Interview: Svalbard

Bristol band Svalbard have just released a wonderful debut album. Adam Burrows talks to guitarist Serena Cherry.

“We love being on the road,” says Serena Cherry. “We’re starting to build up a serious repertoire of games we play in the van. My favourite is the ‘Category’ game, where someone picks a category like Bands Who Wear Corpse Paint, and we take it in turns to list as many as possible.” In an age where musicians seem to spend half their lives hyping themselves on Twitter, Svalbard are your archetypal hard touring band. Serena, Liam, Mark and Tony – if it wasn’t for their day jobs would they ever go home?

To a soundtrack of melodic hardcore, with dramatic overtones of post-rock and black metal, Svalbard emerged screaming into this world in 2012. Since then they’ve released two singles, a 10 inch EP and a split album with Pariso, all of which were compiled onto a CD called Svalbard 2012-14.  They’ve also gigged like their lives depended on it.  

“I’ve done week-long UK tours where I’ve gone back to work every morning between shows on three hours sleep,” says Serena. “We save all our holiday allowances for European tours, as you need to do longer stretches to reach places like the Czech Republic and Poland.” Their favourite places to play include Berlin: “there’s an excellent hardcore scene there”, and Glasgow: “so friendly and full of amazing bands.” 

One Day All This Will End, Svalbard’s first full-length, has just come out on Holy Roar Records and it’s wonderful. Bellicose beats and duelling riffs, ear splitting highs and soul searching lows – the crisp production lets you in on the details without sacrificing any of the glorious intensity. Squint your ears and you can even make out the words. 

The guitarists – Serena and Liam – share vocal duties, although Serena writes all the lyrics. “We split the vocals so we can perform them live. It’s really hard to play and scream at the same time,” she explains. “I like the dynamic of having two different voices as well…”  As early as 2012’s So Much for Meritocracy they seemed ready to put the world to rights, and Serena’s lyrical concerns are clearer than ever today. Expect Equal Respect tackles the gender politics of alternative rock, while Unnatural Light takes aim at social media, which Serena compares to Karl Marx’s view of religion as an opiate. “There’s nothing more silencing than feeling you’re being heard”, she says. “Facebook creates an illusion of an audience, for people to rant and rave at each other. All their anger gets safely contained within a digital dead-end. It’s a debilitating outlet.”

Svalbard have said they don’t necessarily feel like a Bristol band. Do people have expectations of how music from this city should sound? “I meant it more in the ‘scene’ sense,” says Serena. “You see a lot of bands that are heralded as Bristol’s latest darlings. People talk as though these bands are the pride and joy of the city when they’ve barely played a gig outside it. Or maybe because they’ve barely played a gig outside of it! We’re not focused on winning over a ‘pay to play’ venue for a support slot with a faded ‘90s hardcore band. We don’t want to buy ourselves into a glorified 16-page flyer. We don’t need the attention of a label that releases two indie records a year. But on the surface, it appears that those things make up the majority of the Bristol scene. We have deliberately removed ourselves from that.” 

Beautifully packaged with artwork created by Serena herself, the album has picked up great reviews and sold out its first pressing in days, a response the guitarist describes as “overwhelming”. It was launched with well attended shows in Bristol and London, as well as an “absolutely insane” Brighton gig in somebody’s kitchen. They’re playing most weekends from September to December, and their fanbase is growing fast: “It’s mad to see people in the crowd that already know the words to the songs”, says the guitarist. 

Svalbard will never be commercial, and they’re a little too quirky to become genre favourites but they’re talented, hardworking and ready for battle. “With the exception of Temples Festival or the gigs we promote ourselves there are few occurrences where we neatly fit the bill gig-wise,” explains the guitarist, “but we’re not trying to be an easy fit, or belong to a particular sub-genre. We’re happy on our own little musical archipelago.” 

One Day All This Will End is out now on Holy Roar Records. Hear it at svalbard.bandcamp.com