On the eve of their show at the famous Old Blue Last in London, we caught up with one of the breakout acts of 2016, London's own, This Be The Verse. It’s been a year of firsts for Cyrus King and his band. Having embarked on their first ever tour and recently releasing their self titled debut album, what did they make of it all?
“The album’s gone down really well and I’m just really chuffed that everything’s been well received and all the feedback has been positive,” says Cyrus, who is the powerhouse and creator of the band. He continues to explain, “These are just the first steps but I’m excited to have the album out there and to have a body of music which represents us.”
It’s immediately obvious that this is a guy who lives and breathes for music. “I feel like I’ve achieved something with my life now. Releasing an album is something I’ve wanted to do since I was a teenager.”
We then go on to discuss the importance of albums in general. “I’ve always been a massive fan of albums in particular. Some bands in this day and age aren’t so focused on albums but, for me, it’s really important. I think culturally an album makes a bigger impact then a single or an EP,” and Cyrus is probably right when you look back at some of the amazing EPs out there; they still play second fiddle to albums.
The band played their first fully fledged tour this year when they hit the road with Heck and Black Peaks. We asked Cyrus how the experience was for him. “It was a dream come true to go on tour,” he says. “When I was a kid I’d read the magazines and see all the tour adverts and think to myself that I’d have my own one day, playing all these sold out shows and standing behind my merch desk afterwards making friends and then waking up and going to another new town that I hadn’t been to before and absolutely loved it.”
As far as first tours they couldn’t really ask for much more. Both Heck and Black Peaks certainly know how to put on a show and Cyrus was full of praise for both. “I’m super grateful to Black Peaks for inviting us along and to Heck for being total gentlemen and letting us use their equipment when needed and the whole thing was just an amazing experience.”
There is one downside to the tour for Cyrus though. “Since it finished I’ve had post tour blues,” he explains. “I just want to be touring nonstop and now I can’t wait for the next one whenever that may be.”
Going back to Cyrus’ dreams of being in a band and touring, we asked just what made him want to live the band life. “Well I guess the first gig I went to was Ozzfest in 2000,” he says. The line up included Black Sabbath headlining and Tool making an appearance. “Around that period I was learning to play guitar and started to put together bands in school and afterwards I just became music obsessed. It just took over me and I went to college and did sound engineering and then commercial music at university, but that whole period of my teenage years I just listened to albums. I’d just be listening to these incredible albums and I’d just want to do what they were doing so badly, to be on stage and to write records,”
What with him being so musically obsessed, we asked him which bands he would say were his biggest influences. “Bands like Tool, Meshuggah, The Mars Volta, Deftones,” he rolls off without even thinking twice. “These bands play the most incredible music which had a huge impact on me and just connected with me.” If you’ve seen This Be The Verse live before you’ll know that Cyrus can certainly handle himself on stage and we asked if that came naturally to him. “I’ve always known I could perform and represent on stage, even before music when I was a kid I wanted to be an actor, so there’s always been a performer inside of me,” he went on to explain. “People tell me that I’ve got a good stage presence and coupled with my music obsession leads to what you see on stage now.”
With the amount of new bands out there these days it can be a huge struggle to achieve success, or to simply get your music out to the masses. We asked Cyrus what the biggest task was for a breakout act. “There’s so many challenges and there’s so many hurdles I don’t know where to start,” he laughs, “but with this project I write everything myself and just finding a band and the right band mates, people who can play my music and are willing to do so unpaid at the moment.” He jokes, “man I could probably write a book about it!”
Cyrus is the brains behind This Be The Verse entirely from writing the tracks to recording the music, so whilst the financial burden of funding the band falls entirely on him, it does have its positives. “It’s a lot quicker and easier to make creative decisions,” he tells us, “because I know what I want and with some bands it might take longer to write an album whilst bouncing ideas off each other but for me it’s pretty quick.”
Moving on to the Old Blue Last show, Cyrus is clearly very excited to get back on stage. “I can’t wait! Going on tour with Black Peaks and Heck, those guys are so fucking good it can only make us a better band,” he tells us.“It’s been a little while since we played I feel like now that the album is out there’s some anticipation for the gig even if it’s only in my own head.
“I feel like there are some expectations now, and that we’re starting to set a standard for people,” he continues. “They know if they come to see This Be The Verse it’s going to be a quality show and that there’s a lot that’s gone into it.”
Whilst the stage at the Old Blue Last is a fairly small one it has certainly seen it’s fair share of huge bands upon it. “Dillinger Escape Plan not so long ago,” Cyrus points out. “Glassjaw played there too, I wasn’t at either of those shows but I wish I was,” he explains.
It’s very clear that for Cyrus just being talked about in the same breath as these bands is something that fills him with joy. The big news this week has been the Download Festival announcements and we asked Cyrus for his thoughts: “System of a Down who I fucking love!” he says. “Aerosmith are obviously a classic band and of course Biffy Clyro are that kind of huge UK rock band who deserve to be where they are.”
For Cyrus, his attendance at the festival depends on only one band making an appearance across the weekend. “I told myself 4 years ago that I wouldn’t be going back to Download unless I’m playing it,” he details. “I just got so sick of watching these bands and wanting to be on that stage so yeah it looks great but at the moment I don’t know if I’m going to this because the only way I’m going is if I’m going to be playing.”
Other than his ambition to play the hallowed Donnington site we asked who Cyrus would want to see headlining the festival if he was in charge. “Tool. I have to say Tool because they’re just the best band on the planet,” he says. “Radiohead are another one but there’s so many bands I love I could fill up an entire line up,” it was clearly a struggle for him to pick the third but we pushed for an answer, even offering a duel headliner. “I’m not going to do that because I just don’t like it,” he says. “Okay, Tool!, Radiohead and Nine Inch Nails. Those three bands would kill it but there are so many others out there.”
With that we let Cyrus head off for a rehearsal and to prepare to shred that stage. The one thing that becomes clear as day having spoken with him is that he is a man obsessed with all things music, and with ambitions of reaching the pinnacle. We honestly wouldn’t be surprised if he achieves some if not all of his goals just down to pure determination, however if you’ve heard the album you’ll already know just what a delight it is. If you’re headed down to the Old Blue Last prepare to have your mind blown.
The self-titled This Be The Verse album is available now via Bandcamp.