Seek Harbour are a post hardcore band from Kent, UK. Mixing gorgeous melodies with powerful hardcore sequences, the band have already surpassed 170,000 streams on Spotify alone. With an EP planned for early 2022, the band is giving the rock world something to look forward to, growing quickly and resonating with fans of bands such as Being As An Ocean, Casey and Acres.
‘Wolves’ is their new single, released across all streaming platforms on the 4th of February 2022 with an engaging lyric video that accompanies it. Seek Harbour recently joined Saviour Management, and have since landed coverage with the likes of BBC, Moshville Times, Karma Radio, Hardbeat, Dreambound, Music Matters, Uber Rock, Idioteq, and Local Distortion. With a busy 2022 scheduled, the band promise plenty of new music and will be touring and playing shows across the UK too with the likes of We Struck Gold and more.
To celebrate the release of the powerful single, Sonic Perspectives collaborator Josh Muncke sat down with Seek Harbour gain insight into to their writing process, the symbolism in their music videos, and how they’ve evolved as a band since their inception. Check out the transcript of their chat below.
Interview Transcript
So, first off, congrats on the release of “Wolves”! On listening to the track it’s plain to notice that there is so much going on, so much more depth than your earlier work. Can you tell us a little bit about the track? What themes did you want to explore in this track?
Thanks very much, we’re all really excited about this release, the second track from our debut E.P. Fun fact – this is actually our guitarists favorite track!
We have an excellent working relationship with our producer Oz Craggs at Hidden Track Studios and as a band we often write more than enough parts melodically so he is very useful and very helpful in helping us hone the final product, so in terms of the fact that there’s going a lot going on- that’s very much the nature of the Harbour beast. We sometimes get so into the writing process that we can’t decide which parts we want to record!
Wolves are often a very loyal, playful species. In this instance we wanted to use the more negative perspective of their character as imagery. Consider the “wolves at the door” to be a ruthless and desperate collective. This delivers an insight into how it feels when your relationship with said collective changes. When one finally feels they have nothing left – their perspective of a situation can change. Almost a sadistic defiance, in the sense that, when one finally feels devoid of value – both emotionally and superficially. There’s nothing left for the collective (society) to take away. The song depicts that (however negative) release – or perverse euphoria: “It’s too late to pretend that there’s something here worth anything at all…”
What do you believe “Wolves” offers to listeners that is different from your previous material?
We deliberately designed the E.P to be a cohesive piece of work, it’s the first time we’ve gone into the studio to write more than just a single, it’s the first time we felt that we fully established the sound of Seek Harbour based on the previous handful of singles that we’ve released independently.
Working with Saviour Management to produce this cohesive piece of work we also wanted there to be 4 stand-alone songs that offered a different element of what we’re capable of as a band.
“Wolves” is arguable the most guitar-driven song, the riff in the chorus and the middle-8 offer the listener an insight of what we’re capable of guitar-wise, whilst it’s not overly technical it’s probably Seek Harbour‘s most traditional offering of a post-hardcore song as it’s very energetic unlike some of our other work.
It barely needs to be said that both “Wolves” and “Dagger Like Eyes” are huge tracks with some gorgeous layers and huge atmospheres. What made you all decide to choose these two tracks as the singles off of the upcoming EP to give listeners a taste?
We are actually waterfalling our singles out slowly as doing it this way creates more traction and traffic for each track, so we are releasing all 4 as singles too, then we will compile them into a little E.P on Spotify! So keep an eye out for more.
We chose these two first as the third is the main track of the E.P and actually what the E.P is named after, so we are building up using the “Dagger Like Eyes” and then “Wolves,” then after the third track will be a nice little finish to the E.P!
You have gone back to Oz Craggs for the new material; you obviously work well together! What do you love most about working with Oz?
Oz is not only hugely talented and good at what he does with a great ear for sound but he really helps loosen us up in the recording booth, speaking for myself he can always feel when I’ve put emotion into a line and then will ask me to sing several times until we have a load of takes so he can work with as much as he needs to really deliver what he feels the song is aiming to sound like. He’s not afraid to praise us when we smash a good take and that really helps, very patient guy.
His mixes always sound great, he adds so much post-recording and really gets the best out the track being great at suggesting what won’t and what will work and will help if he thinks things are off and pretty much helps direct us, he doesn’t just do as we ask and his input is invaluable (and always right! Thanks Oz ;-)). That’s just from my experience!
Edwin, your vocals are fantastic, and bring an incredibly unique feel to the overall sound of Seek Harbour. How long have you been actively developing your voice to be where it’s at now?
