We conducted an interview with Cameron of Cardiff, Wales hardcore punk band FOXXES on January 7, 2012.
Thank you for taking this interview. It’s a pleasure to have you guys. Please, introduce yourself and your band to our readers.
Hi! I’m Cameron and I do vocals, we are Foxxes from Cardiff.
How’s Cardiff? What’s trendy in the city? [laughs]
It’s not bad, but it’s annoying that a lot of bands touring from other countries often don’t play in Cardiff, so you have to go to other nearby cities to see them. There’s not that much of a Cardiff ‘scene’, it’s pretty eclectic with loads of types of bands around the city. That said though there aren’t enough smaller venues for hardcore bands to play at. TJ’s in Newport was amazing but that closed down last year.
Why “Foxxes”?
We chose FOXXES, because we wanted to try and get away from all these generic hardcore band names that are around at the moment, we wanted to be different and stand out! There is no meaning behind it we just thought it sounded cool!
How did you decided to form a band?
We have known each other since we were about 12 years old, so we have been friends for a long time, so we were all sharing the new music we were discovering, once we all found hardcore we fell in love and decided to start the band, nothing really happened until the summer of 2010 when we actually got together and started writing some songs! But now I’m definitively glad we did.
What meaning does hardcore have for you?
Hardcore has changed so much over the past year or so, in the UK anyway, right now it’s more of a fashion thing, which makes me feel physically sick, because that’s the complete opposite of how it should be, but to me hardcore music is the best and sometimes the only way to release your feelings and emotions and it’s fair to say it keeps me wanting to be alive.
You are signed to Italy’s Strikedown Records. What’s your relationship with the label and your label’s mates?
This was the biggest highlight of 2011 for us, Strikedown are the best label we could have hoped to of signed to, the way its run is perfect, Carlo is a great guy and doing wonders for the hardcore scene! We owe a lot to him!
Your debut EP entitled “Forget the Rain” was released back in August 2011. Tell us more about the writing and recording process.
The writing process for Forget the Rain was really fun, we all just went to our guitarists house for a few days, and sat there until we had the songs finished, this is the best way to write for us, we have to use the free time we have because of university, but we started some of the songs way before this, so we didn’t really have much left to write, so it wasn’t to hard, as for recording, this was also a great experience we recorded the drums for our EP with Stu Mackay of Studio 6, and the rest was done with James Hackett, he knows what he is doing, and he made a good progress from our demo, we wanted it to sound a lot heavier and he helped us achieve that, the studio was in the home town of our best friends ‘The Cold Harbour’ so to have them come hang out in the studio with us was the best!
Have you thought about releasing a split? What band would you choose?
Yeah this is something we will look to do in the next few months, we hit the studio in February to record 3 new songs, we have a few bands in mind, but who we do it with you will have to wait and see!!
When can we expect your debut full length? Are you writing already?
Writing for our full length will start this summer, we don’t have much free time at the moment with university and shows/tours, so it’s hard to find time to sit down and write but once our summer holidays come, it’s are main priority, we hope to have a full length out late 2012 early 2013 (if we are not all dead that is).
How many shows have you been playing so far and how important is touring for you?Is there a chance to see you guys live at one of the biggest European hardcore festivals?
We love to play shows and we love to tour even more, whenever we have free time we will try and sort a tour out, but it can prove pretty hard to find time, in 2012 we will do 4 tours, 2 of these have already been announced the others will be soon, our first tour of 2012 will see us go back to Europe, we will go with our best friends CROOKS we cannot wait for this because ever since our last tour of Europe we have just wanted to go back! Touring is very important to us and we would do it 24/7 if we could! Hopefully we will get to play some festivals, we would love too, if any offer’s come, we would say yes!
Is there a band you would like to play with this year?
I can only speak for myself but if I had to choose one band to play with, it would be TRAPPED UNDER ICE!!! They are my favourite hardcore band right now, the others might not agree as I refuse for anything else to be played in the car on the way to shows, so they are properly sick of them!, but yeah TUI till I die!
What do you guys do in your private lives? How much time do you spend dedicating yourself to the band?
We are all at university, which does not leave us with much free time, but not a day goes by without me doing something for the band. Like sending merch out checking emails, the normal kind of stuff, and the band is a huge part of my live, and i love it that way, i get to spend time with my friends writing music and playing shows!
What are you most looking forward to in the future as a band?
There is so much we want to achieve with this band, I think the biggest thing for us would be to tour USA or Australia, if we ever get to that point or get the opportunity who knows, but at the moment it’s just a dream, maybe someday we will get to do this.
Thanks for your time! Is there anything you’d like to share?
We just want to thanks everyone that has helped us as a band so far, we appreciate it so much, biggest thanks goes to Carlo of Strikedown for giving us a chance with his label! And look out for our new songs coming soon!! Thank you!
Visit the official FOXXES merch store here.
Catch the band live:
11/01/12 – The Croft, Bristol, UK
9/03/12 – Six Feet Under, Newport, UK
16/03/12 – JH Zenith, Dendermonde, Belgium
17/03/12 – JH Zigzag, Merksplas, Belgium
18/03/12 – Az, Aachen, Germany
19/03/12 – tba, Saarbrücken/Kaiserslautern, Germany
21/03/12 – AERA, Vienna, Austria
22/03/12 – Kokolores, Künzelsau, Germany
23/03/12 – VeB, Lübeck, Germany
24/03/12 – Four Rooms, Leipzig, Germany
25/03/12 – JuHa West, Stuttgart, Germany
26/03/12 – O’Bundies, Marseille, France
12/06/12 – TBA, Leon, Spain
13/06/12 – TBA, Vigo, Spain
14/06/12 – TBA, Madrid, Spain
15/06/12 – TBA, Torrelavega , Spain
16/06/12 – TBA, Barcelona, Spain
“Forget The Rain” EP:
