Soda Blonde have released their new album ‘Dream Big’.
The second album from the Irish indie pop band comes ahead of their ‘Dream Big’ tour, with a headline tour across Ireland and a London headliner at The Lexington.
To celebrate their album release, guitarist Adam O’Regan shared with us 5 tracks that influenced ‘Dream Big’.
Madonna – Don’t Tell Me | Listen via Spotify
As soon as Faye first played me an early version of ‘Space Baby’, my producer mind immediately went to ‘Don’t Tell Me’ by Madonna. This song was on the radio a lot when I was a kid and I’ve always loved the sparse but purposeful arrangement. We wanted to play with the idea of space in our production for this song and borrowed her skipped-tape acoustic idea to do so.
Diana Ross – I’m Coming Out | Listen via Spotify
For our first record, everything was recorded in living rooms and that limitation forced us to record each drum separately in order to effectively achieve the desired sound. For this record however, we had the luxury of recording in an actual studio, which allowed us to be really playful and capture real human performances. This gave way for some unbridled drumming from our amazing drummer Dylan. In the instrumental section of or song ‘Dream Big’, we were thinking about the incredible drum intro in ‘I’m Coming Out’ by Diana Ross.
Underworld – Born Slippy | Listen via Spotify
While perhaps not an obvious reference, we are always drawn to ‘sad bangers’, IE music that makes you want to dance but has an emotional weight to the instrumentation/lyrics. Songs like ‘Boys’ & ‘WWDWD’ have that idea in their DNA. We always find the best pop music has more than one emotion sewn into it.
Yeah Yeah Yeahs – Heads Will Roll | Listen via Spotify
‘It’s Blitz’ by the Yeah Yeah Yeahs was a big album for me as a teenager. I love how this band can traverse genres and play with aesthetic. Everything is big, bold & shiny but there’s spirit of punk at the core of what they do. I had Nick Zimmer in mind when searching for the guitar sound in ‘Bad Machine’.
Joni Mitchell – Both Sides Now (2000 Version) | Listen via Spotify
One of the most hauntingly beautiful songs ever recorded. Joni’s gorgeous voice, coupled with the free-rhythm of orchestra help to create a suspended feeling of profound intimacy. I can’t think of another song like it. We want to bring a element of that to our song ‘Less Than Nothing’. We set up in the room together and everything was recorded in one take. The only thing that governed us musically was Faye’s intake of breath on each line. One of our favourite moments on the album.
Listen to the album’s influencing tracks below:
Stream Soda Blonde ‘Dream Big’ via Spotify below: