An Interview With The Survival Code: “If you are down the front you might want to bring an Umbrella”

The Survival Code Promo Pic

Here at Rock Sins we’re all about promoting new talent wherever we can. We caught up with London rockers The Survival Code ahead of their opening slot on the Zoax tour at The Barfly in Camden. We sat down with all three members to talk about their upcoming album and whether or not they choose to have a finger for a dick, or dick for fingers….

I am with the Survival Code, if you could just introduce yourselves so it makes transcribing this a bit easier haha.

Gary: Hello, I’m Gary McGuinness and I play guitar and sing.

Tom: *droning voice* I. am. Tom. I. Play. The Drums (Laughs).

Pete: I am Pete and I play the bass.

Awesome, thanks guys. So how are you guys are just finishing your sound check?

Gary: Great, it was awesome, we are releasing our album here as well on July 16th this year.

Pete: The Barfly is one of those few venues where it sounds amazing.

Tom: Yeah, it’s nice and small so it packs in the sound more.

Yeah, it’s an opportunity to make it more intense, getting up in everyone’s faces.

Gary: Yeah and we know all the bands on the bill are awesome at doing that.

Supporting Zoax tonight, are you guys fan of the band?

Gary: Yeah definitely man, we came across them on the live circuit, to be honest we might not necessarily gig with them about three years ago when we were doing the circuit ourselves, so now we are getting back into the scene and seeing how far they have come since 2012 is good to see.

Tom: We are the lightest band tonight, we do have a little bit of a metal background, we appreciate it.

It’s always good to have a varied bill though, you get to play to a decent crowd.

Gary: Exactly and one of our songs was in Terrorizer last year as part of their free CD they do, so we are going to play that tonight and push the track.

So you have a new album coming out on the 20th of July, with a launch show here on the 16th, what can we expect from that album.

Pete: Balls, just blood sweat and tears from the last three years pretty much.

Tom: There is a little bit more harmony to this one.

Gary: A little bit more emphasis on melody this time around but with all the energy you would get from a live show. It’s straight up rock, there is no messing around with computers or electronics. What you hear on the album, is what you would hear from us live. It’s more aimed at capturing that energy.

Pete: We were really lucky to work with John Faraman, the producer, so he comes from a more pop and classical kind of background, he gaves us ideas that we wouldn’t normally consider and he just pulled it off brilliantly.

Gary: Unlike a lot of studios in London, taking the money for the price you pay, but here we got everything we wanted and the real care factor, which made the process even better.

What has influenced your sound going into the record?

Gary: We are 90’s kids in a way, so all the big kind of music back then, the nu metal vibe to a degree but you don’t want to go to far into that, we have dropped some of our tuning, so bands like Deftones and then we look into melody as well, so we try to add a lot more melody to that because you don’t want to sound like another band and you want people to find it catchy.

Tom: We often mention Foo Fighters, Biffy and Muse bands like that really.

What can we expect from The Survival Code’s live show?

Pete: A lot of sweat!

Gary: Yeah if you are down the front you might want to bring an Umbrella (laughs).

Pete: I am actually looking into getting waterproof pedals at some point, that would be amazing.

Gery: It’s an energy fest, it has to be sincere because we are selling ourselves and our music, so we are going to give it to you.

Pete: When there is only three of you on stage, you have got to fill the space..

Tom: With sweat

All: Laughs

Tom: There is more room isn’t there, so you have got to fill it. We will be sweating and gurning.

Pete: It’s the best work out you’ll ever have.

What have you guys got planned for the rest of the year after your album launch in July?

Gary: We hope to be on the road for the rest of the year pretty much, we are focusing most of our attention in just playing locally, so if we can make a name somewhere first then we can bring that to other places. Hopefully once the album is out we are planning a nationwide thing, but we haven’t got the dates for that yet.

Tom: Probably another video as well as another new single.

Gary: Even got a few cover songs going on as well.

Right this is a bit of an outlandish question, but what would you prefer A finger for a Dick or Dick for Fingers?

Pete: Is it one dick for all of your fingers.

Basically, you can have your dick as one of your fingers, or all your fingers will be dicks.

Gary: I would probably say the finger, I would rather one useless thing than ten useless things (laughs).

Tom: You’ve got a career in porn or an unhappy life (laughs).

Gary: There are no two ways about it, you are going to have to get involved.

Just like to say thanks for your time and good luck for the rest of the year.

All: Cheers for chatting to us.

A review of The Survival Code’s performance at The Barfly with Zoax (and Dead! and Press To Meco) can be found right here. The review also contains an extensive photo gallery so please take the time to check it out.

The Survival Code can be followed on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/thesurvivalcode and on Twitter at @thesurvivalcode.

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