Archie Jones' image used with permission
Charlie and Will on stage at The Old Pint Pot in November 2019  (Copyright permission granted by Benjamin Alexander-Ashton)

‘St. Peter’s Dream’ is an up and coming Indie/Rock band that I had the pleasure of watching at The Old Pint Pot in Salford back in January. I caught up with the band on zoom this week to talk about their 2020.

‘St. Peter’s Dream’ released their 3rd Single Honey Hold Back’ on the 9th of January. The indie outfits 4th single What Molly Wants’ released on the 21st of August.

Archie (lead guitar) and Charlie (bass) are both popular music students at the University of Salford. Travis (rhythm guitar and vocals) and Will (Drums) both live in Reading.

QUESTION 1: ” Were there any big differences in the way your 3rd and 4th singles were received by your audience?”

Archie:  “Normally when releasing a single you want to back it up with tonnes of shows throughout the month it comes out and the months after and obviously, we didn’t have that.”

Travis: “With ‘Honey Hold Back’, we released it in January, and it was on the receiving end of quite a good 2019 for us.

The contrast with that would be ‘What Molly Wants’ which was recorded produced, mix/mastered and the whole campaign was processed through all of lockdown, so you’re sort of missing that instrumental part of the process which is the gigs.”

 

QUESTION 2: “How important is it to be able to play your music live to an audience before your record and release it?

Charlie: “It’s vital because it gives you a good idea of which songs the audience actually rate because you don’t want to release a song that no one actually wants to hear.”

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Archie and Travis playing at the Old Pint Pot in November 2019 (Copyright permission granted by Benjamin Alexander-Ashton)

 

QUESTION 3: “Were you able to practice as a band virtually during the first national lockdown?”

Charlie: “We did manage to get this hall for a couple of hours at one point to record some stuff for a virtual gig.

That was good because we got have the experience of playing as a band together for the first time in ages.

In terms of actually practising in the first national lockdown, it was quite hard to arrange anything and then also execute it without complications.”

 

QUESTION 4: “Do you think there’s going to be a ‘boom’ in the live music industry after the pandemic?”

Archie: “I’m optimistic, I’ve had a lot of people tell me recently that they’re never going to make up an excuse about why they can’t make it.

I think when gigs start up again, they’re going to be busy.”

We are starting get through bookings rolling now for Summer 2021 already which is exciting. I can definitely envision a resurgence of the live music scene.”

St. Peter’s Dream’s 2020 Spotify wrapped (Used with permission)

 

QUESTION 5: You had a song played at Fratton Park, home of Portsmouth F.C, how did that come about?

Travis: “A guy called Jordan from a London based promotions company called ‘Close up’ direct messaged us saying he had ‘Honey Hold Back’ on in his flat with his flatmates all week and ‘Close Up’ are affiliated with Portsmouth Football Club, and Close up promotions sponsor their matchday playlist.

They shot us an email saying that they’d love for ‘Honey Hold Back’ to be a part of the playlist. It also means they can use the song in promotional videos on their social media as well, there was a video for one of their new signings with our song in the background too.”

 

QUESTION 6: “Similarly, you had a song used in a video by British YouTuber Colin Furze. How did that come about?”

Archie: “So, I reached out to him because my younger brother told me about him using fan-submitted music in his videos.

I wasn’t actually aware of him before my brother telling me.

I sent him over a few of our songs,  a few days later he puts them a video and we saw our streams on Spotify and YouTube views just went way up which was pretty mental.

A lot of his videos get over ten million views. It is crazy how many people have listened to our music in his videos.”

QUESTION 7: “Do you think other indie bands sometimes overlook opportunities for exposure like these?”

Archie: “I think it can be overlooked quite often, especially pre-covid where a lot of bands might have overlooked these opportunities, us included.

I can definitely speak for us that lockdown has really broadened our horizons as to where we can find new fans.”

You can listen to the interview on SoundCloud HERE

Links to St. Peter’s Dream’s socials below:

Instagram: here.

Facebook: here.

Spotify: here.

 

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