Sister Shotgun amassing collectively over 150,000 views on YouTube
Interview conducted on June 14, 2019
by Dan Locke
Hailing from the West Midlands of the United Kingdom, Sister Shotgun took the scene by storm in 2011 with their female fronted fury of modern rock and metal. The band pride’s themselves on creating stadium sounding choruses with aggressive melodic guitar hooks and charismatic performances. Fronted by classically trained front woman Chloe Ozwell, the band delivers high intensity live performances with her charismatic allure alongside massive riffs and melodies from the core of the band. Since their formation, Sister Shotgun have toured across the UK and Europe and made appearances at various festivals including Macmillan Fest, FortFest, and Hard Rock Hell. Singles such as “For The Love Of Hate” and “No Hope” with their accompanying music videos helped reach milestones for the band amassing collectively over 150,000 views on YouTube. In December 2017 the video for the stand alone single “Silhouettes” was released and gained instant views and a buzz that spread across the pond to the United States and gained the attention of Pavement Entertainment. The band was quickly picked up for a multi album deal. Currently Sister Shotgun is putting the finishing touches on a brand new release to be unleashed worldwide in 2018. It’s time to let the world hear the blast of Sister Shotgun
Band Members
Chloe Ozwell // Vocals
Benji Tatlock // Guitar
Niall Wills // Guitar
Tim Chambers // Bass
Dave Harvey // Drums
Dan Locke: Your album got released a few months ago. How was the excitement for it coming out?
Sister Shotgun: We have been really excited it felt like we were waiting a long long time it had been between 4/6 months since we had the masters back however promoting the album past few months ready for its release
How long have you been working on it?
Collectively we worked on it last year with the few songs we carried over from the EP you could say we had been gearing up towards making this album from the very beginning to get to this point, scraping or reworking songs over the course of our career to get it perfect
What is the best track on the release?
We all have our own personal favorites, but as you can tell Sacred Heart is one of our favorites and it’s why we chose to release it first it had all the elements we love in music into one song
How did your band form?
We formed at a house party full of musicians, we all studied music together and invited more people to invite their creative friends upon that Niall met enough musicians to make a full band and it wasn’t until they discovered Chloe after she left her punk band that sister shotgun was officially born and began writing original music which has now got us to here
You just finished a UK tour how was it?
The tour was great we’ve always got on really well with the guys from Scarlett Riot and Fahran so putting us all on a line up for a week has been a great experience and a comfortable party on the road.
How was it to play Nottingham’s?
Nottingham has slowly become one of our favorite places to play every time we come back there’s more noise there are more bodies in that crowd and they’re getting rowdier and rowdier and the show was amazing the room was packed and the crowd was wild we loved it.
Chloe- What is a BTEC National Diploma in Music?
A BTEC is a college level qualification in music (performance) which you would complete after high school to enable you to get a University degree in music.
Chole- How did your parents spot that natural talent in you? And how did you feel at that time?
My parents heard me singing around the house when I was young by the time I was 7 years old they decided it would be beneficial to have me Classically trained with a vocal coach to help hone in on that natural talent, I couldn’t say I would remember how I felt but I loved singing so I definitely would have been an excitable and eager child.
Chloe- What languages do you know?
I don’t speak any other languages but when I was studying music in university, I did have to learn some classical songs some of which was in Italian but I couldn’t tell you exactly what they would translate to.
Chloe- What is your vocal range?
I have been told my vocal range is around the 4 Octave range I haven’t really pushed to find how technical my range is I am far more focused on the songwriting melody and lyrical side of my vocals and I use and push my voice when it is needed and not for the sake of using my whole range.
Tim- What was first guitar or Trombone? How easy for it for you to pick up the bass?
I learned Trombone as my first instrument but my first love with the guitar I had to learn all those amazing riffs I was hearing blasting out my speakers, after guitar I dabbled in bass it was easily transferable for me and I’ve really zoned into my bass playing as it can be very very different to guitar when you start exploring different areas of the instrument
Did you learn anything about touring during the tour that you did not know already?
