Q&A with Social Contract
Interview by Guna Veinberga
@Old Blue Last, London, 11.04.17., 8 PM, 2 hours before Social Contract’s debut show
Q: How did you meet?
Joshua Eggerton (vocals, guitar): I am originally from the West Midlands and I was just doing my thing up there. I wanted to move to London to have a fresh start, met Scott [lead guitar] online, he looked pretty piff.. Pretty good looking. I am shit at guitar, but he is really good so I took him under my wing, and we moved in together, in Ealing.
Scott Roach (lead guitar): Which is when we both realised that we both have unyielding passion.. for indie rock music.
J.E.: Basically, because we both just had that passion, we just started writing together. I had played in bands before. Writing is quite a therapeutic thing for me, and I found, that working with Scott – it just clicked.
S.C.: It was a certain level of chemistry, which is hard to come by nowadays in musicians.
J.E.: We were just writing songs, demos and stuff, and then we moved to South London. I knew Tom [bass] from back home.
S.C.: And I knew Bisque [drums] from back home.
Q: So none of you are originally from London?
Social Contract.: No.
S.C.: I was born in London. Moved to Hampshire when I was five years old.
Q: Did you all move here to study?
S.C.: Yeah, me and Josh both go to a music university in London.
Thom Leatham (bass): I do philosophy and literature at a less musical university.
Bisque: I tried out studying, but I gave it up for working in a pub.
Q: The names that you have on your Facebook profile. Is it a joke between you guys?
T.L.: They are very affectionate names. They all come from surnames. Mine is Leatham, so Josh would call me Leaf. Scott is obviously Roach. Josh is Egg – Eggerton.
Bisque Wemyss (drums): I am just Bisque.
Q: Who does what in the band? Who writes the lyrics?
J.E.: We write all the music together.
S.C.: Josh writes the lyrics. He is the wordsmith, if you will.
J.E.: Usually it starts with myself and Scott – we’ll write the songs, and take them to practise. One thing that I really wanted to make sure of is that it wasn’t just mine or Scott’s efforts. I wanted everyone to have definite input.
Q: Your debut single, Citizen, is great. What is it about?
J.E.: Before I moved to London, I was bored of my surroundings. And then when I did, we originally moved to Zone 3, West London, where there is just fuck-all, literally nothing. Just a Cop-op. It was about how I moved and found myself in the same situation. I felt like I was in this weird state of purgatory.
Q: What are your main influences?
T.L.: Probably Bono and the Edge, but more Bono and the Edge’s relationship, like the unification of two men. And they really are men.
J. E.: I think someone else that has influenced the band quite heavily, although he isn’t musical, is…
S.C.: Gordon Ramsay! He is my personal saviour. Saw me through some incredibly dark times, you know he really pulled me out of the pit. Only by the spatula.
Q: Would you define yourselves as an indie rock band?
T.L.: It’s not metal and it’s not pop music. Therefore, it is indie rock.
S.C.: Definitely not reggae.
Connor Schofield (JAWS): I thought it was very light metal.
J.E.: Actually, we are nightmare pop.
Q: What is your main goal?
J.E.: Well, we are going to relocate to Doncaster by the end of the year. Nah, just to play as many shows as we can, put an album out. To take it day at a time. Have some fun along the way.
T.L.: Find some wives, have some children, get a job in the office, settle down, get a yacht.
Q.: One fact about every band member that people should know?
S.C.: I am actually the second tallest person in the band, just half an inch behind our bassist Leaf.
B.W: People call me Bisque, which is a soup, made out of cream and crab. But I actually don’t like soup of any kind, and I am allergic to crab.
T.L.: I am currently sporting a three-week beard.
J.E.: I fucking love The Verve. Richard Ashcroft.. I wish he was my fucking dad.
Q: Do you have any plans for the summer?
J.E.: We’re going on tour. And we are putting out a vinyl which should be out in the next two months, with another track that we recorded at the same time as Citizen.
Q: Is guitar music – rock music – dead?
J. E.: It is not dead within the people that still enjoy it, it just depends on what is currently cool. Unfortunately, guitar music isn’t cool at the moment, because there are new genres, that are doing more innovative things. We have nothing against any of these genres, like grime, for example… But guitar music has been diluted to the point where everyone plays the fucking guitar.
T.L.: No music is dead. People are still playing ‘60s-influenced rock’n’roll.
B.W.: Drum music is dead. I have heard a lot of fucking drum machines lately.
J.E.: RIP drum music.
Social Contract are playing a free gig on 6th of May in Oslo, Hackney, in support of Dementia UK.
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