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Sep 03, 2024 By Dom Gourlay Web Exclusive

Meet Bored Marsh, who just happen to be one of the most exciting bands to emerge from the city of Nottingham in years. The four-piece are about to release their debut EP Idiot, and have recently sold out the launch show at Nottingham’s Rough Trade venue with 5 weeks to go. Musically they’ve been compared to post-punk stalwarts The Chameleons, The Sound and Interpol, and while their brooding and often melancholic wares puts them on the dark side of the genre, their sound is strictly unique and one that could only be made by Bored Marsh themselves.

The quartet – Joe Need (vocals), Brad Westby (guitar and vocals), Jade Bowman (bass) and Paul Mason-Smith (drums) – have been regular faces through various other bands on the Nottingham scene for over a decade. Put them in a room together and magic is created. Both of their former singles “The Grind” and “A Better Way (Don’t Start)” received a wealth of critical claim from the likes of BBC Introducing and Radio X, while the band’s live shows have seen them become focal points at the likes of Dot to Dot, Focus Wales and Forzafest in recent weeks.

Under the Radar caught up with 3 of the band’s 4 members – vocalist Need, guitarist Westby and drummer Mason-Smith – to discuss the band’s origins, what makes them tick and their plans for the future.

Dom Gourlay (Under the Radar): When did the band start?

Brad Westby: Was it around 2020?

Joe Need: It was definitely during the first lockdown.

Brad Westby: It was pretty organic from what I remember. Basically, I was writing stuff for my previous band during Covid and singing a lot myself, and just got sick of hearing my own voice.

Joe Need: You’d just put out an album.

Brad Westby: I don’t know why we ended up getting in touch as we hadn’t spoken for a very long time, and I sent some tracks and asked if you wanted to sing over them. Then Jade (Bowman) approached us and asked if he could play bass in the band. Paul (Mason-Smith) played drums in my old band, so I thought we’d better get him in as well and that’s how it started. There was no structure really. It was very organic the way we sent demos back and forth to one another throughout the lockdowns in 2020 and 2021.

Joe Need: It was definitely during lockdown as I remember living round the corner in the Meadows and walking around listening to samples, coming up with new melodies and ideas over the top of your guitar. You’d used a drum machine as well to lay down some demos. I don’t think we got in the studio until nine or ten months after we first started sharing ideas.

Paul Mason-Smith: Our first gig was the Hockley Hustle in October 2022.

Brad Westby: “The Grind” was the first song I wrote, but it was an instrumental for a long time before Joe added the vocals.

Joe Need: We were in the studio writing stuff a long time before we did any gigs.

What sets Bored Marsh apart from any of the other bands you’ve been in?

Brad Westby: For me personally, having Joe on vocals. I’ve always been the singer in my other bands and never really felt comfortable doing that. Its always felt predictable before but as soon as I got the first demo back with Joe’s vocals on I knew this was going to be different.

Paul Mason-Smith: I think we all bring different things to the table because we’re all into very different types of music. I’m more of a metal fan.

Joe Need: I was in a band for 10-15 years straight from school and it was all about turning everything up to eleven with loads of distortion pedals which made it difficult as a singer. Whereas with Bored Marsh, although there’s still a lot of guitar effects going on there’s also space in the songs – both volume wise and also to sing in – which is a joy for me because I love the ideas Brad comes up with on guitar as a starting point so I can fill in the vocal parts around them.

Paul Mason-Smith: We’ve all got 10-15 years worth of experience from being in bands so I think we also bring a level of maturity to what we’re doing.

Brad Westby: What’s great for me is at first, nobody wanted to tread on my toes when it came to writing stuff. But now, everyone is coming up with ideas for songs which push us into different spaces individually so each member has their own moment to push a song forwards. It means I don’t have to focus on the writing as much as I have previously.

Your music has been described as post-punk, darkwave, goth and even stadium rock by different critics and observers. How would you describe it?

Paul Mason-Smith: There’s definitely a lot of dark sounding effects with guitars which then inspires me to put heavy, haunting beats over the top of them.

Joe Need: I think there’s definitely a dark element to our music because the reality is, the time when we formed the band and the last few years – personally for me – have been pretty shit. So, you end up singing about grief and heartbreak, the political climate, the state of the world, local politics, all that kind of stuff. So, it’s definitely got that dark edge but in terms of the actual sound there’s a lot more going on than just one genre. We didn’t start out thinking we want to sound like a post-punk band.

Brad Westby: We always get asked how did you come up with such a big sound? Ultimately, most of the bands I listen to had a massive sound. Nirvana, My Bloody Valentine, Joy Division, they all had massive guitar sounds. So from that aspect, I guess I’ve always wanted my guitar sound to emulate the bands that inspired me to pick up a guitar in the first place.

