The Sola Jets Interview
Interview with Pete Devine of Pete’s Rock News and Views and Rupe Love of The Sola Jets
(http://petesrocknewsandviews.com )
PD. What type of artists are you?
TSJ. We consider creativity and a emotion based energy to be our best qualities, we really enjoy an experimental attitude and a strong do it yourself vibe, it makes our music honest to us.
PD. Tell us a brief history of yourselves?
The three of us got together at a local open mic night where Ben was playing. Nice crowded pub, decent beer and a good sound, it was chill. I already knew Ben and then Andy got chatting about moog’s, next thing we’re playing some tunes and it was working. That was back in January 2016 and we have been working hard since then in a small studio I’ve built. We play a few gigs when we can but have mostly concentrated on improving as a band and a lot of work on the creative side of things.
We play a few gigs when we can but have mostly concentrated on improving as a band and a lot of work on the creative side of things.
PD. What are your musical and non musical influences?
TSJ. We are influenced by everything, for good or bad.
PD. What are your dreams and goals?
TSJ. As a band we would really like to make a living from music, that is so much easier to say than do! so will list that under dreams. We are working very hard at the moment on our new EP, we’re really excited by what’s being created in the studio, its on a new level for us personally and will hopefully lead to one of our main goals, which is to create an album that will be recognized as adding something worthwhile to the world of music! We would very much like to play Glastonbury (not the car park stage) and we would love to be involved with a small well respected indie record label!
one of our main goals which is to create an album that will be recognized as adding something worthwhile to the world of music!
PD. Who writes your songs, what are they about?
TSJ. Ben is a very prolific and gifted songwriter, a while back at a evening jam I pointed out how annoying I found the spotlights shining on us from a nearby building. He pretty much wrote the song ‘lights’, with input from myself and Andy of course! in about 20 minutes, its on you tube so check it out. I think most of Ben’s songs are rather personal and there is a lot of depth to the lyrics, probably!
Most of our live set are Ben’s songs at the moment although Andy has contributed a couple of really decent tracks we are constantly working on song writing as a band and luckily egos are not an issue so all our energy is creative and positive. We jam very well together and our 
collective song writing is starting to take advantage of this. It is allowing us much more freedom and flexibility in song structures and we are all playing to our strengths which is giving us a much stronger and larger sound. Very exciting times for our songwriting!
PD. How do you promote your band and shows?
TSJ. We love you tube and post videos, we are active on twitter as it kinda suits our chatty nature and we get a good response from people and we have a lot of songs on sound cloud. After that its really music fans and other musicians putting in a good word (hopefully!) for us. We really appreciate Pete’s Rock News and Views !! we are getting a good number of plays on internet radio stations with songs from our debut EP ‘I’m comin home’ and from that people do check out our other songs and videos, etc. So a chance to say a big thank you to Only Rock Radio and those fine people at Radio WIGWAM have recently put us on their playlist which is great because they know their stuff and play really top notch tunes, so that’s a real bonus for us. Everybody should check them out.
PD. What do you think about downloading music online?
TSJ. It’s amazing to have access to pretty much any music ever recorded, it’s great for new bands to be able to put music online that can then be heard just about anywhere in the world, the flip side for bands thou, is why buy the music when you can hear or download it anyway? I’d like to think that people would be aware of that and buy the odd tune to show some support to the bands they like.
PD. Whats your outlook on the record industry today?
TSJ. Most people at the very least enjoy music, for many people its a very big part of their lives, I believe that its the most emotionally giving of the arts and therefore pretty essential to mankind’s sense of being and identity! So its a bit of a cow really that so much of the airtime available to artists is governed by so few people, it’s wrong that these companies really only have their own commercial interests at heart, surely they can give much more support to bands and musicians on the bottom rung.
The internet and music fans, online radio, websites like yours Pete and the smaller indie record labels and some music venues out there are really what ensure that new bands have any chance of being heard and hopefully developing.
it’s wrong that these companies really only have their own commercial interests at heart, surely they can give much more support to bands and musicians on the bottom rung.
PD. Whats your claim to fame?
TSJ. I believe I’m one of very few people who has surfed on the top of a van, travelling fast along some twisty back roads, holding off a group of rather annoyed bikers with no more than a takeaway Chinese meal and a shoe.
PD. What are some of your pet peeves?
TSJ. Dog hairs on my cool t shirts.
PD. What are the biggest obstacles for artists?
TSJ. It depends what the artist wants really? If you’re more than happy playing acoustic round a campfire, then not much. At the other end if world wide sales domination is yer bag then your going to have to work very, very hard and also be a very lucky band for the majority of the artists in the middle of this. Well I guess the number of really good bands out there makes things a bit competitive, finding venues that are interested in original music, time, it takes a lot of energy and motivation to play in a band and that’s difficult to maintain without a certain amount of positive energy coming back to you.
it takes a lot of energy and motivation to play in a band and that’s difficult to maintain without a certain amount of positive energy coming back to you.
PD. Tell us about your next shows and why we should be there?
TSJ. We have little planned live at the moment, maybe a couple of small local festivals, sometimes we throw a little party and some friends and people come along and see what we’re working on, drink beer, BBQ and stuff. Its fun and it helps to have some feedback. You should be there because we buy in decent beer and I do really good chicken wings, oh yeah and the music can sometimes soar to amazing places we didn’t know existed, which I guess really is why we do it, it can be a real buzz!
The Sola Jets links:
Band location – Norfolk England
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Listen to The Sola Jets music on their Soundcloud page
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Find out more about The Sola Jets at Last Fm
