Pop punk: just in case you missed the billboard sized memo, it’s back, hotter than ever, and it now comes in a fetching shade of British. Hot on the heels of fellow countrymen Neck Deep, ROAM, As It Is and Trash Boat, Brighton quintet Six Time Champion are making their presence felt with storming new five-tracker, Expecting Honesty. Released on the 1st December, the work is buoyant with hooks and drives its points home with fiery panache, Six Time Champion’s rougher edge reveals their boisterous live energy. We caught up with the band to find out about the artwork.
When we first began putting some thought towards the artwork for Expecting Honesty we toyed around with a few ideas, mostly hand drawn designs at first as we had come across a number of artists, whose work we all really loved. We threw together a few sketches whilst at the recording studio but never really managed to create a rough design that we were all totally sold on, so eventually we decided to break the confinement of illustrated designs and look further afield.
A couple of weeks passed with nothing really springing to mind for any of us, until eventually Rich threw an idea out to us. The idea was simple and based around some of the lyrics in the track Dragging My Feet. To put it simply, the initial idea was to have a pair of hands full of ash, holding a gold object, to tie in with the lyrics “If you take all of your problems and burn them with the lies you’ve told, although the smoke might fill your lungs in the ashes you’ll find gold”. Rich actually sent us all an amusing photo of himself holding rice as a substitute for ash to give us a solid idea of what he had in mind.
So we all agreed this simple idea had some potential, we also agreed that it should perhaps be photographed rather than illustrated to give it a more authentic feel. That’s when we turned to our good friend Jake Ratcliffe, having worked alongside him right from the start. We knew we could rely on him to take the idea and create something quality, and bring out thought behind the design. After gathering some ash, and an old pocket watch, the idea finally came together. As Jake sent over the final version it instantly became something we were all very fond of, especially seeing as it actually holds direct relevance to the E.P. itself.
Six Time Champion release Expecting Honesty on 1st December.
