By Devices
A Profile
“….Well, it just seems more and more of our lives are being lived through them, even our music is now created and played through them and most communication is done that way, so we thought By Devices was quite fitting….” Ced, Matt, Jimmy, Dave, and Rob (By Devices)
Indie, with an edge, is the best way to describe the feel you get when listening to By Devices. This Birmingham centred 5 piece have spent the last 12 years gigging hard and doing their best to bring their own music to bare on an eager audience. Releasing two singles over the last year, the band are beginning to make their mark on the Independent music scene.
But what of the band behind the music? Lets take a look.
Starting life in the late 00’s each one of the five were doing their own thing musically. From multiple bands to open mic nights each member of the soon to be Indie rockers was paving their own way. Finding themselves together, Ced, Matt and Jimmy found themselves struggling to find a rhythm section that would stick. Who would have thought an encounter on the street would fix that problem.
Shortly after witnessing Dave’s performances with a local band, the trio managed to take him into their fold and found themselves a willing bass player. All that was left was the drums. So, as though fated, the lads ran into Rob, at that time a drummer for another local band and casually asked if he would come and play with them. The rest as they say, is history.
From this point on the line up was set in stone. The name not so much. Early on they went through a few names until one day settling on the now perfect, By Devices. With the name settled on the sound was next. With the five of them being competent at what they do but also having multiple influences to their own playing they soon found themselves developing a kind of freestyle Indie Rock. This allowed each musician the opportunity to rub their own touches onto their instruments but have them snap together in unexpected ways.
Their sound found they set about writing songs.
“….we don’t really have a set song writing form to be honest, it could start with a melody, or a riff, either way we just build off a single idea and take it as far as we can….”
Their collaborative songwriting method is really a sign of the trust, respect, and comfort each one of them felt with the others.
“….if its rubbish, we’re able to just say, it’s rubbish, and move on….”
After a while they grew a large catalogue of songs and so hit the gig circuit and began promoting themselves. Managing to get steady gigs in the city centre, the band found it difficult to book performances further afield, a problem faced by many original bands who want to perform but don’t have the level of public notoriety of those on the radio. Despite this they continued putting on one great show after another and gathered a steady following.
Soon however, that moment hit. That moment that haunts many musicians who record and put out their own music, gigging every chance they get, sometimes for very little return. The doubt set in. Feeling a bit tired with playing the same venues and also balancing practices with family and work the band felt that maybe it was time to hang things up and call it a day.
That was not meant to be. By chance around this time they got the opportunity to have a session at Magic Garden Studios and that was where they met Gavin Monaghan. Armed with some revised ideas for old songs the band entered the studio under a second wind and were given a lot of help and support by the experienced producer.
“….we loved being loud but he taught us that sometimes less is more…we were still loud though every chance we got….”So now armed with a few well produced and polished tracks the band decided to make another go of it and so re launched themselves fully into things. They expanded their social media presence and officially launched their debut single Police Police in February 2019. Off the back of that they sought out radio play via BBC introducing and booked themselves as many gigs as was viable.
As Police Police seemed to be doing well the band decided to release single number two, Glad You Called in January 2020. This track immediately caught fire and was picked up and played on the BBC introducing show and picking up thousands of streams across music platforms. As they were about to get into the motions of gigging to promote the single even more, the world changed.
Now the band, like everyone else has had to postpone performing for the time being but have not stopped recording. With the help of various online resources, like many acts are doing now, By Devices are attempting to record songs from their own individual homes.
“….mostly stripped down tracks, or stripped down versions of our singles, just anything we can do we’re doing it but just can’t wait to get back into the practice room….:
Just goes to show, nothing can stand in the way of bands musical creativity. So though for now all plans are on hold, there is no doubt that the future is looking bright for this hard working band.
Social Media:
Listen:
0 Comments