Joe Need: We like hooks as well. I like choruses people can sing along to, so it’s never going to be too alternative and out there. There’s always a standard structure when it comes to writing songs.

Brad Westby: Even though the guitars sound big, there’s also an element of simplicity to what we do.

Some of the lyrics are quite thought provoking. “Idiot” for example, which is the title track off your forthcoming EP and a long-standing live favourite. What’s the song about?

Joe Need: A lot of the songs ten to have dual meanings. For example, “Honest Day’s Work” started off as a political message against the Tory government but then became more of a personal song lyrically, and “Idiot” is also quite personal to me about the state of mind that makes you do certain things when you’re on your own for the first time in a long while. You’re going out and working out who you are and who you want to be. Making mistakes and working out who you can trust, who you can’t trust. But in terms of the “Idiot” concept, it’s a much broader thing about whether we put up with things for too long and are more willing to take the easy route.

Brad Westby: I was watching the Olympics closing ceremony the other night and thinking why is everyone raving about this? Middle aged men miming along to songs. Why do people settle for so little these days? Whether it’s politics, music, or just life in general. When did it become the norm to just settle for mediocrity? Modern life, I just think people are idiots!

The band’s name and logo are steeped in Nottingham culture, namely a play on Broadmarsh Shopping Centre and a design similar to legendary record shop Selectadisc. How did they come about?

Paul Mason-Smith: We were trying to come up with a band name and Joe sent us a list and as soon as I saw “Bored Marsh” I thought yes, that’s the one! It sounded great and it is very Nottingham.

Joe Need: We actually started off calling ourselves Lowborn but then moved away from that.

Brad Westby: I’ve always been in a band at some point in my life so I’m often jotting things down. One name I came up with and particularly liked was Vauxhall Conference.

Joe Need: We’re not a concept band. We didn’t set out to have a post-punk sound or Nottingham to be a key theme. It’s just something that’s evolved. We all live in Nottingham now, but when the band first started I was living in Yorkshire for the first couple of years.

Brad Westby: I can’t really remember how the Selectadisc logo came about?

Paul Mason-Smith: I think it was a conscious decision to show where we’re from even though I’m not originally from Nottingham myself but it’s my home. We’re quite proud of this city and wanted that symbolism to carry on in the logo and Selectadisc is one of the oldest and most established names in Nottingham and of course it was a record shop so fits with what we’re about.

Joe Need: I actually worked at Selectadisc for 6-7 years then got made redundant which had a massive impact on me at the time because I decided not to go to University. I had the best job in the world working in a record shop then it closed and I got made redundant. I probably still haven’t fully recovered from that. It’s underlined a lot of the themes about how I’ve become the person I am. It was a huge thing to be part of, a huge thing for Nottingham so I guess there was some inspiration for the logo that’s also a homage to it without trying to steal anything.

Brad Westby: Maybe the next logo will be a tree with a river underneath it! We did actually think about that (the Nottingham Forest football club logo) but our bass player supports Notts County so it wouldn’t be that well received!

What’s been your highlight or greatest achievement of being in Bored Marsh so far?

Paul Mason-Smith: Getting to play Focus Wales was great. I really enjoyed that, and everything that’s come off the back of it

Joe Need: We’re making music to play for ourselves and to play live. It’s not about the one-offs. It’s about the comments you get after from people that genuinely seem to like it.

Paul Mason-Smith: Another big one for me was when we played with TRNKS at the Chameleon, which turned out to be one of the last ever shows there. It’s great to say we were a part of that venue’s history now it’s gone.

Brad Westby: Just the last couple of shows we’ve played. We’ve all come off stage after and said that was wicked. I think we’re getting to the stage where we’re quite confident about what we’re doing. Everyone’s enjoying it out front but we’re coming off having enjoyed it as well. We’re all perfectionists and want to put on the best show we can for people.

Paul Mason-Smith: We’re proud of the new recordings as well. I think they’re the best we’ve done so far.

Joe Need: We put a lot of time and effort in with Rich Collins at JT Soar so we’re very pleased the EP turned out as well as it has.

Brad Westby: We put a lot of effort into the mixing as well.

Joe Need: I think we found a really good balance with the guys at JT Soar as Phil (Booth) put a lot into the recordings then the final mixing was mainly down to Rich (Collins). We ended up doing ten or eleven mixes of the new songs. We were constantly trying to make them better and better, so it became a longer process than we thought.

Paul Mason-Smith: Having four days there helped as well, because we were less inclined to rush things. I’m always conscious about trying to get good drum takes, but when you have less time that doesn’t always translate into the sound I wanted. If I take up too much time laying down the drums it can have a knock-on effect when the others come to lay down their parts. Everything then gets put back and rushed so it was nice to have that extra time to be able to record these songs exactly how we wanted them to sound.

Joe Need: We’re still learning but I don’t think we could have asked for anything more from the EP recordings.

