GiggingNI.com

We had a chat with Ed Zealous - a band who have been on a break for the last while. But we were delighted to hear that they are supporting Hockey on Saturday 27th February in the Spring and Airbrake so we found out a few little things such as their new line-up, their thoughts of SxSW and their London shows.

Obviously you're known as one of the biggest bands in Belfast, thanks to your multiples of gigs supporting touring acts. You return on the 27th February supporting Hockey. How are you feeling about that?

I don't know about one of the biggest bands, but certainly the most handsome. No, we're feeling great. Theres been a lot of change in Ed Zealous over the last 8 months: we found new management, we're now a four-piece, we wrote a lot of new songs we're really proud of and we're now working with a producer that we're really excited about. The idea of a break was to focus a lot of energy into how we craft our songs without the external pressure of gigs etc being able to affect that and I guess the most interesting aspect for us now will be to see the reaction because we really feel like a new band again.

Will this spark a massive resurrection of Ed Zealous and will we start to see you guys a lot more often around the great city and reach out to others possibly further afield?

Absolutely. We put so much emphasis on songwriting over the last while and we agreed to not be constrained by how we'd be able to perform them live, so its been a lot of work even to get us to this initial stage of being a live band again. Having lost a band member we eventually had to re-think how to do stuff in a live context but we're confident in the show we've put together that will showcase much new stuff as well as a few older songs. I guess its baby steps at the moment but it will certainly be nice to re-emmerse ourselves in the scene here.

After quite a long break out, we're assuming there has been new songs written and possibly an EP to come. Is this the case?

Theres about an albums worth of new songs that we wrote/recorded in our own little home studio over Christmas and we're very pleased with what we've acomplished. At the moment we're working with Eliot James (Does It Offend You Yeah?, Kaiser Chiefs, Two Door Cinema Club). Eliots kind of adding the fairy dust to those demos we recorded and you should be hearing them very shortly through our myspace page. Ultimately though we're planning some studio time with him and doing some stuff from the ground up. Watch this space!

How do you feel about bands like Strait Laces making it onto the bill over at SxSW. What do you think bands learn from the experience and how does it benefit them in the long-run?

It's a pleasure to see Strait Laces on the bill, especially as they're our rehearsal room buddies. I guess SxSW is a bit like the Grand National of gigs in that there are so many acts and industry its all a bit of a stampede. All you can really do is go out there and be on fire every show you play and try to come away with some new connections or literally set yourself on fire every show and get yourself some NME headlines. Either way, best of luck to the the boys.

You're just finished playing two shows in London with Not Squares, The Monarchy and Cassette Kids. How were the shows in London?

Yeah both shows were great and it felt awesome to be back on stage again after such a long absence. When we confirmed the shows in January we were kind of wondering how it would all come together given everything we still had to do and we worked right up to the wire to make it happen. After the last show in Dublin Castle a girl came up to me and said, "I've lived in London for 6 yrs and that was one on the best experiences I've ever had here". Perhaps she doesn't get out much but it was a gratifying end to our little trip.

Gigging Northern Ireland says Ed Zealous will be supporting Hockey on Saturday 27th February in Spring and Airbrake, Belfast.

Enjoy this interview? Read more interviews by clicking here!