Blackpool based rock band Rendered are have released their 2nd single “Must Be The Enemy!”. A dense, layered approach with intricate guitars & heavy emotive choruses. Their music hearkens back to the harder edges of the mid-90s, whilst offering a fresh, and, at times, harrowing perspective on growing older in a gritty northern town. 

Hard-hitting swaggering drums, a deep pumping bass line topped with low smooth verse vocals and melodic, anthemic choruses. The message in the lyrics expresses the challenges of life, mental health battles & frustration towards current world issues.

In this interview spotlight, I chat with Rendered about the new single, surviving the pandemic, technology and more.

Full Q&A along with links and music below.

Where are you from and how do you describe your style of music?

I’m from Blackpool in Lancashire, England.

Our music is guitar based rock music with pop melodies.

How did you get here? As in, what inspired or motivated you to take on this journey through music and the music biz?

Lockdown and anxiety! Ha. From a young age I was quite a natural at playing multiple instruments, I’d tell the teachers and my mates I was going to be a rock star one day, most would laugh and tell me I was an idiot or to get in the real world… I had over 10 years out from music to pursue a boxing career, I suffered a hand injury which ended me competing. In this time I had become a father of 2 boys, was in a long term relationship, became a boxing coach and done plenty of growing up!

Through lockdown I became creative again and was constantly thinking and talking about recording an old song I’d written called  “Somedays” an emotional song which I’d demo’d like 11 or 12 years earlier. I wanted to film a music video for the track as the front man of our old band in the video. Initially, I planned on recording the entire song playing every instrument myself. I got my friend to record some of my ideas and I tracked the drums first in the studio. My partner is very supportive and gave me the confidence to go for it and follow my dreams, this then led to me obsessing about recording a full album. I had a few songs already written, which I believed were strong and I’d been tweaking them in my head for years and planned to go ahead with a solo project. After randomly meeting with my old band mate and good friend Chris Phelan through a mutual friend of ours, we soon started writing and recording music together and we fell back in love with the process.

James Routh, who I’d known since high school contacted me out of nowhere for boxing pts not long after this. I told him I’d been recently writing loads, he seemed interested and tells me he is the sound engineer at Rock Hard recording studios! They have all my dream Neumann mics and a lovely Neve desk with good sounding rooms. I’d been visualising these mics and all the same equipment etc for months by this point, perfect! I was soon introduced to Craig Bunney, a brother in-law of a boxing client. He played for us soon after in the studio on the next tracks, which was great! Craig’s style is very similar to how I play the drums, so it worked out really well and now, here we are! Mindset and manifestation for real!

How does your latest project compare/contrast with your previous release(s)? Were you setting out to accomplish anything specific, follow a specific theme, or explore different styles of creation?

We have just released “Must Be The Enemy!” On Feb 14^th. It’s heavy, deep and pretty dark, yet still commercial sounding. It’s much heavier than our first release “These Times” which was more of a pop/rock ballad. Our next one is even different again and should have really been the song to release on valentines day, not ‘MBTE!’ haha.

You will realise why when you hear it but that’s my OCD and stubbornness for you…

Name the biggest challenge you faced as a creative during these challenging times in the pandemic? How did you adapt? How have you kept the creative fires burning during all this?

I’ve been more creative than ever! I find when I am feeling overwhelmed or anxious, it’s usually because I know something is about to happen or a change and I’m on the brink of doing something good and big, either that or I’m on the verge of a breakdown. It is scary, sickening and exciting all at the same time, yet I know it is happening and the universe finds a way, always. We’ve been concentrating on just getting the songs recorded first and didn’t even think about performing them until we had at least 6 finished. I usually lock myself away from reality and struggle to do ordinary simple stuff, it can be painful, especially for my family. Yet this is usually when I create my best work.

What was the last song you listened to.

El Paso by Marty Robbins.

Which do you prefer? Vinyl? 8-tracks? Cassettes? CDs? MP3s? Streaming platforms?

Vinyl sounds nice, especially old songs which I prefer.. CD’s are what I used to always listen to music on as I was a 90s kid and mp3’s/streams are what I use now mostly. I like to at least pay for most tracks to help the artist still make a living as streaming pays peanuts for the artist!

Where is the best place to connect with you and follow your journey?

We are most active on Instagram, SM isn’t something I am keen on doing to be honest, I just want to record and play music. You have to go with the times though, so yeah probably Insta and YouTube.

I really appreciate Your time. Anything else before we sign off?

Appreciation for the questions, huge thank you to all who have liked/shared/downloaded and reviewed our music. Please subscribe to our YouTube channel: OFFICIALRenderedMusic. The full music video for Enemy will be out in a month or so and check out the video for “These Times” on our channel too! Leave a comment and we will get back to you beautiful people!

We put a serious amount of thought and effort not just into our songs but also into the music videos we create, we want to give the audience as much as possible!

Much love to you all, Dale