Hi, Service Delay! Welcome to BuzzMusic! Your latest single “Shores” takes us on a journey of false promises and missed loved ones. How do these lyrics personally relate to the band? Is there one person who does a majority of the writing?
Thanks for having us! Lyrically, Shores relate to us because other than Carter our drummer, the three of us are from a small Ottawa valley town called, Pembroke. The city just offers a completely different vibe for better or for worse and there’s a huge adjustment that comes with moving away from what’s familiar, especially to a city like Toronto. There’s so much going on here all the time and that can either be a wonderful thing or a bit overwhelming. The lyrics express the feelings that come along with a big change like leaving home for the first time. As for the writing, it’s usually a group effort. Most of the time, one of us shows up to practice with a riff or an idea and then everyone gives their own input. Thankfully, even though there’s a quarantine going on, three of us live together, aside from carter (again). As of late, writing has just been us in our pajamas playing guitar.
The sound of Service Delay is definitely a harmony between aggressive and melody. What had inspired this almost contrasting tone? Are there any influences that the members of the band have?
Initially, we started out as an early 2000s Esque pop-punk band and over time we started to take influence from Hardcore/ Metal and incorporate it into our songwriting. Joe (Bass&Vocals) is into punk and hardcore bands like The Descendants and some newer stuff like PUP. Dave (Guitar&Vocals) and Chris (Guitar) are both into heavier music like Protest the Hero, Deafheaven, At The Drive-In, and the heaviest of them all Blink-182. Carter is heavily influenced by John Bonham and Led Zeppelin and brings that into his drumming, Billy Talent and Sum 41 are up there too. Carter named too many drummers for me to type them all out so yea. Oh also, Andres, our previous guitarist, is into metalcore and that definitely inspired his lead playing on Splash.
We're loving the sense of cohesion happening here, every part is incredibly tight and locked together. Was this something that was part of the initial songwriting and production phase or did it come from the recording? What was the recording like?
As musicians and friends, we gel really well together which made recording relatively easy. It has its ups and downs just like any project, definitely a learning experience. We did it all DIY with help from some friends we met in school where we recorded the drums. The rest was done in our bedrooms with our laptops and an amp modeller.
Service Delay has definitely had its shares of ups and downs as a band. How did all of the current members come to meet?
Dave and Joe are brothers so they’ve known each other for a while. Chris is a childhood friend of theirs going way back when. We all started playing music together back in Pembroke and we all moved to Toronto to go to music school, which is where Joe met Carter and initially started the band. Dave joined during the production of KODA and Chris joined about a week ago.
What can we expect to see from Service Delay throughout 2020?
As of now, we are focusing on writing while we are all stuck inside. The goal is to have a decent amount of music ready for when we are able to go to the studio hopefully in early 2021 or as soon as the quarantine ends. Regardless, it feels like we’re turning a new leaf and we are hopeful for 2020!
You can find "Shores" here.