Mark: Tonight, we’re chatting with a twister about the debut album Cursed and Corrected, which will be released on the 13th of November this year on the Off Your Rocker record label. Thanks for taking time out of your busy schedule to chat with us here on the Rock and Blues by Hughes show.

Stevie: Anytime, anytime. Thanks.

Mark: Could you just introduce yourself and give us a little background on yourself and how you started out in the music industry?

Stevie: My name’s Stevie. I’m frontman in the band and I’ve been in a band since I was 13 and I started when I was in school. And we have so many lineup changes since then. But now we’ve got this lineup for the last two or three years. Now it’s nice and solid and we can’t wait to get this album out there and show people what it’s all about.

Mark: You just mentioned the band and you’ve got Ryan Lee on bass now, Jack Corbett on drums and Jake Grimes on guitar and vocals. How did that come about then?

Stevie: Well, Jake’s been with me for the last six years now. Jake’s my best pal in the world to be fair. Before we saw the way that Jake joined the band was quite, quite extraordinary, really. I ended up having to change the full band in six days, which is unheard of, really. At the time we were toying in between sort of going down the original’s route. We were still doing like the few cover gigs and stuff on the side, as well to keep the Money Turning in and the band that I had at the time. I was outvoted three to one, even though it was my band, we live in a democracy an all. I was outvoted to do a contract for holiday parks. It’s just something that I wasn’t, I didn’t want to do. I wanted to go down the original route like we are right now. And we ended up doing the whole of the parks the first weekend and then all three of them left the band and didn’t want to do the holiday parks, so I was left with this contract. And then I got the chance to get a full new band in. And Jake was one of the ones that we brought in. Thankfully, we did so.

Mark: Okay, so how would you describe your music for someone who’s never heard it before then?

Stevie: We we just it’s high energy pop rock, I suppose. Really, it’s all along every song. If you hear the first chorus, you’ll know it by the second chorus. And that’s kind of our philosophy on songwriting and things. It’s about trying to get as many people involved as we can do. And the whole team ethic really, really pushed through our music as well.

Mark: The new album is called Cursed Corrected, which is out on the 13th of July. Why the title Cursed Corrected?

Stevie: Cursed Corrected is a lyric from the first single that set all of this in motion, which is a song called “Young & Affected”, which is Track three, I believe, on the album. And that is what we are doing. The fact is we are Cursed Corrected. And the reason that we should push this is, that the thinking is basically because we are. The team as a whole, we try to attack things as one, and the whole safety in numbers is very much pushed across the board. And I think because we’ve got this album has been quite a long time in coming and we’ve had a few very different relations in the past. And this one, we really wanted to try and do it the right way. And record it with the right people and produce it the right way. And the whole “Cursed Corrected” thing also refers to the fact that this time we’ve tried when we’ve done this release, we try to do everything the right way,

Mark: Ok, and “Call to Arms”. As you said, there was the first single which you said described your feelings at current times. What made you choose that particular track? to kick off an album?

Stevie: Well, it actually is relevant for us really. The song that started all this was “Young & Affected” and that was really the one. But we released in May last year when really this album, (we) wasn’t even thinking about releasing this and then “Call to Arms” about it, and we when we finished the recording process, “Call to Arms” just seemed like the right one to start on, especially given the song and the current time and what we’re going through at the moment, I think most musicians and bands are like, we all need everyone’s help and we need everyone’s help not just to stay afloat, but obviously to be to become recognised in a time when no one’s really taking any notice of what’s going on other than what’s actually going on. So that’s why that’s what I “Call to Arms” comes in the wake or like, come and join us, go and get involved and what we’re trying to achieve.

Mark: Okay. And you touched on it there. But a little bit earlier, actually, the album is like five years of your life to record an album,

Stevie: Whether it’s five years in the making, as it’s it’s six years since Jake joined the band. And we have to get out of the contract that we were in at the time. We got rid of that. And then the songs stemmed from there really. So we’ve had a couple of EPS released in that time, but everything’s been done in a really tight budget. And we obviously we’ve done our own music videos. And this time we spent all of last year putting away all the money that we could squirreled away so that when we got the go ahead to do this album, we could do it the way that we wanted to do it, with the team that we wanted to do it with, in the studio as well to do it. And I think that was the main thing. We want to do this. We do it to the highest standard that it could be.

Mark And the writing process then, how does that work? I mean, do you have a riff that you build around or do you pick up a couple of lyrics and then go from there? 

Stevie bits of both really. We start off with a couple of different processes. I’ll be sat with maybe a guitar line or maybe I might drive into the lyrical to and then we’ll start pinning them together. So we’ll pin a lyric to a melody into a guitar line and then me and Jake will sort of thrash that out acoustically first and just get the bare bones of the song. As I always say, if you can play a song with an acoustic guitar, it’s decent, so it’s natural. And then we get in the room that we’re in at the moment. Actually, this is our booth at the studio, so we have a recording desk And that’s like right next to it. And in the room just there, that’s our full band set up. So we can go into there once we’ve thrashed out our acoustic guitars and electric drummers and stuff, and here we go. And then actually start making it dead noisey. And that’s that’s where it all comes together. 

