Manchester four-piece Westside Cowboy sign to Island Records imprint Adventure Recordings and announce second EP So Much Country ‘Till We Get There, out 16 January. Alongside the announcement, the band share the first single, ‘Don’t Throw Rocks’.
Westside Cowboy is composed of Reuben Haycocks (guitar, vocals), James (Jimmy) Bradbury (guitar, vocals), Aoife Anson O’Connell (bass guitar, vocals), and Paddy Murphy (drums, vocals).
‘Don’t Throw Rocks’ is drenched in nostalgia, building in intensity through experimentation and layered textures.
“This started life as a fuzzy drum machine demo that Jimmy made in his bedroom and eventually made its way into the practice room ahead of our first headline at Castle Hotel.
Westside Cowboy
We tried it really fast and loud, with a new order disco beat across the entire thing basically. We finished it and were like ‘ This is good, right?’… none of us were really convinced. We were about to call it when we thought we’d have one last go. We kept the tempo but took the emphasis off of the snare and hats and instead onto the floor tom and its rims. This changed the feeling of the song a lot. All of a sudden, instead the song just being this 2 minute fog horn blare, it was now rumbling along and building.
Jimmy’s lyrics on this deal a lot in time and change, and how it, more often than not, moves out of our control and without niceties. We wanted the music to reflect this too. With each section, we wanted to add a new gear, to increase the intensity until it couldn’t be held onto anymore. I guess that’s where the outro comes in. This felt like the natural first single for So Much Country…, we all kinda knew once we’d heard it back.”
Catch Westside Cowboy on tour! Full dates and ticket info can be found here.
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