Music Q&A with Oli Rainsford of Krooked Tongue
Photo courtesy of Krooked Tongue
Bristol-based rock trio, Krooked Tongue, are about to release their debut EP, No Vacancy Hotel, on February 11th! 2020 saw the cancellation of their second UK tour and the postponement of shows. Since then, they’ve spent time honing in on a more refined studio sound. In this Q&A, vocalist and bassist, Oli Rainsford, talks about the EP, The Beatles, and more!
Congratulations on the upcoming release of your debut EP, No Vacancy Hotel! What does the EP mean to you?
Thank you! Well the EP is a more a collection of stories than an overall theme, although that in itself I suppose is the theme. If you can take yourself somewhere else in your mind when you listen to the EP, then it’s done it’s job.
What is your favorite song off No Vacancy Hotel?
We all have different favourites I think. ‘Freaky Love’ is one of our favourites to play live and it’s one of the newer songs so it has a certain youthful spark about it. My (Oli’s) favourite is probably between ‘No Vacancy Hotel’ and ‘Swarm’ because I think lyrically they’re two of my best. Harry loves ‘Vampyre' unconditionally and he gets hyped when we play it live, and Dan loves ‘Freaky Love’ because of his interesting guitar parts that play on the off beat. So yeah, we’ll never agree on a collective favourite!
How did the pandemic affect the making and creative process of the EP, if it did at all?
In all honestly, as disheartening as it all is, we were able to get into the studio and record it with ease. Josh (producer) knew the direction we wanted to head in and was able to make the process really efficient and most importantly fun. You work so hard on refining your material than when it comes time to record, it should be the most fun aspect.
Who has been your favorite artist or band to see live?
That’s a really tough question! There’s some seriously good bands in the world right now. Well as a band, we were lucky enough to see one our favourites live when we played at 2000 Trees festival. We caught Show Me The Body live and it was as crazy as we’d hoped. Pure beautiful aggression.
If you had a chance to interview any of your musical heroes, dead or alive, who would it be and why?
Probably The Beatles. I would love to know HOW they were able to write songs that transcended peoples individual tastes in music and how they did it such a short space of time. It’s unreal.
We all have our days where it may not be going as well as we’d like. People deal with their worst days in different ways. What helps you get through the bad days? How do you stay positive?
It’s always important to stay busy. I kind of look at it like being a character in a video game. You have to do more things and learn more things to level up, and so in life the more you can improve yourself in whatever way, you’ll become a more well rounded person. The same applies to songwriting, the more songs you write, the better a songwriter you’ll become.
Thank you for taking the time for this Q&A. Any last words or final message for the readers?
No worries, thanks for having us! Give us a follow on Spotify, Bandcamp and all the socials etc if you like what we do and feel free to message us if you want to talk! No Vacancy Hotel EP is out on February 11th.