As one of the most promising British groups on the scene right now, Rime Suspex are two guys and a girl intent on making their mark in the world of music. Their latest offering - 'Love Blind' - is a powerful release tackling the stigma surrounding domestic abuse, sending support to victims of violence.
Rime Suspex
We got the opportunity to catch up with guitarist Rory from the group, who told us all about 'Love Blind', the inspiration behind it and much more - read on to find out what he had to say.
You're a trio from Manchester, how did you all meet and form Rime Suspex?
Well, we're actually from Blackburn, but we are now based in Manchester (plus no-one ever knows where Blackburn is, so it's a lot easier to say Manchester). As to how we all met: me and Miranda are brother and sister so we had been playing music together for a while.
I met Vivid at a Hip-Hop night in Blackburn and out of all the rappers he really stood out to me. We ended up jamming back at a house party and from there we stayed in touch. One day he called me saying he wanted me to play guitar on one of his tracks so he came round to ours to practice and just out of chance Miranda heard us and started jamming along with us. We ended up writing our first song that day and it all just went from there really.
It's a very clever name for a group, how did you come up with it?
Thank you! It was a result of racking our brains for at least a month trying to come up with a good one. Every time we came up with one we liked it was taken, so we decided to come up with one that was spelt in a weird way so that nobody could possibly have it.
For those who aren't familiar with your music, how best would you describe your sound?
This is always a really tough question. It's a mix of different elements. I guess that primarily it's modern pop music that draws on R&B and Hip-Hop influences but also has an injection of various genres that you may not expect.
How important is it for you three to be creatively in control over the work you produce?
I think it's definitely important to know which creative direction you want to go in, in terms of how you want your music to sound and how you want your videos to look. However, it's also important to consider input from others. For example: our producer, Jack, will often put forward an idea that we haven't considered, and nine times out of ten it's something we end up using.
'Love Blind' is a great song advocating your support for domestic abuse victims, why did you choose this topic to address?
We chose this topic because Vivid knew someone personally who had been a victim by domestic violence. Once the song had been written we decided to release it as a single as we wanted to connect with victims and raise money for domestic violence charity: Refuge.
The music video for the track is very direct, was this always your aim with the piece?
Definitely. We didn't want to romanticise the topic. I think the aim of music with a message should be to pull the curtain down on the subject, rather than dress it up with vagueness or stylisation.
You've played some great live dates to-date, including gigs with Scouting For Girls and Stooshe amongst others, do you enjoy tour life?
Yeah it's great. We've had the opportunity to play some brilliant gigs/festivals and support some fantastic artists. I can honestly say we wouldn't have it any other way (apart from a bigger tour bus, maybe).
Should we expect to see you performing live in the back-end of this year?
You certainly should. We're supporting a massive American artist in October, although I'm unfortunately not actually allowed to say who it is yet. Around Christmas time we should be performing at a few light switch on events which are always great.
What definitive aims or goals do you have for your career going forward?
The main aim would be to make a career off music. If we could live relatively comfortably off doing what we love then I think that would be amazing. Apart from that, we just want to get our music heard by as many people as possible, play some big headline gigs and hopefully one day get in the charts!
Finally what's next for you?
We have been recording some new material so that'll be out soon. We have plans for an album and should be releasing a number of new singles, whilst touring to promote them.
'Love Blind' is out now. All proceeds from this song will be donated to Refuge to help support those suffering from domestic violence.