Interview: Bored Marsh tell us all about their new EP and Rough Trade launch show

The 'Idiot' EP will be released at the end of this month

Bored Marsh’s debut EP will be independently released this month, and the first single ‘Alright, OK!’ has already received national press and radio play and been heavily supported by BBC Introducing. 

The band are celebrating by throwing their first hometown headline show at Rough Trade on the release date, which is very close to selling out already - perhaps by the time this piece goes live, it already will have done.

Brad Westby, guitarist and backing vocalist, sat down with us to tell us all about it.

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Hi Brad! How are you doing? 

All good, thanks! Looking forward to the EP coming out.

How has 2024 been as a year for you so far? What has been the highlight up until now?

It's been a good year for us, definitely feels like we have stepped forward musically and then with some of the opportunities we've had also. Playing Focus Wales felt like a big moment and we have done some great shows with great audiences. 

You're just about to release your debut EP. How are you feeling? 

Pretty positive. It will be nice for more of our music to be out there for people to listen to. We're really happy with how it all came out so I guess it's now over to other people to decide what they think of it. 

How do you feel your sound has evolved on this EP? 

I think it has, possibly to an unplanned place at times, but that's good. We know it's us and we think it sounds amazing. Rich and Phil at JT Soar did a great job making it sound the way it does and having the time to experiment with ideas was something we were keen to do to develop the sound. 

What are you most proud of about this EP? 

I think just overall the way it has come out. Sound is a really important thing to us, standing out and doing interesting things was what we wanted to achieve. I think we knew we had great songs but it's not always easy to capture that in the studio, but we definitely got that and it feels like a really positive collective achievement. I remember when we were getting the mixes back and I was blown away at times with what we'd done, so that was a great feeling.

Do you have a favourite song from the EP, or one which is particularly special to you? 

Personally the two lead tracks; ‘Alright, OK!’ and ‘IDIOT’ always sounded great live and I knew when we were writing them that they both had so much potential. They were both written at different times but both of them signalled a real step forward writing wise, and we really had to work hard to get them to where they are. 

What were your biggest inspirations when writing the EP? 

We have so many collective influences. One of the reasons that Bored Marsh started was because I wanted somebody else to sing and take the music down a different road. I was writing for myself and you get sick of your own voice and it starts to sound predictable. Writing wise, every song starts in a different place with a different inspiration so it's hard to say as they develop so much as more of us get involved.

We knew we wanted lots of reverb and the start of the band was all about the shoegaze sound but it's developed into much more than that. At the time of going into the studio I was listening to lots of early Radiohead, Brian Jonestown Massacre and Nirvana, and really enjoying that early nineties sound. I definitely feel it's got a grungy vibe. 

You've got a launch show for the EP, taking place at Rough Trade on 27 September. How does it feel to be headlining the venue? 

So good. I'm blown away by the support and can’t believe we're going to sell out our own show. That's a great feeling and I really hope we can progress from it, too.  

Could you tell us some more about the support acts who will be joining you at this show? 

I love Tranks. They're probably my current favourite Nottingham band, so it's great to have them with us. They're like a modern Primal Scream / LCD Soundsystem to me. They really make you want to dance. Hhymn go back years on the local scene and we’re delighted to have the whole band with us after they’ve recently reformed. 

Finally, have you got any other plans to take the EP on the road following this, or any other plans for the rest of 2024 you want to shout about? 

Getting out of Nottingham and doing worthwhile gigs is so hard. We've done a few with mixed success. We'd love to get out more and we're really hoping that can happen in the near future. 

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Bored Marsh’s ‘Idiot’ EP will be released on 27 September 2024.

By Gemma Cockrell.