Milestone from Bridgend are a little different from a lot of the bands emerging at the moment. Taking their inspiration from bands like Jimi Hendrix, Them Crooked Vultures, The Black Keys, Jack White, and the Foo Fighters, the sound is a compelling mix of riff led, blues tinged alt rock.
The band are Jack Howells – Guitar/Vocals, Kris Archer – Guitar, Adam Pain – Bass and Lewis Pilling – Drums and we caught up with them to find out about the new single.
You have just released a new single I Can Make It Rain, tell us about it?
We recorded the new track at Stompbox Studios in Pontyclun with the talented Todd Campbell. Todd recorded our Medicate The Night EP and it was the fact he was able to really understand and capure “our sound” so well, that we knew there was only one place to go back to for I Can Make It Rain. We’re sure you’ll agree that we made the right decision because it sounds fantastic.
What’s the song about?
It’s about love, but not to be cliche its about love of the physical kind. We have a girl who is taking a guy for granted and using him for nothing else other than her sexual needs. This might seem like every guys dream to have a girl who only wants you for sex; but when your a guy with so much more to offer this quickly gets frustrating, and thats what Jack is saying when he sings “Baby, I can make it rain! But you won’t change a single thing!!”. The pressure of being suppressed can only build for so long! So thats kind of what this song is about, it the calm before the storm and “Thunder is how it begins”.
How and when was the song written?
We actually wrote the song a few months ago but we wanted to test its reaction on the live stage before heading to the studio and release it as a single. It’s a song we love and its great for getting the crowd on their toes. It has that infectious capacity to grab peoples attention, so we new it was perfect for a single!
The song was written in very much the same way that we write all our songs, in that we tend to jam out ideas and key to this is getting a hook riff. Anyone who has heard our music know we like a riff or two, haha. So once we have a hook riff we will just jam and jam until we have the bones of the song. To that then we will continue adding layers and Jack will usually formulate a vocal melody during this stage to which he will go away and write the lyrics. Writting for us is a very fluid and organic process and I Can Make It Rain was no different. If a song doesn’t come naturally, we drop it. We find forcing ideas affects the quality of the material.
I Can Make It Rain also marks a progression point in the sound of Milestone and it’s definitely a natural change as we settle in as a band and are finding our true sound. We thinks we’ve made massive strides from songs like Showtime and She’s So Lonely which were our first releases over a year ago. We are developing as a band every day and we’re finding new toys to play with which are changing the dynamics of how we play and think this is a great evolution for us and hope it carries us to bigger and better things in the future.
Tell us about the video for the track?
The video came about almost by chance, as we had always been planning on shooting a new video but without a date in mind. We ended up talking with Ben, the director of Burning Chariot Media and we were able to play him some of our tracks and discuss a few ideas and things really started to fall into place. Ben was great in the pre-production stages as he got really passionately stuck in. The video was always meant to be for our track Medicate The Night, but the shoot date got delayed and pushed back a few times. This actually turned out to be a great thing, as in the time leading up to the shoot we nipped into the studio and recorded I Can Make It Rain and with just enough time between Ben and ourselves we were able to prepare and adjust the original template to fit the change of track. This wasn’t the conventional way to prepare for a music video but the last minute changes kept us focused and actively creative right up until we finished shooting.
We always wanted the video to be in black and white to give it that really stylised rock’n’roll vibe, and with the help of some moody lighting and cleaver split screen editing we were able to come up with what we think is a seriously cool video. We can’t thank Ben and all the team at Burning Chariot Media enough for all their hard work, we’re so happy with the out come!
What will the rest of this year hold for Milestone?
The end of 2013 is actually a very exciting time for us as we will be returning to the studio to record a new record. It’s in the early stages of planning and writing but it’s looking like we will be recording our first studio album. So keep your eyes and ears on the look out next spring! In the mean time we’ll be playing shows and drinking whiskey!!
