www.facebook.com/callinsick85
From: United Kingdom
Sounds like: Punk
1. How did you get started with music and how did you develop your sound? Who thought of the name "Call In Sick" and is there any meaning behind it?
So I started music way back in 2000 when I was a drummer in my “I’m angry so fuck you” metal band, when that broke up I wanted to be up front so got a very good friend to help me learn singing and song writing! Fast forward to the 2020 first lock down in the UK! Due to having a lot of time off the past few years then having to self isolate at the beginning of the pandemic I was frustrated and needed a release. Now I have always loved Punk rock but never really wrote any music like it. (In the years prior I had mainly been a pub acoustic guitar singer, playing pub singalong tunes to an ever pissed up crowd (such fucking fun). So in 2020 I wrote the First album and needed a name for it. About a year before my wife and I had been on holiday in a city called Norwich in the UK and in the back streets was the words Call in Sick sprayed on a wall. I looked at that and just laughed to myself and took a photo. So while I was trying to figure out the name for this project I came across that photo again and due to every thing that had been going on it just fit like a glove.
So if you listen to the first album released “Call in Sick” the range of styles of rock on that record stretch far! But I needed to get those songs out of my system, Since then I have refined a more Modern take on the old 70’s British punk rock, I regularly call my sound Modern British punk rock. Keeping a little tongue in cheekiness & political satire while singing about the struggles of living in the uk and my battles with my own mental health.
2. What do you want people to take away from your music?
I really want people to take away a maddening feeling from a record cos I can being pissed off & calling our leaders a bunch of cunts in one song, then the next singing about not having black pudding on my fried breakfast. Singing about how isolated my mental health makes me feel some times then about supporting sex workers and how it is fucked and out dated a view a lot of people hold on that whole side.
3. How would you describe your sound to the average listener?
A modern take on the classic British punk sound from the middle to late 70’s.
4. Who are three bands you’d like to tour with?
O god lol, The UK Subs, Cock Sparer, and Booze and Glory
5. How has Covid affected what you do?
If anything Covid MADE this project come to life with all the free time I had from having to isolate! So in a fucked up way it worked ok for me.
6. What’s your take on the current state of Punk?
I think it is in a state of rise from both sides of the pond. I honestly think due to the lockdowns and covid stuff it gave a lot of people who wouldn’t have found time to write shit out an opportunity too. I think we will see this in full effect in about 4/5 years from now!!
7. What's the current music scene like there in the UK?
The underground scene is awesome atm, there is some fucking great bands coming out. One of my personal favs is Blame it on the dog fucking awesome band from east of the UK.
8. What’s your take on the royalties that streaming services pay out to artists?
As a whole it is fucked as people are not paid nearly enough for what plays their music gets! But with that said unfortunately with the world we live in physical media is ever dying and music has changed as it is more of a service now than a product. With that said it is easier now to try and get your music heard world wide I find!!
9. What's next for Call In Sick?
So atm being a one man band I am working on perfecting my Live show with the use of backing tracks and am planning a few live streams over on Twitch and Youtube! And although I have recently released a new EP I think I will have a new 5 song EP out at the end of April 2023. I try and release a little a lot due to the way music is so in then out type thing!!
10. Any shoutouts?
My poor wife who hears these songs 1000’s of times and can tell me openly if I have a shit one.