The EP comes out digitally on Friday 27th September. Will there be a vinyl release later?

Paul Mason-Smith: We don’t know yet. Possibly.

Joe Need: There’s not going to be vinyl ready for September. We’re actually concentrating on writing more stuff at the moment, and trying to play the right gigs that will actually help fund that vinyl release or the next recordings. At the moment, we’re probably more likely to use any money we make into funding new recordings than a physical release, as much as we’d like to have a vinyl for the EP.

Brad Westby: We should have enough money to put into another EP early next year off the back of the gigs we’ve played this year. We’ve got some new tunes in the bag already that we sometimes play live, but we want to carry on writing new music and evolve not keep going back to old songs. I’ve also heard horror stories from other bands that have boxes of unsold vinyl sitting in their houses, so I also think we need to be realistic about how many people know and like our music.

Joe Need: As much as we feel we’re starting to get recognised in Nottingham as a decent band, it’s hard to get that reach outside of the city. We put off printing t-shirts for a while until we felt it was the right time to do them, and we’re happy with how that turned out. But at the moment, we’re still quite conscious that Bored Marsh only has a limited reach so the focus has to be on getting the right gigs out of Nottingham and writing then releasing more music so people can hear it and get a better feel for us. I’d like to think we’ll get a bigger identity outside of Nottingham that way.

It’s interesting you say that as debut single “The Grind” rarely features in the live set any more and there’s always at least one new song in every live show.

Brad Westby: We do feel we are moving away from that (“The Grind”), but then there’s also a couple of songs that were in our first few live sets but never recorded and dropped that we’ve come back to again. “Crumble” being one in particular that we’ve slightly changed, modernised and adapted a little bit so it feels like a new song now. We have got other ones as well that were left behind along the way that we might go back to and bring up to date. Obviously “The Grind” as a single is what it is, and we will go back to playing it. But I got sick of playing it so I think it’s healthy sometimes to have a break from certain songs. I think it felt a bit tired in comparison to the new stuff we were playing.

Paul Mason-Smith: We’ve got eleven or twelve songs now, so it’s nice to have that luxury of being able to choose what and when to play certain ones. It’s just nice to be able to mix it up. In mine and Brad’s previous band Future Shinjuku we only had eight songs that were just constantly repeated. We spent more time playing gigs than writing new music, and even when we did it sometimes took us anywhere up to three months to lay down one song.

You’ve all played in bands for years before Bored Marsh so what advice would you give to someone that’s just starting out in music?

Paul Mason-Smith: I’d tell them to just play and do whatever feels right. Whatever comes off the back of that is a bonus.

Brad Westby: I have a love/hate relationship with music. I’ve been in bands for years where I’ll either love it, or hate it for a bit and battle through it. I sometimes regret not throwing everything into making music when I was younger. I think this band has really got something, whereas with ones I was in previously I don’t think I ever thought that. So, if you really believe in what you’re doing and you’re able to do it, go for it because you might never get another opportunity.

Joe Need: For me, it’s just that really hard balance of taking on board what other people think and recommend or advise you and just sticking to your guns, doing what you feel is right. I was in a band with really good mates for years and years and we had a great time, but part of being in the band all those years was just because we were mates. Not because the music was necessarily what I wanted to be making. Whereas with Bored Marsh I feel a lot more comfortable. I know a lot of bands that are funded and managed by one person and the rest just go along with it, whereas our philosophy is just focus on the music and be positive. Try and get along with other bands and people within the industry when you meet them. Seek out opportunities but don’t try and mold yourself around other bands or a particular scene.

What are Bored Marsh’s plans for 2025?

Paul Mason-Smith: To play more shows outside of Nottingham, particularly more festivals.

Joe Need: Not just more festivals, but also some of the bigger stages within Nottingham. We can’t force people to be into our music but it does get frustrating at times. We’ve had a lot of support from Dean Jackson at BBC Introducing and national radio play off John Kennedy at Radio X, so it would be nice to get a little bit more recognition that way. Aside from that, more writing, more recording, hopefully more gigs outside of Nottingham.

Paul Mason-Smith: We’re proud of what we’ve achieved so far but now it’s time to take it up an extra level.

Are there any other new artists you’d recommend for Under the Radar and its readers to check out?

Paul Mason-Smith: I’m listening to Gurriers a lot at the minute. Wunderhorse as well.

Brad Westby: I’ve been going a bit retro and getting back into The Verve. I’ve been hammering A Storm In Heaven an awful lot recently. Another band I’m into at the minute is Fat Dog.

Joe Need: I saw this band at Glastonbury called High Vis who I really enjoyed. They’re playing the Rescue Rooms soon. Locally, I think Swallowtail are brilliant. Bloodworm and TRNKS as well. I’m really excited TRNKS and Hhymn are playing our EP launch. We go back a long way with them.

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