First of all that’s very kind of you to say so.
This is an interesting question because I have always loved singing, as we all do, but I was once terrible. I love doing accents and impressions and I can sort of copy most things, I stole my fast vibrato off of Hayley Williams actually, I don’t know where it came from, but I sing most days and am always listening to how other singers control their voice and I also try to copy and practice myself, when I got much older and picked up the acoustic guitar I then began to play and sing in restaurants after people told me I was good enough to do so!
So I have been singing since my early teen years and if you keep doing something and working something, like a muscle, you will get better. I am far from perfect and I do make lots of errors, I have not had any training (which I will!) so I think vowel placement, breathing and other things can be vastly helped by someone else guiding me. It’ll only get better I suppose!
Who are some influences as you’ve developed your voice?
Easy!
- Hayley Williams – Paramore
- Josh Franceschi – You Me At Six
- Johnny Craig – Emarosa, Slaves
- Jeremy McKinnon – A Day To Remember
Those are the ones that helped me as I was getting into singing, I always add new ones to the repertoire as I go!
Over the past couple of years, how has the songwriting process evolved for Seek Harbour? Is there someone in the band who writes or contributes more than the others?
We first started off by CeeJay using his equipment and skills to write and then send us parts we could learn. It has since then evolved and CeeJay is now more open to input haha! Simon will add his own unique drums to the track as he always has, Loz and myself will sit with CeeJay and write lyrics once we have an idea of a concept, I will then add notes/take away notes/try a run and myself and CeeJay will figure out if we like it or if it works, Loz will try different notes too (as we like melodic screaming too!) different pitches and techniques and we will see what we want to keep or change and then the rest is up to CeeJay! So yes CeeJay contributes the most for sure.
The video clip for “Dagger Like Eyes” is incredibly colourful and vivid, as well as entertaining! Can you delve a little into the symbolism portrayed throughout the clip?
Oh absolutely, the idea behind “Dagger Like Eyes” is coined from an English phrase “to give someone daggers” which is staring at someone with an awful look or even squinted eyes. The idea behind the video is focusing on someone who is unable to overcome the final hurdle of abstinence within a toxic situation, in this case relationship with certain people be it a toxic partner (which is what Loz’s “partner” is portraying) or toxic friends who force you to things you don’t want, in this case drink more and stay out when you don’t want to (which is what my “toxic friends” portray).
The idea is to get away from the situation but then the “Dagger Like Eyes” almost activate on the toxic person, they come looking for you and we don’t make the escape and then we are infected again, almost like a zombie film.
Loz awakens thinking it was a dream but he is back in bed and in a relationship with his partner still, I end up still in/back in the pub out-drinking everyone looking quite depressed whilst the friends who have, by that time, gone home.
We used the smoke to sort of signify entering the dream-like part of the video as if it’s almost not real with the toxic people almost turning completely unhuman in their static and robotic-like nature and appearing in our minds in places and also appearing to chase us with ease.
You worked with FFWD Films to create the video. How did you come across them, and what motivated you to want to work with them?
FFWD have been living in our hometown for a long time and we’ve known about them for a long while as they are in a band themselves I have seen several times over the years! I myself had no idea they had their own company until it was suggested! So I was completely up for giving it a go. Not only are they top guys but their passion and creativity is highly valued, we work well with them and being musicians themselves they know what they want to aim for to create their vision and have great input when doing so. We will use them as often as we can, I know I’d want to!
Edwin and Lawrence, how have you navigated the dual-vocalist situation as you’ve written songs? It’s also awesome to hear that Lawrence is bringing some pitched screaming into the mix in “Wolves”!
We like the dynamic between emotion with our voices and we like Loz‘s vocals over the top of melodic verses as well as beefing up the pop-choruses so with “Wolves” we wanted to go with not only a bit more of a “call and response” nature we wanted to mix it up more hence giving Loz pitched screaming (which he smashed first time we asked!) but you can actually, if you listen closely to the words “cross to bear” we actually do a harmony together too! We wanted to really give a big range of what the listeners can have.
Loz and myself often text each other the odd idea for a lyrical concept for a song and also lines here and there too, that’s something we do to work with each other as we really support one another as duo-frontmen in this journey, it’s great to work with someone else that essentially has the same role as you, it’s great fun.
As Seek Harbour looks to the future, what bands or artists would you like to collaborate or share the stage with?
There are a few we’d like to play and collaborate with in the future!
- Alexis On Fire
- Siamese
- Being As An Ocean
- Nevertell
- thecityisours
- Deaf Havana
- Casey
