The gospel of success: thou shalt shed blood, sweat and tears. Hailing from the concrete jungle of Coventry, the Glassguns have been walking a treacherous road since 2010, and they’re only halfway to their destination.
The band will release their new EP, ‘The Ugly Truth’, on September 20 and it delivers a neat fusion of genres while maintaining a strong basis in ‘70s-influenced hard rock. Led by former Satin Dolls frontman Adam Burrows, the line-up is completed by guitarist Sam Farrelly, his brother Phil on drums, and Nick Harney on bass. Since undergoing line-up changes in January, this year has been non-stop for the band, who recently moved to Manchester in a bid to raise their profile.
“We made the decision to move in with each other, it had to be somewhere with a thriving music scene,” Sam Farrelly said. “To be successful as a band, you need to be with the other members all of the time. You need to be in each other’s pockets, and have the creative chemistry flowing at all times. We want everyone to know who we are and what we are all about. We've come here to mess shit up and show no mercy. There is no compromise with us, we are filthy and unforgiving.”
The relocation is the latest step in a DIY story that is just starting to bear fruit for the band, who have been slogging their guts out on their own for some time. “We have been very fortunate to have been given the opportunities we have,” Farrelly said. “But we’ve worked very fucking hard to make it happen. We’ve had no help from any management, labels or PR companies.”
Their hard work has already earned them support slots with the likes of Zico Chain, A, the Virginmarys and the Darkness, who left a mark on the band during their teenage years.
“Growing up and listening to the Darkness at age 13 on the way to school, I thought was pretty cool, but being asked to support them was something else,” Farrelly said. “We played our first show with the current line-up in May at a seedy little venue, and the following day we were asked to play main support to them. We had a great time and the guys from the Darkness were really nice and loved our set.”
The Glassguns have opted to follow a path that many bands now choose to avoid on their route to the top and have spent the last few years playing every show they possibly can. It’s started to work, with Farrelly admitting that each spin around the country has led to more familiar faces at gigs.
“So many bands on the same circuit as us have such a backwards mentality,” he said. “They think to be a band you need to spend all the time in the studio recording songs, whereas we're more old school than that. Being in a band is about playing live all around the country every single night. You go in the studio to put those songs onto disc for people to listen to when they're not at a show, but ultimately being a band is about playing live.
“It's always fun to book headline shows in cities you’re not known to, even just to see who shows up and what the fans in that town are like. It's been good for us, because every time we head back to a different town, more and more people are coming to see us and more people know our name.”
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