Mark Okay. You touched on it earlier about having done exactly how you wanted it. You recorded Parr Street Studios and produced by Tony Draper and Yourselves, Mastered Abbey Road Studios. What was the thinking behind using those venues? 

Stevie Well, I think we recorded at Par street a couple of times. I was in a band called Deva as well, and we did a lot of the drum track at Parr Street didn’t record everything there. And I always said to the lads at the time when I was in Deva, we should record everything here because it’s so much better. But anyway, we didn’t end up doing it. And I said that we definitely wanted to do that with whatever we do with the main Twister album when we release it. So that was something I wanted to do. And I worked with Tony as well on the Deva stuff. And done something many years ago. And Tony was just a natural choice because I think I think he’s so talented at what he does. And the beauty in Tony in as well, is that our sound isn’t necessarily what he would usually work on. And I think that was something that we wanted to bring in to give a completely different pair of ears on it and give us some alternative options to what we were creating. 

Mark Because sometimes you do get a little bit that you can’t see outside the trees, for the woods, if you know what I mean, and you do need that outside influence to come in. And so I say, what about this or whatever? 

Stevie: Yeah, yeah, yeah. You can have a little bit too much creative control I think. Yeah. And having somebody knowledgeable and and he’s brilliant on the desk like he’s brilliant with this stuff. And we did a lot of it. We spent a lot of time tuning guitar amps and like just getting in the way that we need them to be and a lot of room mikes and stuff we used on this. So it’s quite a big sounding record as well. 

Mark Okay, so you got a few dates in October, hopefully fingers crossed, and then you’re off on tour with the QuireBoys next year. How did that come about? 

Stevie Well, we were on the same label, but it actually started as a drunken conversation in the back of a van as most great things start. And it was back at Hard Rock Hell last year. And we’re all from the same neck of the woods, really us and the QuireBoys. So we’re all North East boys. And to be honest I didn’t recognise Spike at the time and I’ve just been watching them on stage. But he was stood he was in the back of the van where we were putting the gear and I just thought he was a drunken yobbo. trying to track the gear. We got talking. We spent all night just talking over. We’ve all played the same venues in the north east. I mean, obviously a long time apart. But we have been there and we just became really good friends then. We played with them in December last year at Oxford O2 Two Academy. And that was an amazing gig. And we had a great show, but we went down really well with our fans, which was always a little bit of a worry because we are slightly different. 

Mark So it does give you an opportunity to expose yourself to a wider audience or different audience, perhaps. 

Stevie Exactly, yeah. And when Spike came off stage at night times, I want you boys to come to the European like with us. I think we’d be a really good fit because also, you can have, if you’ve got two bands who were very similar, you have to have a good thing as well. So I think we were something fresh on their fans’ ears. 

Mark So lockdown, what’ve you been up to during that? Obviously you’ve been doing the album, but it’s been tough times for everyone. If you managed to keep yourself sane, 

Stevie Well to be honest I think it’s it all depends on the outlook, really. And I think for us it was always about trying to turn a negative energy into a positive and push on through it. So we’ve done a lot of live streams and mainly to keep our friends, our fans and. Even by family and friends and stuff, keep everybody sort of entertained, and that gives us a bit of a purpose as well, because obviously we would be usually out there playing four or five nights a week, wherever we would be. So that’s definitely helped. But also, we’ve been putting plans in place for when this is over when we can actually hit the road again. And we’ve got some great stuff coming up in November that we started out the last two or three weeks and some socialist shows to release the album. And we’re doing a full live stream. It’s going to be halfway between a gig and a music video, but it’s going to be like a big, big live streamed thing. And that’s on the 6th November. We can’t wait to do that.

Mark Yeah, okay. You said that you’re going to tour the album. Is that the October dates 

Stevie No the October, dates are just some gig dates we’ve got. So we’ve put, we’ve picked up some gigs from friends who are needing bands for certain things that we just jumped on them as they were. We’re just a working band, so we’re constantly trying to work if we can. So we’ve picked up some sorta like and smaller pubs and stuff like that just to keep us working. It keeps ticking over. But we’ve booked two gigs. We’ve done like a full weekend at a venue in Southport and on the 13th and 14th of November, which is the weekend the album comes out and we’re doing the Friday and Saturday night. So it’ll be really good fun. 

Mark Excellent. So more importantly, where can I find out more about Twister and the million dollar question? Where can they get a copy of the album when it’s out? 

Stevie Brilliant, well everything’s mainly done through our Facebook page, our website, You can find everything which is www.officialtwister.co.uk 

Mark Lovely. Okay. Hello. 

Stevie Yeah, that’s awesome. 

Mark Well, thank you for taking time out of your busy schedule. It’s much appreciated and thank you for chatting with us here on the Rock and Blues By Hughes Show. 

Stevie Awesome. Thanks very much