Empty Friend
Through a chance meeting of friends at a Soundgarden reunion show at London’s Hyde Park, childhood friends Ryan O’Hare (guitar) and Karl Morgan (drums) met up with Dave Kirk (vocals) and decided to set up a new, heavy project, in honour of their heroes Soundgarden, Kyuss and Alice in Chains, amongst others. Each a veteran of various underground hard rock and hardcore bands in the early 2000s – 2010s, in 2015 the band settled on the name ‘Empty Friend’ after the track of the same name by LA rockers Failure, another major influence on their sound. With the addition of Dave Norman on bass, the line up was settled, and work began towards their first studio EP ‘Saltwater’ – recorded with Producer Wayne Adams (Death Pedals / Pet Brick) at Bear Bites Horse Studios and released in July 2018.
The band then hit the heavy rock scene with a string of shows around rock venues in London and the South of England in the years after, building up their following and slowly crafting a new crop of heavier, riff-laden material. With these new songs, each more uncompromising than the last, the band recorded their follow-up EP ‘Falter’ in the summer of 2019 with Producer Tom Hill (Modern Rituals) at Bookhouse Studios in South London. With its title track ‘Falter’ released as the band’s first single in December 2019, and ‘Neon’ in January 2020, the full EP was released on 29 February 2020.
Empty Friend have slowly carved out a dedicated following in London, also forming part of the London hard rock/stoner/grunge collective ‘Civil War London’. In late 2019, they were signed up by MAS Records for their Band Development Program (supported by Patrons Robert Plant [Led Zepellin] and Ricky Wilson [Kaiser Chiefs]), and with talk of their debut album on the cards, Empty Friend are ready to get their music out to the masses.
Credits
Produced, Mixed & Mastered by Tom Hill (Luminous Bodies) at Bookhouse Studios in South London
All tracks were written & performed by Empty Friend
Cover artwork: Johan Nordin
Band Members
- Dave K. (vocals)
- Ryan O. (guitar)
- Daverage N. (bass)
- Karl M. (drums)
Empty Friend – Neon
Empty Friend – Falter
Empty Friend links:
Band/Artist location – London England
Website – Facebook – You Tube – Soundcloud – Bandcamp – Merch – Twitter –
Instagram – Itunes – Spotify – Amazon – Google Play
