A INTERVIEW WITH ARCADE STATE

I had the pleasure of interviewing Jordan Murray drummer from one of my favourite bands on the twitter scene at the moment Arcade State

Hi guys thank you for giving up your time to do this interview with me today. First things first let’s get the introductions out the way. Who are you and who’s in the band?

Hi Danielle,

We are arcade state and we are from the gallus city of Glasgow, we are a quintet consisting of Ciaran Murray on main vocals and guitar, Jordan Murray on the drums, Scott Frank on keyboard and backing vocals, David Daly or wee Davy slappin the bass and Andy Arthur on lead guitar. Taking the reigns on this interview is Jordan. Wits happening?

What was it that got you into music, have you always wanted to be in a band?

For me personally hearing nirvana for the first time really grabbed my attention and I was captivated by the genius of Kurt Cobain, He just had it man but then I quickly endeared to the drums and I just thought that was cooler and that’s what I wanted to do, so I taught myself and started a band with my best mates in school, great memories doing that and here we are today and I’m now playing drums for my brother which is just special. So yeah, I’d say I owe it to nirvana for piquing my interest and getting into music.

What bands/artists inspire you, are there any fellow scots who inspire your music?

Really inspired from a lot of different music going from the likes of the beastie boys to blondie to talking heads to placebo and Michael Jackson I could go on forever but that’s some examples. Going onto the Scots that have inspired us that’s kind of where we take our sound from, all the Scottish influences seep through our music from biffy, Twin Atlantic, Fatherson, The Xcerts, Frightened Rabbit and Idlewild. We absolutely adore all those bands and they are 100 percent our main influences we kind of want to capture the essence of each band and take from it something we can utilise and create our own sound. That arcade state sound.

You guys are putting together a band aid style charity single how did the idea come about and who’s all involved?

Yeah, that’s an interesting one and can honestly say it all stemmed from a joke, I think I said let’s do band aid with the Twitter community and who’s wanting the Bono line, it actually received so much attention on the tweet and also our DMs. So, I’ve ended up organising it and the talent involved is unreal if we can execute it properly it could be special, it’s essentially the band aid tune but we’ve altered the lyrics and it’s now more relevant to mental health which is something that’s important to us. So yeah, this could really be epic and I’m looking forward to seeing it all unfold. We have over 20 bands/artist involved and also a good few of the Twitter heroes. So, keep your eyes and ears out for that, it’s for in your ears music who have championed the new music scene so it’s great to give back , I’m sure the chosen charity is MIND.

You are a band who are pretty active in the twitter community, how important do you think twitter and social media more generally has been in getting your music out there?

Oh, absolutely man social media these days are a vital part of the process, it’s a great way to interact with the people who are interested and Twitter for sure we seem to have the attention of a lot of people on their which is just brilliant, the support so far has been

incredible and it puts that extra fire in oor belly’s. it’s always nerve racking putting your music out there but the reception our tunes have received has been unreal man it just humbles us that even one person wants to listen to what we create. We just love making music and when we see people love what we are doing is an indescribable feeling. We’d like to thank you all that do support us.

Do you think it’s important to support other new up and coming bands on the twitter scene?

It’s pivotal! New music has to support new music. We personally don’t see it as a competition at all, there’s obviously an essence of competition about it to a degree but for us it’s all about supporting each other, we want to see people doing what they love and we will support them in doing so and we hope they go all the way. We will always support other bands and acts and on Twitter it’s just one big hub of support. We feel it’s genuine, that everyone wants everyone to do well and succeed. We are all in it together. We don’t think we are better than anyone we just focus on doing what we do and at the end of the day music is all about opinions, so we take the good with the bad. We are here to stay and supporting one another is something we feel is important.

What gigs do you have coming up and which are you most looking forward to playing?

We have a few gigs lined up before 2022 is upon us. First up we are supporting Craig Eddie. Craig won the most recent season of the voice UK so that’s a massive slot for us, and to top it off it’s at the wonderful king tuts which is an iconic venue, that is November 13th and it’s sold out. After that we have another amazing support slot as we take to the stage before the phenomenal band wrest from Scotland, that is December 4th at nice n Sleazys and again I believe that’s sold out. We are absolutely buzzing to be playing these shows. To end the year, we have a headline show in Glasgow G2 which is on the 16th of December there is a limited number of tickets remaining for that one. So yeah, a very busy end to the year for us. We also have a trip to Manchester arranged for next March and we headline that which is crazy and we look forward to venturing out of Glasgow. We have support from Jay Tennant and the shop window so that’s a belter. Very hard to select which one we are most looking forward too as they are all pretty good

Ok so I know we’ve discussed this one before but for our readers, the hottest show around at the moment everyone knows is squid game. So my question to you boys is if you had to choose any game from your childhood to play (baring in mind your life is on the line) what game do you each choose and why?

Ooohhh squid game, great show, what a concept. I managed to speak to Ciaran and Davy about this one. So, for me as I’m super competitive I’d take my chances with whatever if I had to pick, I’d go with cuppy (football game every man for themselves and 1 goalie) FUCKINNN BRING IT!

Ciaran has selected hidey aka hide and seek, this is a direct quote ‘more than often I wouldn’t get found, which would be hard now cause I’m fat’

Davy has chosen catchy which is basically tig as self proclaimed he is fast as fuck and a menace at climbing.

Its been great chatting today and getting to know you guys a bit better so lets end on a wee bit of fun…

This or That Scottish Edition:

A roll and link or a roll and square?

A unanimous decision for a piece n sausage

Glasgow or Edinburgh?

Glasgow of course cmonnnnn

Gerry Cinnamon or the Snuts?

NONE …. MON THE BIFF

Still Game or Chewin the Fat?

Still Game easyyyyyyyyy

and probably the most important of them all..

Rangers or Celtic?

Let’s put it this way … mon the hoops

Article By Danielle Wield