Consolers
Blending alt-rock grit, punk-pop energy, and the nostalgic haze of a Friday night at The Bronze in Sunnydale, Consolers emerged from over a decade of running in the same circles and sharing stages to finally form their own band.
Their debut single, "Inhale," was recorded at 1980 Something Studios with producer Jonny Woods (Wynona Bleach) and mastered by Jon Moorehead at Moostronix.
"Inhale" is now available to stream, And a recent Belfast show supporting Fangclub on April 4th, with a Dublin date on May 2nd—more details coming soon.
Radiohead - All I Need
SONJA : It was hard to choose just one Radiohead song. I love them all! I was also going to pick Climbing Up The Walls because it feels so eerie but I decided to go with this track from In Rainbows because it really blew me away the first time I heard it. It always hits a nerve in my stomach when I hear it. It's just so beautiful. It gives me all the feels.
Greenday - Boulevard of Broken Dreams
SONJA : I love Greenday. They are one of my favourite bands and I could have picked any one of their songs over the years that has inspired me but I especially picked this album for an important reason. When I was 15 I was taken into hospital as I collapsed from my Type One Diabetes. They weren't 100% sure if I had caught some weird infection so I was kept in a side room for about 12 days. There weren't any smart phones then. I asked my mum to bring me my Walkman and the American Idiot album was inside. It was my company for that time in the hospital. It was awesome! All I wanted to do was get home and play my guitar!
Bjork - Joga
SONJA : This song was a serious ear-bender for me when I first heard it. I couldn't actually believe what I had just heard. The violins, the melody and then her vocals sitting on top. Nothing else sounds like this. She was really inspiring for me.
Paramore - Monster
SONJA : Paramore are a band that really got me thinking about melodies and lyrics. All of their melodies and song structures are great. Hayley Williams is phenomenal and very inspiring! I picked this song because I love how the verse is quite soft and then it just opens into this ripping chorus! Brilliant!
Raconteurs - Consolers of the Lonely
DANIEL : I love how Jack White & Brendan Benson bounce off each other in Raconteurs, they're both focal points for the band with great voices and brilliant guitar playing. I love that idea of a dual-fronted band and having a sound that is unmistakable. Also no prizes for guessing where our band name might have come from...
Status Quo - Mystery Song
Status Quo is ground zero for me playing guitar. Since I was a toddler I used to bounce around the house to their stuff and it was some of the first tracks I learned when I first picked up a guitar. People say it's easy because it's just three chords, but it's definitely not - Believe me, I was in a Quo tribute band for a few years! Quo tread a line between rock and pop that I really want to be aiming for - heavy guitars but great vocal hooks. Mystery Song is a Rick Parfitt song, he plays an open-tuned guitar for it and it has everything a great Quo song needs.
Wolf Alice - Beautifully Unconventional (from Visions of A Life)
Possibly one of the best modern guitar bands? Yeah I said it. Blue Weekend is an amazing album and the treatment of Ellie Rowsell's voice was something we thought about when we were working on our tracks. They're sometimes floaty and sometimes in your face, completely changing the feel of the song. Beautifully Unconventional, from the previous album, is a brilliant guitar-pop song to play on repeat.
Bif Naked - Lucky
S: Really, it's the whole Buffy The Vampire Slayer soundtrack, but this song really stood out to me. It is so beautifully grungy. This was my eye opening releasition around the age of 12/13 that I wanted to be in a band that played at the Bronze In Sunnydale!
D: I'm a later convert to all things Vampire related, but re-watching the Buffy series with Sonja what struck me was how cool all the bands were, and the sound track in all the episodes is a bit like a weird alt-rock 90s best of album. It's definitely an influence on our music now.
Nothing But Thieves - Particles
S&D: We were late converts to NBT and their Broken Machine album blew us away when we picked it up. It was the soundtrack of the car trips to the studio when we were recording our first songs with Consolers. The weather was class, and we were feeling great about the music we were recording, so it was a fun time!
Sonja Sleator - Ghost
Is it cheating to put in one of our band member's tracks? I was Sonja's guitarist for years in her band, but this was one of the first songs of her's that I wrote the guitar parts to and it was the start of us writing in a different way that led to Consolers. Also a bloody great track.