The Foam Heads, from Oxford UK, formed in early 2020 as songwriters, writing about modern life to the backdrop of their music from guitar anthems to a semi-acoustic ether. The Foam Heads are Gareth on bass, synth and vocals, Nick on guitars, keyboards and vocals, and Mark on drums.
Hi The Foam Heads, how are you today?
Hi, were feeling pretty creative after some recent gigs that have gone well with new songs. We’re writing more and developing our sound.
For those that haven’t heard of you yet, how would you best describe your sound and who have been your biggest influences so far?
We see a lot of other bands live now that the lockdowns are over and so we have a really broad set of influences from Low Island to October Drift, and The Killers to Do Nothing.
We have been reviewed with mentions of Cult 90’s The Chameleons, early New Wave U2, which reflect that we are a guitar-based band. We have also remixed our early Mass Extinction with Korg Synth, so we take what we like and mix it all together.
And aside from music, what other inspirations have worked their way into your music over the years?
We weave the influences of modern life into our songs as inspirations from mental health and relationships to the ecological issues of the day such as extinction and waste issues. They are fundamental inspiration in the way the lyrics and songs are crafted.
One of our new songs we are working on is inspired by the speeches at COP26 and the concept of a People’s Seat that normal people, rather than just politicians, can take and make their voice and opinion heard. There was also the concept of whether people had the desire to make a change. Without that desire, nothing will happen.
You have just released your new single ‘Waste Of The World’. Can you tell us how that track came about? Is there a story behind it?
Waste of the World is about the illegal waste trade from UK to Romania and the desperate situation of the people who burn the waste to get small amounts of metals to sell. We know this doesn’t sound like a catchy uplifting concept for a song, so we wrote the song as a cult hero guitar track, because there is no point making people miserable!
There is a YouTube lyric video that goes with the song that features some amazing drone footage of waste dumps, which can be a real shock at the size of them. Definitely an eye-opener at where rubbish goes if it isn’t recycled.
Can we expect a new EP, or even an album from you in the near future?
We definitely have a couple of new tracks planned for this summer, plus we also have the idea of releasing an EP of unplugged versions of some of our songs that work in an acoustic style. We have done a couple of support gigs as acoustic sets, but for a headline we are always fully electric!
The pandemic outbreak has obviously affected everyone’s plans, but what have you got in store for the rest of the year?
The pandemic definitely affected us and was probably partly responsible for the closure of the artist development scheme we were on with MAS Records.
We are working on new songs, which we try out at Live gigs to develop them and make them fit with the rest of our set. The plan for the rest of this year is summer recordings of a couple of tracks, followed by an EP later in the year, plus an acoustic or unplugged EP.
We are playing at the Oxford City Summer Festival, which will be a great line up of a lot of Oxford-based bands, a number of which we have played with live since the lockdowns have lifted.
And finally, what is the one thing you hope to achieve as an artist?
As independent artists we would like to keep developing our sound and after the planned set of releases and EP’s for this year we would like to produce an album. As DIY Independents that is likely to be on our own label, so we have plenty planned.
