Greg Sanderson
- Interviews
Eileen Shapiro
- 0
- 8 minutes read
“Cocoa Futures”
Incredible new British sensation, ‘Cocoa Futures”, is at the eve of releasing their new EP, “Blue”, available on December 2nd, via “Lost in the Manner Records”. Frontman Greg Sanderson, on vocals and bass is the mastermind behind Cocoa Futures, along with fellow band members, Dave on drums, Zoe on keys, and Jack playing the guitar.
I had a blast speaking with Greg about his new single: “Bee”, and some other fun topics. I absolutely loved him instantly….
I am in love with your song, “Bee”! Did you write it?
Oh cool. I wrote it. It’s one of our older songs actually. Some songs as you go get dropped, or are you forget, the ones like “Bee”, stick around. So I wrote that maybe two years ago, and it sort of stuck around and I’m glad it did, it’s a song that I am really proud of.
It’s a little child-like, but with a deep meaning.
Slightly some child like lyrics. It’s fun.
Give me a little history of the origin of the band.
I played with other people for a few years. A few years back I decided to try and do my own thing, write songs and take responsibility for them, and try and do my own thing. I guess at first it was a scary thing. It’s your songs, and you’re the one singing them. I started just by writing things on the acoustic, getting ideas together, and I met a drummer, Scottish guy called Dave. He’s from Fife, near Edinburgh. He’s a great drummer and I found some really helpful to bounce ideas off someone. Then a year and a half ago I met through a friend, a girl called Zoe who then joined us, and then a really great guitarist called Jack. He finished the lineup. It was a slow, gradual thing of building confidence and finding the right people. There are loads of great musicians out there, but you want to find people who are nice to hang around with as well. I think a lot of bands fall out or fail because they play with great musicians, but they’re not people that you might want to hang out with. I was really lucky to find some good people. That really lead to writing some good songs and doing this EP that we are about to release.
Are you going to do a tour in support of the EP?
Next year we are going to play at some gigs around the country. At the moment we’re just playing a few of our first exciting shows, and then next year 2017 will go play some other places.
Where is your Scottish accent?
My accent is a bit London. My parents moved to Scotland when I was about 10. So though I grew up there, and Scotland’s home, my accent is a bit weird. But it’s good because it means that you can understand me.
Every word. The name of the new EP is called Blue, why did you call it Blue?
We also have a song called Blue, which is on the EP and the first single that we released. I was interested in that word, about how sometimes you feel a bit down or sad. I think I was trying to explore that feeling because I think sometimes it’s good if you feel that way to just sort of embrace it or really try and understand it, other than running away from it. So it was the word and the feeling that I wanted to explore. And I think it’s a cool color as well.
I like your answer it’s very philosophical. Where do you see yourself in 10 years?
If I was looking back in 10 years in the future, I’d really like to be proud of the music that we made. Hopefully other people would like it too. I guess I’m really ambitious about making music that we’re really proud of, rather than selling out arenas. Also in 10 years time I’d still love to be making music. It’s really fun and a powerful thing, and really annoying and frustrating sometimes, but it’s a great thing to do. In 10 years I’d like to be enjoying making music.
If you could say anything to your fans of followers what would you say?
I think I would say thank you. Thanks for listening and appreciating our music, and for coming to our gigs. I think that if we’ve gotten any fans in other places, I think they should tell the local venues to come and book us, because we like to go and play around Europe and America as well.
If someone told you you couldn’t do music anymore, what would you do to be creative?
That’s a really good question. I don’t know. I guess if I couldn’t make music myself maybe I would try and help other people.
What advice would you give bands starting out?
I really like Radiohead. They are my favorite band I think. I was going down one of those YouTube black holes, looking at those old weird videos. I came across this one video that was Radiohead just jamming. It really struck me that when you hear Radiohead jamming, it sounds like any other band jamming. It sounds like if me and you went into the studio and jam, it doesn’t sound that good. I think that is really useful and interesting to learn, I mean you’ve got the best band in the world just jamming a new idea for a song. It sounds pretty terrible. I think there’s a message there for a lot of people. That when you start something, just record it, and work on it, and keep improving it, don’t give up until you find how you want it to sound. That’s how all of the bands start somewhere. I think it’s really important to write all the time, and record everything you do, and keep improving it. Don’t put it out until you are really happy with it.
Good advice! Is there anything that you’d like to add?
Yes. I turned vegetarian seven weeks ago.
How’s that going for you?
I’m at the stage where I just want to tell everyone. It’s going OK. It’s quite hard sometimes. So I’m going to try and stick with vegetarianism.
