www.facebook.com/riverknight2018
From: United Kingdom
Sounds like: Rock
1. How did you get started with music and how did you develop your sound? Who thought of the name “River Knight" and is there any meaning behind it?
Darren Knight: I started making music when I was a kid. My Dad had a guitar but never played it, so I picked it up and haven't looked back since. But Stone and I have been making music together for years in a couple of different bands.
Mark "Stone" River: I auditioned for a band when I was 16. Couldn't really sing but I got the gig because I had long hair and tattoos HAHAHA
Darren: River Knight started because I was in a dark place as my wife tragically passed, Stone was part of my support system, and the songs on the album reflect that.
Stone: Most of the songs on the album were written at 3 in the morning round Darren's house.
Darren: Yeah, like I said, I was in a bad way and I was, um... shall we say self medicating, and as we wrote the songs based on what we were going through at that time there are references to that.
Stone: Many people would come round to show their love to Darren, and they would sit there, listen to us play, drink beer and tell stories and it gave us many subjects to write about. I thought of the name. We were really struggling to come up with something so I put our surnames together. That's it, no special meaning I'm afraid.
Darren: And as were wrote the songs as an acoustic duo, we tried to keep that as the basis for our album. Which you can hear throughout the release, starting stripped back culminating in a full band sound, and then dropping back down to a stripped bare acoustic sound again.
Stone: It's a journey.
2. What do you want people to take away from your music?
Stone: I want people to smile, and I want people to look further than the surface when trying to understand what we do.
Darren: Yeah, some of the songs are fairly obvious what they're about, others appear obvious, but that's a red herring and warrant digging a little deeper.
3. How would you describe your sound to the average listener?
Darren: Depends which song HAHAHA
Stone: HAHA yeah, like for example 'She Came Round' has been likened to Oasis, The Stone Roses and Bob Dylan. None of our others could have that comparison.
Darren: Throw us in the pot with George Harrison, Richard Ashcroft, Elbow, Noel Gallagher and whomever else you reckon fit with those.
4. Who are three bands you’d like to tour with?
Darren: Well, um, maybe Richard Ashcroft, Elbow and Noel Gallagher?
Stone: HAHAHA and shall we throw in Cherry Ghost and Paul McCartney too?
5. How has Covid affected what you do as a band?
Stone: Oh mate, the first thing it did was separate us.
Darren: Then the gigs stopped.
Stone: But us being the workhorses we are were able to start recording Grow remotely as Darren was living in our producer's house.
Darren: Shout out to Jez!!
Stone: For sure, and I had some recording equipment at mine so we were able to get the backbone of the album done ready for the finishing touches when the lockdown ended.
Darren: And that's when we got some friends in to play on the album.
Stone: Shout outs to Ryan, Ralph, Georgie and Big Daddy Rap Beast!!
6. What’s your take on the current state of Rock?
Stone: Seems ok to me, I think there's something of a resurgence of guitar based bands coming through and that can only be a good thing.
Darren: It's a cycle. How many eras have said 'rock is dead' only for it to rise up from the ashes again and again?
7. What’s the current music scene like locally there in the UK?
Darren: Well I don't know about anywhere else in the UK, but where we are, Southampton, Portsmouth, London - it's good. There's never a shortage of local music.
Stone: Varied too, you got people like Big Daddy Rap Beast and the South Coast Ghosts all the way to stuff like Zen Juddhism and 60th Parallel.
Darren: I reckon your readers would go for the latter bands there rather than the first pair. The first bands are not rock at all, but Zen Juddhism call themselves designer rock and 60th Parallel are sixties garage rock with a modern twist.
Stone: And you have Our Propaganda who are more a classic rock sort a thang. They're all very good acts.
8. What’s your take on the royalties that streaming services pay out to artists?
Stone: Well, it's only fair that they should charge something, but the amount they pass on to the artist needs looking at really.
Darren: It really does.
9. What’s next for River Knight?
Stone: An established producer has picked up one of our tracks, done a little remix with his ideas, and we're going to go in and re-record that particular song as full rock band. Fingers crossed that will be released in the next couple of months. We're also trying to get into as many festivals as we can throughout 2022 in both the UK and mainland Europe. We're not at the stage where we can afford to get to the US festivals just yet... unless there's someone out there reading this that has the available funds and wants us to play? {shrugs shoulders} We will play for travelling costs alone HAHAHA
Darren: Maybe a review of our album in these very pages?
10. Any shoutouts?
Stone: HAHAHA S**t! We've already done them!!
Darren: HAHA Shout out to 'From The Depths Entertainment' for reaching out, and to you Mike for conducting the interview. Been a lot of fun chatting.
Stone: Thanks for having us, really enjoyed it.
