A decade after the release of their debut EP V1, SO-CRATES have returned with V2, proving that distance, careers, family life and international borders are no match for persistence and a shared love of loud music. Formed from the ashes of beloved underground acts including Reuben, Hold Your Horse Is and Samoans, the band has spent the last ten years writing, recording and refining new material between England and Portugal. We caught up with them to discuss the long road back, the challenges of making music across countries and the changing landscape of DIY rock.

• Now you’re back in action again would you like to introduce yourselves to the world again and tell us a bit more about the band?

Thanks, it feels good! We’re a geographically challenged rock band of four men. We started up not long after Hold Your Horse Is called it a day in 2014,  as Chris Rouse (drums) and I were already talking with Jon Pearce (bass) about doing a band together, but we knew we wanted to take a different approach to our previous bands. We were very used to playing in three-piece bands so it felt like a fun new challenge to make a four-piece, originally with our friend Kaz Buckland on guitar for the first few jams but eventually Toby Jackson joined properly on guitar and that was that. That was all in the Hampshire/Surrey area.

We played some gigs, recorded a 7-track EP called V1, then I moved to Portugal and Jon moved up to the North West in 2016. Since then, I had pretty regular work commitments in London so would try to sneak in some rehearsal time on my trips back, occasionally with Jon visiting family down south, but often just drums and two guitars. I kept writing songs back home and would send demos to the boys, then a few months later we would play through them. Slowly slowly…

• You released your first EP ten years ago – what keeps drawing you back to making loud, complicated music together and did you ever expect the band would return after such a long gap?

To be honest it just kind of happened that way. We never planned to wait a decade between EPs, but we had kids and general life stuff going on and obviously didn’t get loads of time together. So progress on anything has just ended up being a game of patience. In truth I’m pretty stubborn and never let the idea drop. I knew it would happen eventually!

• How are you finding being a band has changed since the Hold Your Horse Is, Reuben and Samoans days? Are there any new bands you’re particularly excited about at the moment?

The whole scene is different, I think. But we’re not really in it now, so I might be wrong. It’s easy to look back and regard the old times as the golden days for our music scene, but I do think it was a really incredibly healthy, exciting time to be in a band. So many inspired people making interesting things happen just for the love of it. The bands we’re hyped on at the moment are the likes of Tigercub, Vower… They’re doing great stuff. Obviously more established, in a less underground DIY way but yeah, they’re rad. 

• V2 was recorded over three years across England and Portugal. What were the biggest challenges of recording in such these circumstances?

Just time, really. In HYHI we always recorded parts separately in the studio, so I saw this as the same process – just slower and more remote. 

After we’d successfully recorded drums to two songs, and it was pretty straightforward recording the other parts remotely, I said we should do that again, to have four songs… then we thought why not do it again? Six tracks is a proper EP. I handled the mixing at my house in Portugal, which was a fun learning process. Each time I got better at one element of the mix process I had to revisit previous tracks to polish them all up to standard. That happened a lot! Soeverything took longer than we expected. But we’re really happy with how it came out. 

• Did being older, with families, careers and lives spread across different countries, make the creative process easier or harder?

Creatively yeah, I suppose it was harder. But in a way it helps you focus with the spare time you have, so I would make sure to get ideas down whenever I could and revisit them regularly to move the thing along. It’s hard when you’re in the zone and you don’t have the actual recordings to get stuck into – a few times I had to wait for parts from Toby or Jon when I had a window of time to make progress. Just how it goes!

• Whats on the horizon for you guys? 

Currently nothing. It would be awesome to play a good show or festival next summer, logistically there are major hurdles but if something came up, we could try and make it happen. 

Maybe we’ll release our next EP in 10 years?

• Any favourite gigs you’d like to highlight and equally are there any disaster gigs you’d like to talk about? 

We played a cover gig in Bristol some years ago that was so fun, each band could choose a band and we chose Nirvana. We just played some of our fav songs, kinda in our style and had a blast. There was also a very lively Abba tribute, quite ridiculous. 

• You’re stuck on an island and can only listen to one album for the rest of your time there, what are you choosing? 

Impossible to answer! Though I think my most spun album ever is Racecar is Racecar Backwards by Reuben. 

• Any parting wisdom you’d care to share?

Not sure. Don’t let borders get in the way of music?