Every tour is different you will always learn something new each time you tour, you have to deal with different characters of people, different types of bands, some situations arise that you wouldn’t see coming it’s all trial and error, we did learn that you can find strange things at a petrol station at 1am on the motorway like a lonesome Apple pie that’s a month out of date..
How do you stay healthy on tour?
We are not known for being an incredibly healthy band on tour we don’t drink too much or anything like that but I wouldn’t say you’d find us eating a basket of fruit or purified volcanic filtered water, we try to eat light before a show but we make sure we are well fueled and well hydrated the usual.
What is West Midlands like for music?
The West Midlands can be great we’ve had waves of amazing bands but many have come and they have gone which is a shame the U.K, in general, is a very tough market to hit it takes some real convincing and some serious traction to get yourself from the bottom.
I am going to name some bands from Birmingham, West Midlands area tell me a little bit about each?
Black Sabbath
Changed the face of rock, the true originators of metal music and one of the most charismatic and memorable lead singers of all time, they created a whole new world for us all and inspired several generations of metal, Chloe and Tim met Tony Iommi at University when he received his honoree doctorateThe Beat
Good old school SKA music full of happy vibes bouncy rhythms that force you to dance.Duran Duran
Huge New Wave/Synth Pop band exploded in the ’80s a true hit maker of a band, Chloe’s mother sang backing vocals on a few demo tapes.Electric Light Orchestra
Rock band, wrote some of the most memorable and classic songs around still used in films tv shows and even commercials to this day, Kelly Groucutt’s son Robert tutored Chloe and Niall at Kidderminster College.Judas Priest
One of the most influential voices in metal having extreme range, the front man in Metal to openly come out as a homosexual male, known for their dual guitars and huge riffs! Taken the metal genre to a new level making it much heavier faster and aggressive, Born and raising in Chloe’s birthplace “The BlackCountry” in the West MidlandsThe Moody Blues
A progressive styled rock band that helped forge a sound that contributed to the “psychedelic rock” genreLed Zeppelin
One of the biggest and highly respected bands on the face of the planet with multiple platinum records rock and roll hall of fame, millions of records sold even to this day and a band that has made multiple timeless classics a lot with one of the most influential rock guitarists of all time Jimmy page and one of the most flamboyant lead singers in history, Robert Plant resides in Niall’s hometown Kidderminster where he contributes to the progression of musical education in Kidderminster.Traffic
A band that fused many instruments into their music such as harpsichords and sitar’s and fused parts of jazz into their music they are often considered as psychedelic rock.UB40
Considered as a “reggae” band and popularized the genre mixing with pop music, sold millions of records and are considered legends having multiple songs in the top 40 during their heyday and still seen relevant in today day and age.Clare Maguire
Modern pop singer and songwriter who began her career posting her music on the website “MySpace” and gathered incredible success landing her spots on television and a bunch of top 40 UK tracks
How did you feel once your song “For The Love of Hate” reached over 100,000 views on YouTube?
We were overwhelmed with that amount of views and this was our first official music video for a song. we released this a day before performing at the 02 Academy 3 in Birmingham alongside a high profiled artist this really helped elevate us
How was it to perform at 02 Academy 3, Fort Festival and HardRockHell Metal?
Always amazing! we love playing festivals, Fort fest we brought fire performers to put on a real show who would swallow and breath fire and use angle grinders which were one of the coolest shows we’ve put on, and hard rock hell metal they loved us we began with an empty room as soon as we started playing other rooms emptied, fans came pouring in from outside and the place was Packed and they went wild and was an incredible show
How did you get together with Pavement Records?
Tim King of Pavement Entertainment also known as the Bassist from the band Soil scouted us after discovering us online, he offered to meet us at the amplified festival which soil was headlining and he began discussing signing us up to their label and moving forward with an album
Any plans for touring this summer? Coming to the United States?
We have tons of plans for touring but we are having to make sure they are the right ones we are looking at the UK your European tours with the right bands and hopefully, we hit the states very very soon next year at the latest
How do you see yourself in five years?
Hopefully with a few albums under our belts touring the world playing alongside our hero’s
Anything in closing?
Thank you to everyone who has supported this band or anyone about to support our adventure in music, our fans are our world if you haven’t heard us before come join the family, we wanna hear your voices in that crowd!
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