SYNTHEADS OVERVIEW
SYNTHEADS are an electronic trio from Bristol featuring the collective talents of Jules Straw (Pinklogik), Simon Hayward (Simple Minds / Lostboy AKA) and Dave Skinner (Mr Nice Legz / Synth-Gimp Cabaret).
The debut release of the acclaimed re-imagined version of The Beatles 'Eleanor Rigby' was the catalyst of a prolific period of song-writing resulting in a wealth of original material, the first of which premiered in their first EP - 'Fractured'.
Heralded as a return to the DNA of vintage synth-pop, SYNTHEADS draw on their experience to develop voltage tapestries underpinning memorable vocal hooks and melodies.
Cold electro - with a heart.
BAND MEMBERS
JULES STRAW
SIMON HAYWARD
DAVE SKINNER
SYNTHEADS BIOGRAPHY
Back in the day, Simon was in a band called The Surface with Mark Hocking who went on to front popular synth artists, Mesh. It was a prolific period resulting in many, many songs which were only ever briefly performed live.
Roll on to 2015 - With an eye on nostalgia and equally preservation, Simon digitally archived all of the old Surface recordings and that of his subsequent band Automated Groove Machine. While listening, he desired to re-visit some songs. One of which was a re-work of 'Eleanor Rigby' by The Beatles.
SIMON: "Many years ago, I had done a rough electro arrangement of 'Eleanor Rigby' and remember Mark stopping by one lunch time to put down a couple of vocal takes - that were significantly better than my own! Nothing really went any further with the idea, but during my recent archiving it popped out as something I'd like to develop. I was aware of Jules Straw from her output as Pinklogik and felt her voice would work well with what I had in mind and I was delighted and flattered that she accepted."
The Bristol electronic scene is vibrant and meet ups of likeminded individuals are always popular. Informally called The Bristol Synth Heads, it proved to be the inspiration for the band name - with one less 'H' which was great for registering trademarks / domain dames!
So having decided on the moniker of SYNTHEADS, 'Eleanor Rigby' was released in June 2016 accompanied by a video directed by Martin Poschinger (Sweet Invader Movies) and was surprisingly well received.
SIMON: "It's always tricky when you do a cover version, especially something as iconic as a Beatles song. Hopefully we gave it a new twist and it's a joy to hear it on the radio / dancefloors."
Things kind of snowballed with Jules submitting some song ideas which were re-worked by Simon.
JULES: "I had various bits of unfinished ideas I'd been working on as Pinklogik, but decided that some of these ideas could work out better in this new project."
Dave had previously collaborated with Simon in the 90's on a number of projects and the Bristol Synth Heads meet ups re united them after 20 years. In that time, Simon had gone on to be a professional musician working with many bands, notably Jim Kerr & Simple Minds with who he performs live and co-writes with. Dave, having decided he had got nowhere with his music as a middle aged mine re-invented himself as a middle aged woman and thus Mr Nice Legz was born!
DAVE: "Seriously... I'm just a middle aged man that likes to write dark, analogue synth music and perform it whilst wearing high heeled boots and a nice dress... can't a guy have a hobby?"
Dave's talents as a singer / songwriter are exceptional and he was drafted to the SYNTHEADS ranks. Following there was an explosion of productivity with 20+ songs coming together.
SIMON: "The pace and quality of what we were producing was staggering. To some extent a hindrance as we never finished anything as the next idea was always better than the last."
Finally the band locked down 4 songs to collect on their first EP - Fractured.
SIMON: "The first EP has Jules on lead vocals, yet we are blessed to have two great singers. Some songs lend themselves better to Dave's style and they will be included on forthcoming releases."
What of the future?
The second and third EP's are coming together for 2017 releases to be followed by an album.
DISCOGRAPHY: FRACTURED EP
FRACTURED
This was the first original song we worked on. Simon liked a little instrumental called 'Across The Terrain' from Pinklogik's Mosaic Elekctro LP, which was released back in 2006:
This sparked a re-working of the music to which Jules wrote the lyrics.
JULES: "Simon asked me if we could possibly re-work or re-use the melody from this old track of mine, and I thought, why not - could be interesting! So I sent him an MP3 and he shortly sent me back a brilliant reworked version. Over the next few days I worked on various vocal melodies, seeing what I liked best."
SIMON: "I arranged the new music I saved it as 'New Terrain'. When Dave heard it, he came back with a great lyric - called 'New Terrain' and it was a tough call to choose between the two. But waste not want not - I'm sure new, 'New Terrain' will make an appearance in the future."
DAVE: "I wrote a whole song, not knowing there was already a lyric. Mine was based on the 'New Terrain' working title - inspired by our collective steps into something new. A brooding sexy hook that I hope we will get to re-visit in the future."
STATIC
SIMON: "I sent this piece of music to Dave and typically he took my working title and came up with an incredible lyric. Jules re-recorded the vocal and the result is a catchy piece of synth-pop."
TAILGATING
This was an idea from Jules that dropped shortly before we released the Fractured EP that squeezed off the song we were planning. Simon re-worked the arrangement and music with Dave adding some extra lyrical content.
JULES: "Yeah, Tailgating was a song idea I was playing around with one afternoon, and I was originally planning to release it as Pinklogik. I think I remember the main bulk of the song was written all in one afternoon. I mulled it over and some weeks later decided that it could work for SYNTHEADS, so I sent a demo to Simon. He seemed to instantly like it, but had some other chord structure ideas, and he was then very quick to return version 2 back to me, which I was very pleased with!"
SO WEAK
SIMON: "This was a 1988 song from a band I was in called The Surface with Mark Hockings who went on to front Mesh. I came across it when I was archiving old recordings. At the time we were trying out vocalists, one of which was Jenny who performed a haunting version of 'So Weak'. I felt that this direction would work well for Jules and she instantly connected to the track. While it has a new coda, it is essentially very similar to the sentiment of the original demo. It was going to be on EP2 but was brought forwards as we want a bit more time on the planned 'Broken People' track."
We are really grateful that Mark let us use this track - and finally something from The Surface can see the light of day.
SPEZIA
Simon lives between the UK / La Spezia, Italy and this short bonus instrumental reflects the pace of the vibrant city. Ride a scooter through the town on match day and that pretty much sums up the vibe.
STATIC REMIX PACK
A bit of an experiment. Synth remix enthusiasts are often asking for multi-track parts, so we thought we would include them for budding remixers to re-imagine (possibly improve!) on what we recorded.