With influences such as Rancid, The Wildhearts and Green Day, Northumberland's LoGOz have recently released a sparky new album 'Welcome To The Freakshow', full of vibrant, punky tunes, great songwriting and tight musicianship. Mainman Peesh took some time out to talk to BBMATB about the new album, playing live, supporting The Wildhearts and recommends some other bands from the North-East for you to check out.
LoGOz are Peesh (Vocals /Guitar), Paul (Lead Guitar / Backing Vocals), Kieran (Bass) and Carlos (Drums).
'Welcome To The Freakshow' is available on all the major digital sites with CD versions of the album available from the LoGOz Bandcamp site - www.logozuk.bandcamp.com.
The 'Psycho Radio' album (2018), EPs 'Long Time Dead' (2018) and 'Digital Detox' (2021) and singles 'Hello Lonely' (2014), 'Anti-Social Media' (2018), 'Bones Of Yesterday' (2019) and 'Disgraceland' (2020) can also still be picked up.
Hello Peesh, thanks for taking some time to answer a few questions for 'Ballroom Blitz's Man At The Back'. First off for those readers who might not be familiar with LoGOz, could you give a short history of the band? We formed in the summer of 2012. I was in a band called The Blisters who weren’t doing much at the time and wanted to be gigging more so I started LoGOz as a new project from there. Paul joined on lead guitar who I’d previously worked with on a project called Crackdown. Harry joined on drums before being replaced by Carlos and the original 3 piece foundations of LoGOz was born.
And who would you say were the main influences on LoGOz?
I was listening to Rancid a lot at that time especially the '…And Out Come The Wolves' album. I loved the short sharp punchy hooks of the songs and wanted a similar feel for my new band so this was a big influence on the formation of the band. Also The Wildhearts / Green Day / Sex Pistols are big influences too.
You've a new album out - 'Welcome To The Freakshow' - where did you record the album; somewhere you've recorded before?
The whole album was recorded at Mill Studios in Alnwick, Northumberland where we recorded our previous 'Psycho Radio' album and other EPs. The engineer is Ally Lee who is an amazing musician and great at getting the best out of us.
Are there any recurrent themes on the album? Did the pandemic influence any of the songs on the album?
The pandemic was a huge influence on this album! Originally we were gonna release a new album in 2020 called ‘Karmageddon 2020’ but covid scuppered those plans. We did release an EP ‘Digital Detox’ during lockdown which did well. ‘Don’t Waste Your Hate’ is about channeling your anger in a positive way during difficult times. ‘Dead End Year’ is about the frustration of 2020 being isolated and not being able to do much about it! The title track is aimed at the government circus and lack of leadership along with the Downing Street parties etc basically venting at the way the country was being run! Some of the songs that were written pre covid fitted in perfectly with the vibe and lyrical content of the newer songs! Tracks like ‘Distorted’ and ‘Scars & Bruises’ had that kind of paranoid uncertainty about them that fitted perfectly.
Were there any tracks that didn't make the cut for the album that we may get to hear at a later date?
We purposely recorded all the songs we had been gigging over the last year or so. So this kinda tied things up to where we are in our history. Plus it dates it perfectly to the timeline cos no one’s ever gonna forget these last few years. Now we have the perfect sonic time capsule as a band. But the next batch of songs are already written as I write constantly so new material is never a worry. I release solo EPs and play as a punk poetry musical duo Cherry & Peesh too so the creative flow never seems to stop.
Are there any favourite tracks for you on the album and if so why?
I really enjoy playing ‘Freakshow’ live as we now kick off gigs with that song and it’s direct, straight to the point and gets me fired up! Plus it’s a lot of vitriolic words in under 2 minutes haha! Also ‘Don’t Waste Your Hate’ which was co-written musically with my son Kieran who is LoGOz bass player. I had the main riff down and then Kieran joined in with what became the chorus chords. So he more than deserves the credit.
What live shows do you have coming up where people can catch the new songs (and some of the old songs)?
We have 2 gigs left in December we’re playing Downcast Studio in Gateshead on the 11th and then we’re playing Crashed Out Xmas bash at Trillians in Newcastle on the 28th! We’ve been playing most of the album recently and the new stuff has been going down a storm!
What are your favourite and least favourite parts of playing shows? And any preference between gigging and recording? It’s always such a buzz playing live but when people are singing back the words and really getting into it that’s pretty special. I guess waiting around can be tedious haha cos once I’m at a venue I just wanna play ASAP! Plus I still get nervous but that is a good thing, nervous energy! It usually goes away once I get up there! I definitely prefer gigging to recording cos playing live is instant and kinda disposable it doesn’t matter if you make a mistake haha! But in the recording studio you really have to nail it with your best performance but it can be a good pressure. Actually this new album was the best experience recording personally. We knew we were onto something pretty cool. We were excited and got the stuff down pretty quickly. You've been going for ten years now - what have been the highlights for yourself and the band in those ten years? The biggest highlight was definitely when we supported my favourite band The Wildhearts at The Brickyard in Carlisle in 2019! To share the stage with your musical heroes you’ve been a fan of since 1992 and one of the main reasons I started doing this was very special. Also my boy Kieran was only 15 he had school the next day haha! Certainly a night I’ll never forget. Do you feel there is a good punk / rock scene in the North-East at the moment? Any bands from the area that you'd recommend to readers? Yeah, there’s a very healthy scene in the North East right now - we’re constantly playing with great bands like Slalom D / All Out Attack / Red London / Vanguard / Zero Tolerance and Panda Lasagna to name but a few! And finally, what plans for LoGOz in 2023? We kick off 2023 with a big headline gig on February 4th at Bannermans in Edinburgh. Then we’ll be working on new songs for an EP to come out hopefully in the spring / early summer. As ever we’ll still be constantly gigging and pushing our music out to a new audience. Good times.