where sometimes the lyric and the concept took a back seat to the groove and the feeling. So much of music is conveyed through the groove and the feeling.
The White Stripes – Seven Nation Army | Listen via Spotify
I was listening to a lot of White Stripes while I was making this EP. ‘Stone Cold Classic’ sounds like a really tight version of something Jack White would do and that riff for Seven Nation Army has always been inspirational… maybe… It’s so simple and yet it has a darkness about it and power in its simplicity. The White Stripes, stylistically, have always been that way – it’s so simple it’s almost silly but it’s very stylish.
Puff Daddy – Come With Me | Listen via YouTube
This Puff Daddy song is ridiculous. It’s preposterous and overblown and I love it. I wanted to write something as simplistic and as loud. It was a vague influence on the song ‘Money’, which was an afterthought on the EP. ‘Money’ took about 20 mins to make. I wasn’t thinking of Pink Floyd when I wrote it. But recently in one of my live streams someone said it reminded them of the Pink Floyd track – I guess it’s rock, it’s a riff, it’s called ‘Money’.
You can stream AKA George ‘Bad For You’ below via Spotify: