Meet the Bands: UoN BandSoc Battle of the Bands Finals

With the UoN x NTU Battle of the Bands finals right around the corner, it’s an exciting time for BandSoc’s lineup of student bands. The uni’s four finalists have been practicing and refining their setlists in preparation for the evening, with the hopes of being pronounced the winner of Nottingham’s largest student music event. As the finals draw ever closer on Sunday March 15th, I spoke to all four UoN finalist bands, to get to learn a bit more about them – from their history, styles of music, and how they’re feeling about playing on the day. The Mic's Josh Holmes reports.

Negative Space

Negative Space are Alec (vocals), Rae (bass), Rhys (guitar), Ethan (drums) and Joe (guitar).

How long have you guys been a band? When did you initially form?

Ethan: Early October, I think? It’s been a few months.

Rae: Early in our first semester. Joe reached out in a group chat, asking if people wanted to start a nu-metal band.

Rhys: I swear it was me?!

Rae: No, it was Joe! (laughs) You came in and asked us if we needed another guitarist.

Rhys: Ohhhh, yeah….

Rae: But yeah, we all just reached out to Joe to join this nu-metal band.

Ethan: After that, I think I basically said, “I’m a drummer, I wanna be in a band too!” and it kind of just dominoed from there.

So did you know each other before that, or was it purely through BandSoc?

Ethan: Purely through BandSoc, we’d never met each other before.

When you started the band, were you all into nu-metal music, or was it a case of some of you not being as familiar and growing into it as the band grew?

Rae: We were all aware of it and had all listened to it, but we do have quite a diverse music taste, I reckon.

Rhys: I’ve been listening to that sort of music for a while, I was already into it.

Ethan: I’ve always been really into prog metal, as well. I’m constantly pushing the band to try out weird...crap! (laughs) Like Tool, Dream Theatre, the weirder stuff. Hopefully we’ll get there one day!

I mean, even as someone who’s not a massive metalhead, it was really cool seeing you guys whip out stuff like Deftones at the semis. You said you wanted to get a bit more technical with it…

Ethan: Well, I do!

At the semi-finals, you guys played a set of covers. Have you been thinking about playing originals for the finals, or is it going to be covers again?

Rae: We did consider it for the final, but….

Rhys: There’s not enough time!

Rae: Yeah, not enough time, so we’re doing covers again. But we will be writing originals after the final!

Ethan: We really want to get into doing originals, but it’s a matter of us wanting to give the best performance we can for the final, and if we write something original it might still be quite sloppy by the time we play it.

Moving back to the semi-finals, I was down in that basement and could hardly get any good pictures of you guys because there were so many people! You had possibly the biggest fanbase of all the bands at the semis, where has that come from?

Ethan: I think we all literally just invited everyone we knew! (laughs) We were going to people like, “come to the semis, come to the semis!”

It was really cool, though, seeing how the judges gave you max points for your crowd hype.

Ethan: Yeah, we were absolutely buzzing about that.

Rae: We were so happy to see that.

Are you hoping for a similar sort of attendance at the finals?

Ethan: Absolutely! We wanna knock everyone’s socks off.

Rae: We’ll tell everyone to scream louder this time!

Ethan: We want people to have no air in their lungs by the end of it.

I mean, people seemed to be really into that Three Days Grace cover you did, how long had you been working on that? It seemed like the tightest song of the set, to me.

Rhys: Really!? I think our last song “Tears Don’t Fall” (Bullet for My Valentine) is our best.

Ethan: Oh, that’s interesting.

Rae: I think “Tears Don’t Fall” is our coolest, too.

Ethan: I think Animal definitely has the broadest appeal. It’s big on reels and TikTok stuff, so people probably would’ve known it going into the set, whereas the other ones are more for the metal-oriented people. That’s why it probably hit the mark a lot easier. As for it being the tightest, I think it’s just the easiest song we played.

Rae: I mean, the bass for “Be Quiet and Drive” is pretty simple!

Ethan: “Tears Don’t Fall” was kind of a level above the other two, which made it a bit more tricky, but they’re all a whole lot of fun to play.

How are you feeling going into the final?

Rhys: Oh, we’re all excited. We’ve chosen some quite difficult songs.

Ethan: We’ve upped our game, we wanna make sure it’s as fun as possible.

Rae: We’re doing a whole new setlist. I know at least one other band is basically keeping their setlist the same, but we’re trying out some quite techy songs.

Ethan: Do we spill the beans? Let’s halfway spill the beans. Our second song isn’t just one song, it’s a medley of multiple songs that we’re weaving into one another. I won’t say what the songs are – be there and find out! It’s gonna be an awful lot of fun. We’re working on the transitions, I think it’s the best thing that we’ll do.

Rae: We’re excited to do it, especially because it’s quite unique. I don’t think any of the other bands are doing a medley. What’s different about the other guys is their original songs, but the medley makes us stand out as well, I reckon.

Do you guys use any particular gear that you’re fond of that you’d like to mention?

Rhys: I can’t lie, I’ve lost my Boss DS-1, but I wanna find it and use it at the finals. I only really use a distortion pedal.

Rae: I had to buy pedals for one of the songs we’re doing, so I have chorus and overdrive now. I’m not really used to playing with pedals, as a bassist, and it’s a new skill I need to learn.

Ethan: Not any specific gear, but being a metal band I’ve got a double kick pedal, which I brought along to the semis. They had the single pedal, and I thought, “can’t be having that!” so I set it up and just kept it there. It would’ve been a bit of a faff setting it up and taking it down again. I’ll bring that along to the finals again, but as long as I’ve got two pedals I’m not arsed about what brand it is.

You’ve got the finals coming up, and regardless of how it goes, are you going to stay together as a band? What are your plans for the future?

Rae: We obviously want to start writing originals, so we’ll do that. And we really need to start looking into gigs – Mooch Live is a shout, but after March I don’t know if there’s any more until next year. But it’s definitely something we want to look into.

10 Foot Drop

10 Foot Drop are Gabriel (drums), Paolo (vocals, guitar), Dan (guitar), Bella (vocals) and Dylan (bass).

How long have you guys been together, through BandSoc?

Paolo: Since early 2024, I think?

Dan: Since the end of first year, I think.

Paolo: Well, since it came back up again, because there was a period when we first started that BandSoc wasn’t going on, and then in early 2024 it started again. 

So you’ve been together quite a while, the other bands haven’t been together for quite the same amount of time. Have you guys had a chance to play stuff like Mooch Live & open mics in that time?

Paolo: Yeah, we’ve done Mooch Live a couple times.

Dan: Mostly Mooch Live. We’ve played a gig at Billy Bootleggers as well, through RockSoc… I think that’s it actually!

What genre would you guys self-describe yourselves as? It was quite a wide reaching set when I saw you guys playing in the semis.

Gabriel: I’d say we’re very varied and different, our band members all contribute their own sort of style and genres to our sound.

Paolo: Yeah, I think that’s it! All of us have pretty widely contrasting tastes in music.

Dan: Without trying to be ‘that guy’, I think I’d say I honestly like a lot of different stuff, with the exception of maybe metal. With my guitar teacher, I learned a lot of theory and jazzy vocabulary, which means I often end up writing stuff with jazz influences, even if it’s a bit overdriven because I still love rock music. It sometimes gets a bit too much for everyone else, and it can be a bit out there, but it works. In our original, “Type Cast”, there’s a bit where we sit on a diminished chord for two bars, and it’s a bit intense, potentially.

Paolo: It’s fun!

Dan: Yeah, it’s fun. It works really well, because there’s this huge tension and then you bring it back to the root chord.

So, you’d say you like mixing things up when it comes to the theory of your songs?

Dan: Yeah, we like to do a bit of a fusion of things.

Paolo: For example our regular vocalist Bella, she likes more indie stuff, which you can see in the songs she writes. I tend towards more alternative stuff, like shoegaze-y styles of music, which reflects in a couple of the songs we’re writing at the moment. Everyone has pretty varied interests.

Gabriel: I’d probably describe myself as more indie, but I like a bit of everything. I’m big into rock artists like Royal Blood.

“Type Cast”, one of the originals you played at the semi finals, how long has that been in the works? Were these originals things you wrote specifically for the semis, or is it something you’ve been sitting on for longer?

Dan: We needed an original for Mooch Live, I think? Or at least, we wanted one.

Paolo: Yeah, we wrote it in… late 2024?

Dan: I heard someone doing something bluesy, and thought, ‘oh, I can make something out of this’. I threw together the intro riff thing, found some chords that easily worked with it, and afterwards we decided to play it at Billy Bootleggers. But we wanted to make it more interesting, so we just sort of… arpeggiated some of the chords! (laughs) We also threw in a slightly funky bit that wasn’t there originally, it used to be far more straight strumming. The diminished part, as well.

Paolo: It’s been changed a lot. The lyrics have been reworked entirely too.

With regards to your set for the final, are you thinking of sticking with what you went with for at the semi-final?

Paolo: No, I don’t think we’ll be similar to that at all! We can’t, really, since we’re missing our lead vocalist.

Gabriel: We’ve had to rework things quite a bit.

Dan: Without revealing exactly what it is, we have a very intense instrumental that we’re all struggling to get good at, because… well… it’s quite hard!

Paolo: It’s an instrumental song that challenges all of us on an individual level.

Very exciting, can’t wait to hear it. How are you feeling for the final? Are you nervous, locked in, excited?

Paolo: I’m excited, I’d say! But nervous, because we’ve seen the venue, and it’s the largest we’ve played by a mile.

Gabriel: I think it’ll be quite different, because we’re missing our lead singer, so it adds another factor. But we’ll hopefully be able to adapt to the situation.

Paolo: I’m confident in the setlist, though. Some stuff we’ve played before, some new challenging stuff. But, I’m confident that, uh…. music will come out!

Well, you’d hope so!

Dan: I’m most nervous for the new, hard song. There’s also the middle bit for the solo in “Type Cast”, it’s something I always improvise, and it’s fine making a mistake in your room but I always feel bad if it’s on stage. Even if people say they can never notice.

Paolo: I’m keeping track!

Hopefully it’ll be fine – if you’re just improvising with scales people shouldn’t clock it.

Dan: Yeah, exactly, but I’m worried I might not hit the right chord tone and be like ‘aw, I missed it!’. [In] the instrumental, I’m sort of the song’s ‘voice’, if that makes sense, so it makes things a bit more obvious if I mess up. But then again, people won’t know it well enough to notice, hopefully.

Paolo: We’ll just say it’s a new version.

What are your plans leading on after the BOTB finals, as a band?

Paolo: We’re looking at a couple of gigs at the moment, hopefully after the final we can play live more regularly, which is what we all want. I haven’t yet confirmed if we can do them or not, but we’d love to just do more stuff.

Heather

Heather are Ben (guitar), Oscar (vocals, guitar), Nick (drums) and Bertie (bass).

How long have you guys been a band?

Oscar: Five months? Since like the end of October.

Ben: Yeah, I think like five months or so.

You’ve described yourselves as shoegaze, noise rock adjacent. Would you say all the band members were already into those styles of music, or was it something people grew into over time?

Bertie: It certainly grew on me. I didn’t even know who My Bloody Valentine were until I met Ben and joined the band, but I started listening to it and it really grew on me, and started to influence my style of playing.

Oscar: When me and Ben initially met, we bonded over a shared love of My Bloody Valentine, which is why we started out our radio show together. That was the main thing we’d talk about.

Ben: Yeah, I think it was us two that brought the shoegaze influence into the band.

Nick: I don’t really listen to it, but it’s fun to play! So that’s good.

Bertie: The closest I’d got before was Fleshwater, but I don’t know if that really counts.

Where did the name ‘Heather’ come from?

Ben: I don’t remember which of us came up with it, but I remember really liking it because of Silent Hill 3, where the main character is called Heather, or the Sonic Youth song “Bull in the Heather”. As a name I just think it kind of matches our vibe.

Oscar: There was another one we were gonna go for before Heather, wasn’t there?

Bertie: Tightrope?

Oscar: Yeah, Tightrope. I think me and Ben were in a Subway together, shooting names back and forth, and it just kind of fit into place.

You’ve got your original track, “Mind Freak”, that you played at the semis. How long did it take to nail down? Has it been through major changes?

Ben: I mean, I still think there’s some stuff we’d still change about it. I still change the lead parts when we play it now.

Oscar: It’s definitely gone through a lot of iterations. The main idea behind the song has always stayed the same, with the primary riff, but structurally it’s gone through a lot. We completely reworked the verse.

Ben: Every week it would be completely different!

Oscar: I think we settled on this version like, a week before the competition? It’s definitely my favourite version of it we’ve had.

Nick: The drums have definitely changed, because the drums have always been improvised! (laughs) I think it leads to a better product, in my opinion. You’re more creative when you improvise.

Oscar: The big thing about our set is dynamism, and being exciting to watch. We try not to be pretentious and think about our songs like ‘oh, this needs to be the best song it can possibly be’, we just want it to be interesting to the audience. At the end of the day, we’re a band and we’re supposed to make stuff that people will enjoy.

Ben: And that we enjoy playing!

Nick: I think if we’re passionate about our music, it’ll always connect with the audience well.

What would you say your main influences were for the track?

Ben: Oscar came up with the song’s main riff, and when he played it, it reminded me of Silent Hill 2.

Oscar: Yeah, “Theme of Laura”. The beginning of the song definitely helped with the rhythm of “Mind Freak”. There’s also a lot of Placebo in there, we especially were influenced by Meds and Sleeping with Ghosts.

Ben: Plenty of noisier influences, too, especially in the interludes.

Oscar: We like to push the amps really loud, I think a fair bit more than the rest of the bands!

Ben: I’ve currently got the aim of us being the loudest band there.

The interludes you mentioned contribute loads to your set. Who came up with that idea?

Ben: I came up with it like a week before. We’d take breaks between songs and I’d just start playing.

Oscar: I couldn’t find my capo for “36 Degrees”, and we were recording our whole set to try and practice, and Ben just came up with that idea.

How much do you plan on changing the set up from the semis?

Ben: Not a crazy amount, but it’s definitely being changed.

Oscar: The actual structure of the final meant we didn’t think it was too smart to change our entire set. We just wanna hit the judges with our strongest material.

Nick: We’re prioritising the stuff we’re most comfortable with.

Bertie: Since the judges are completely different from last round, we didn’t think it made much sense changing our whole set based on what has or hasn’t been heard before. We think we sounded at our best with a couple of those songs we did.

Ben: Plus, hopefully the audience will be a lot bigger, so there’ll be loads of people who won’t have been able to hear us the first time round. We are playing “Mind Freak” again, but it’ll definitely be at least slightly different. The noise section always is anyway!

Bertie: The bridge section is cool in that it’s always the same basic idea, but we always do it differently.

Oscar: It’s just about finding out what sounds we can get from the gear that’s there on the day.

Nick: For me, it’s what kind of ideas I’m having on the drums. I’ll play and try literally anything, but it’s usually different kinds of chops.

Oscar: Experimentation is kind of our main aim, yeah. It’s why we work so well as a band, we think we work off each other’s improvisations really well.

Ben: It also makes our practices super exciting.

You’ve mentioned gear quite a lot, are there any particular pieces of gear you rely on a lot?

Oscar: Big Muff. We’ve all got different Big Muffs. The vocals are just about being loud and hard, I think the gear is more Ben’s focus, and as rhythm guitar I just wanna provide a heavy, thick backing for Ben to do interesting stuff over.

Bertie: Bass Big Muff, as well.

Ben: Yeah, being honest I spend hours in my room fine tuning my distortion and stuff. I have fun doing it all, and I think it sounds good.

How are you guys feeling before the final?

Nick: Feeling good.

Bertie: There’s always nerves playing a big venue, in front of a big-ish crowd, but the same symptoms you get for being nervous are the ones you have from being excited to play.

Oscar: This is what we’ve all been wanting to do, and we all feel like we’re ready to get out there and play, and keep playing.

Nick: The nerves kinda wake you up, they get you to lock in. When I play live, it feels like I’ve played the best I’ve ever played. 

Bertie: Once you’ve got through the first verse, it’s all uphill from there.

Ben: The way we start “Mind Freak”, I’m at a point where once I’m halfway through the song I’m usually fine, and it’s a great way to gear up for the more technical stuff in our set.

Full Bloom

Full Bloom are Isla (vocals), Farida (drums), Aaron (guitar), Elliot (guitar) and Gev (bass).

Did you guys meet through BandSoc or did you know each other before?

Elliot: It was mostly through friends, really. I knew a couple of people from my course and living together, and a mutual friend from a band we had last year.

Is Full Bloom an offshoot of that band, then?

Elliot: Near enough, yeah. Me and Aaron were both in the band together. Most of the other people dropped out, though, so we scrambled to find who we could.

Where does the name Full Bloom come from?

Aaron: It’s a reference to the Nirvana song, “In Bloom”, one of my favourite songs off Nevermind. I decided to just do a play on words and call the band “Full Bloom”.

Gev: There was a list of other names, and… let’s just say some of the others were not great. (laughs)

How long has Full Bloom been a band?

Elliot: Me and Aaron met in first year, then in second year came together to form the band.

Gev: Yeah, we’ve been together since about September.

What genre would you describe yourselves as? The set I caught at the semis had quite a lot of different styles.

Gev: As a band, I think we’re trying to figure that out. We’ve got some very different influences as individuals, and I think we’re still trying to figure out how we best combine all that. Right now we’re going for ‘alt rock’, which is quite a large umbrella, but…

Elliot: It’s the best fitting.

How much experience do you guys have playing live, outside of Battle of the Bands? I know you played Mooch Live recently, right?

Elliot: It was really fun, super nice having something to work towards. The venue was also really fun, I know we agreed on that. I think we’ve all had different experiences playing live. Me, Jev and Isla have played in previous bands, choirs, festivals and stuff like that, but I’m not sure about the others.

Aaron: Absolutely no experience at all playing live before this!

Farida: I mean, I used to play piano and violin, but I’ve never played in a band. Just in a classical orchestra.

The original you played at the semis, “Wannabe”, how did that song come about? It’s a very interesting song, the guitar sounds kinda dream-poppy…

Gev: We’d gotten to the end of a practice and had time spare, so I just started playing a riff I’d come up with on my own. Everyone else kinda liked it, and Aaron took it away with only one verse and the first line of the other verses. Then Elliot came up with the chorus?

Elliot: And the melodies, yeah.

Gev: But Aaron did a lot of the vocal writing, and some of the lyrics…

Isla: Let’s not undersell it. He wrote all of the lyrics!

Elliot: And, of course, Farida did all the drum writing for it.

Have you written any other originals before or since?

Gev: We thought it’d be a great idea to try and write and learn a new song before the finals on Sunday, which is going pretty well. Me and Aaron basically spent an evening writing a song for it, and we’re gonna have it down.

Elliot: They took it to one of the practices, gave people the scores for it and said “you’ve got two weeks to learn your parts, go!”

How much are you planning on changing the set up for the final?

Isla: Oh, completely!

Gev: It’s three completely new songs. Well, two, and a third for if we get to the last round.

How are you feeling about Sunday?

Farida: Very excited!

Elliot: Can’t wait, genuinely can’t wait.

Gev: Our Mooch set gave me a lot of confidence for how we can play as a band.

Elliot: Yeah, it was a nice example of how even if something goes wrong, we can pick up from there quite efficiently.

What do you mean by ‘goes wrong’, there?

(Whole band laughs)

Aaron: Well, one of the things that happened is that my guitar was just cut off in the mix. One of the committee members just turned down all the gain, and I couldn’t hear anything I was playing for a whole song.

What are your plans for after the BOTB finals?

Gev: Aaron’s dad is a music producer, so he’s trying to line us up for some studio time. We’re also applying to play SB Fest, and I’ve also been in contact with Cerys from the BandSoc committee to try and organise some gigs in the city.

Aaron: I want an EP done before the end of summer! (laughs)

Josh Holmes

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Edited by Isabelle Tu

Photos courtesy of Josh Holmes and @gcullen_photography (IG)