Virtual Interview #1: LOAstate

The iconic logo of LOAstate (this pic does not belong to me)

On 28th April 2020 Stockport based band Kashmere teamed up with LOAstate and dropped their new collaboration track "Crystals" which was completely written whilst both artists were in lockdown. With a new release being dropped I thought it would be a great opportunity to try my first virtual interview with LOAstate asking them impatricular due to us having regular talk and giggles on Instagram. 24 hours after speaking to Joey Newey, The Kashmere frontman about the new release I spoke to Sid Cooper from LOAstate via Instagram Live and typed the audio onto this article, Hope you enjoy :)

Virtual interviews are something I would like to do regularly whilst in quarantine if you want to take part in one then please send me a message!

You can listen to "Crystals" here. You will not be let down (I promise!)

Q&A (All answers in bold)

1) Q: What is the meaning behind the name LOAstate?

A: Right, good question mate so what it means is, it's a state of mind like a little philosophy that we'd invented or well, Yeah I suppose we have, It stands for Love, Peace, Anarchy which is the philosophy, find what you love and face the anarchy its self, And I get That the O should be P but obviously that sounds like a dodgy drink really (LPAstate) but the O is more like a symbol for peace so L (Love) O (Peace) A (Anarchy) State

2) Q: What kind of messages do you want to address to the listeners to in your lyrics?

A: Again another great question, So basically this whole thing was born out of a bit of a mental health crisis within myself personally and a few of the lads and stuff like that. So the whole, This was never intentional, was just the whole kind of meaning behind all the songs is looked for solutions to this so it's more like a little diary really I thought a lot of the songs were about people but finding out as we go along the lyrics were more about messages to myself

3) Q: What inspired you to start a band and where did you all meet?

A: In our own little corner we want to be the best version of ourselves, A few of us have been in bands before I've known Denny a very long time and this has always been something we've wanted to do and once we got the stuff together this was just like a "yes finally we can do it!" moment. What was the other one? What inspired us? we just wanted to create a little youth club and record tunes together and once we started writing we thought these ideas were pretty decent lets start a band and put them out. We dribbled our way through 2017 and started recording the tunes that are planed to be out around now maybe mid 2018 was our first studio visit.

4) Q: Who would you say your main influences are as a band?

                                              A: I know when we started the band we were listening to a lot of "Life Of Pablo" by Kanye West and a Kendrick Lamar was a massive influence on us because like I said we came from the indie side and wanted to check the hip hop scene but our music taste is pretty mixed really so Denny's a massive Kings of Leon fan, Ryan loves Mac Miller so you know it's all different tastes really mate, creating our own little world.

5) Q: What are the main genres you associate LOAstate with?

                                     A: Well, we haven't stated that we are hip hop because we don't want to claim that we are, despite being influenced by it, If I was to put down our genre i'd say it would have to be Alternative rock kind of thing but I don't know because we sort of invented our own little world but our stigma isn't really followed by a genre even though I know it's important for marketing but we just wanted to make it our own and see what people think about it.

6) Q: When was your debut performance and what did the audience think?

A: Our first gig was Neighbourhood Festival back in October, It was really good, there was a band on before us which cleared out quickly and we were very nervous with it being our first gig and all that thinking no one's gonna be here so I went backstage with Denny whilst the rest of the lads were getting the gear set up on stage and then came back out and it was full and yeah that was our first gig, I'm not taking all the credit for that because there was a band on afterwards but there were a lot of people who were there to just check out and had seen the Instagram stuff like that and just thought lets see what theyre like in person, It was weird with it being the first time but it was a great day.

7) Q:What are the main prospects for LOAstate? Are there any dream venues you'd like to headline or any festivals you would like to play at or anything along those lines?

A: Absolutely, Obviously there's a few in town I mean Band On The Wall we were looking forward to and that's been pushed back but in the long run obviously for the start you can tell by our logo (the pyramid) obviously Glastonbury is the main aim, The Pyramid stage that will happen, I'm not going to die until that has happened. Throughout the year we plan to release an EP so keep a look out for that.

8) Q: If you could describe LOAstate in 3 plains words what would it be?

A: Weird, Deep, Meaningful. But that's just off the top of my head could have done a lot better but there you go.

9) Q: What kind of things have the audience requested from you?

A: I don't think were that far into it yet man, We had a suggestion recently about having a video being filmed in a cave but no not yet but I'm sure we'll get there eventually.

10 Q: What are your thoughts on the new collab with Kashmere?

Mate I love that tune, the minute Joey sent it me, I know it was like an open book when he sent it me there was nothing there just the actual instrumental and it literally took me half an hour to put something together because I was enjoying it so much, So once I heard Joey's part I loved it.