Banfi are basking in the glory of their latest release The Travel Bands EP.
The Communion signees sound as effervescent as ever on this four-track journey that capitalises on their fruitful 2018 and catapults them straight into the hustle and bustle of 2019. Here the band take us through each song on The Travel Bands EP, track by track:
‘Travel bands’
I think it's very romantic when couples endure everyday ups and down through life together. I chose travel bands because my girlfriend's always worn them on car journeys to deal with travel sickness. So it's just the romantic side of ordinary endurance. When you love someone, you look after them.
‘The furniture song’
There's a little nod to ‘Message In a Bottle’ by The Police at the start with, "I left the bottle near the beach, I took the message home with me" and then their music playing at a party. I was wondering how loneliness has changed since they wrote that song... not much but when we look at other people's social media profiles it becomes the more specific fear of missing out/being caught in the wrong life. It was fun writing about social uneasiness at parties and a gentle fear chipping away at someone, making them a bit tired all the time.
‘Answers’
We wrote and recorded this one a long time ago. We've never found a place for it until now and we thought it fit nicely amongst these songs. Like ‘The furniture song’ it's got that panic of being in the wrong life, feeling like you're supposed to be on a particular person's mind, or at their side, but instead you're an outsider looking in.
’20%’
Band managers usually take a 20% cut of a band's income. I think one ingredient of a good manager is they do lots of little tiny things really well, especially boring things no one else thinks about. They've got a love for their band that makes them care about every little thing, and that all adds up to opportunities. We've got someone on board now who does exactly that and we love him for it. But it's taken a while to find him and there are lots of opportunists in the music industry who don't have their heart in the right place. They neglect the small things because they have too many artists because they want lots of advances on record deals so that they get promoted at a big management company and get to go to bigger parties with more famous people. That quickly adds up to problems, and working with those people can get frustrating so this song is us just having a bit of fun and venting that frustration.
