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Have an exclusive sit down chat today with Brighton, UK's own Six Time Champion. These guys have been featured on the site a couple of times in the past with their gritty and dynamic blend of pop-punk rhtyhms designed to hit at a harder angle than other acts that immediately puts them on notice and seeks to expand their fanbase beyond the English countryside. Richard was nice enough to devote some time out of his busy schedule to do this interview as we find out a little more about them plus their hopes and plans for the future. Here is the transcript from our chat:
Give us your names and your roles in the band?
I’m Richard and I play Drums in Six Time Champion. There’s also James on vocals, Will and Simon on Guitars and Steve plays Bass.
How did you guys meet to form the group?
Basically myself and Simon used to play in a hardcore band together and that came to an end early last year. Alongside that we’d always messed around writing a bit of pop punk for fun, so when that band ended we thought we’d concentrate on that side of things. We just happened to look through the Join My Band website one night to see if we could find anyone else that’d be interested and James and Will had put an advert on there (whilst drunk) looking to do something along the same lines. We got chatting, sent some demos around and it went from there really! We were really lucky that we all got on so well so quickly and had the same ideas in mind. It’s weird to think that 18 months ago we were two groups of strangers.
Where did the name Six Time Champion originate from, whose idea was it?
It’s a really rubbish story to be honest! I came up with the name a few years ago when me and Simon first started writing music together, I was literally flicking through a newspaper and there was an article about a boxer who’d won six titles and “Six Time Champion” was the headline. It sounded cool so we just kinda went with it! No deep personal meanings, I can’t even remember the name of the guy the article was about!
What artists/bands inspired you to want to start a band?
It’s probably a massive variety throughout the band as we’re all into different kinds of stuff? I’m a little older than the rest of the guys so for me it was seeing bands like The Offspring, Thrice and Hatebreed that first made me want to play music and be in a band. For this particular band, I guess it has to be stuff like New Found Glory, Such Gold, A Day To Remember etc. Coming from a hardcore background we wanted to keep a certain amount of heaviness and rawness to our sound as it’s what we enjoy playing.
Where do you draw inspiraton from when you writing songs?
I know that lyrically James draws on a lot of very personal things, I’m not even 100% sure on the meanings behind some of them but people seem to be able to find their own meanings in them which is really cool. Musically we obviously have our influences but we take inspiration from a variety of genres and styles and try not to restrict ourselves too much. We’ve always just gone with what we like and what sounds good to us and not thought about it too much really.
Take us behind the recording process for "Expecting Honesty", what was it like to record your first EP?
I guess this one is technically our second E.P as we released a 3 track CD last year? This time round was a lot of fun though! We went back to the same studio and producer (Lewis Johns) as the previous recording as we enjoyed working with him and were really happy with the result. It was obviously a bigger project this time as we were doing more songs and the time frame was pretty short, but as a band we were a lot tighter so the actual process was pretty relaxed and straight forward, Drums were tracked in like a day and a half I think? Once they were done we switched between tracking the guitars, bass and vocals throughout the rest of the week which was a way of recording I hadn’t experienced before. It meant that everyone was always pretty rested though so I think the performances and the overall record was much better as a result. We had a lot of fun recording this e.p. It was hands down the most enjoyable recording session I’ve been a part of.
What is the state of the UK music scene at this moment, how active is it compared to other places?
The UK Scene is amazing at the moment, In my opinion it’s probably the best it’s been in a long time. You’ve got bands like Neck Deep, As It Is and Roam highlighting the UK Pop Punk scene worldwide. They’ve definitely shown the US especially that it’s not just their genre anymore and it’s opened a lot of doors for smaller bands like us. Even outside of our genre the UK is doing so well musically right now, Bring Me The Horizon selling out Wembley Arena last year definitely has to be a major highlight for the UK alternative scene, it’s also really common to see overseas bands supporting UK artists as well whereas previously it’s always be the other way round. It’s a good time to be in a UK band right now.
In your spare time away from making music, what do you guys like to do for fun and leisure?
We all have full time jobs or are at Uni so to be honest pretty much all our spare time goes into the band really! We’re always practicing and writing new things all the time. If we’re not doing something related to our band we’re normally hanging out at other bands shows etc.
What's in store for you guys next, planning any shows in support of the new effort?
This year is basically all about shows for us really, We have a couple of short UK Tours that we’ve put together for February and March, we’re also working on a full UK Run in the summer! Fingers crossed we’ll be able to play a couple of festivals as well this year! We’re just looking to get this record out there and play to as many people as we possibly can.
Lastly, what is the one thing that you enjoy the most about being in this band?
That’s a difficult one to answer! I love working with everyone writing new material but I absolutely love playing shows. I think that’d probably be everyone else’s answer as well. We’re all really excited about getting on the road properly and doing that a lot more this year.
Thanks once again to Rich for taking some time out to do this interview. It's great to get a perspective from British bands and see how acrive and fruitful their music scene with a constant wealth of new talent being churned out constantly, much like our music scene here in the U.S. with a bunch of acts spread out across all genres. For more info on Six Time Champion, 'Like' them on Facebook here and check out their music on Bandcamp right here.