JUST  

Hot News: "Just" were recently featured on the NME message board. NME writer Robert Collin's described the band as " Radiohead with a bit of Talk Talk thrown in for good measure". Click here to see it now. 

JUST are a haunting, dreamy, melancholy and touching 5 piece band who hail from Norwich. The band was born 8 years ago when a passion for music shared by three brothers fuelled a burning desire to write themselves into the musical history books. Richie, Olly and Matt influenced by the early works of Radiohead, The Verve, U2 and Goo Goo Dolls started writing songs and slowly developed a very distinctive and touching style. It was an emotional, dark  and classic combination of heart wrenching harmonies with an under current of energetic rock.  

Distinctive and emotional lead vocalist Richie ( Who sounds like a cross between Thom Yorke, Matt Bellamy , Mark Hollis and David Sylvian ) called upon his years of literary secrets and scripted emotions to add the vocals and melodies to the mix.  Joined by Jonny on bass and Matt on drums, Just now have a very loyal following in and around Norwich. We believe their sound and sensitive songwriting style will spread around the world. 

They have now completed work on their debut 4 track E.P called " As Monday Comes" with it's delicate, melancholy and extremely haunting sound. The lead track and single " As Monday Comes" is an up tempo melodic piece of heaven conjuring up images of early Japan/Sylvian and Talk Talk crossed with Embrace, Radiohead on holiday with Jeff Buckley. It's as different as you can get while remaining in classic alternative music heaven. Sorrow has never sounded so joyful. The second track " Hide" with it's sorrowful mood, meandering piano and soaring vocals will send shivers down your spine. We guarantee that. In fact this whole E.P is stunning believe us. 

The band Motto is" Belief is all". 

The E.P " As Monday Comes" is out now through Matchbox Recordings, CD Baby, Tower Records and from many legitimate download sites. 

Matchbox's Dale Olivier had a few words with the lads 

THE EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW 

1. What made you decide to form a band , tell us a bit about the JUST history ?

It all started because me (Olly), Richie and Mat in Norwich, the 3 brothers in the band spent the duration of the 90s jointly obsessed with the Britpop and indie scene. It really was only a matter of time before one summer we decided to merge the boundaries between obsession and creation and give it a go ourselves taking up permanent residency in our parents garage. 

Matt: I started writing at the age of 13, recording simple demos onto tape using a stereo system. Richie used his ability to write poetry to start writing lyrics and melodies to these tracks, on which we soon found we may have stumbled across something special. Even at this early stage in our career we still thought we were writing strong material, and this has been proven by the fact that some songs have survived all this time, including ‘Hide’ and ‘No reason Why’ from our EP. Jonny joined the mix later that year in 95. When our old lead guitarist left the band several yrs later we decided it was time to move the youngest brother (mat) from the drums to the front of the stage. This left us needing a new drummer ands when Olly met matt couch at uni in 2000 the current line was set in stone.

2. Who or what are your influences?

Matt: My 2 major influences have been Radiohead and Embrace, these two bands have been a strong part of my creative thought, especially when I was younger. In more recent days, I would say that some American bands like the Goo goo dolls have had an affect, because I like writing big choruses, which is very typical of American rock music.

Olly and Richie : Queen, U2 and The verve were also such a big part. 

Jonny and matt couch want to add the Manics, The Red Hot Chillis.

3. What modern artists do you rate?

Olly: I love what the Killers, Longview and John Mayer are doing, although Longview aren't quite receiving the recognition i think they deserve.

Matt: Personally I am a big fan of the killers; think they are producing some fantastic music, which isn’t getting as much publicity as I thought it would! Also like Keane’s album, but then am a big fan of the piano when it’s used in that way so…

4. If you could choose to record a song with any other artist/band alive or dead who would it be and why?

Richie: Jeff Buckley or Dido

Matt: think I would wanna record with a female vocalist/writer, be an interesting change. But thinking about it, there aren’t many female artists that I would wanna record with, hmm… perhaps someone like Avril who has a rock voice would be an interesting combination with Richie’s vocals.

Matt couch: id like to record with freddie mercury, his voice on our music would def be interesting.

5. What inspires you to write your music ?

Wanting to perform on stage with music that I would love listening too! watching bands that you admire and love, and wanting to have that same effect on people they were having. Music is the soul in my life too, writing songs can become something more than wanting to play them to 1000 people, it can be a very personnel expression of emotion that without music may would never find a way of getting out. 

6. Name your all time fave track by another artist ?

 Radiohead – Paranoid android, don’t really need to say why, just genius

Richie: i would say the streets have no name by U2, amazing track

Matt couch: aint no sunshine-bill withers. Not sure why!

7. What instruments do you use ?

Drums, guitars, bass, piano, keys, vocals

8. What are your ambitions for your music. Where do you see yourself in 5 years ?

Would like to have recorded and released a successful debut album in the UK charts, and completed a successful university headline tour. Would like to think in 5 yrs time that these are under our belt and we can be building on that success by working on new material for second album!

9. How would you describe your music and what genre do you think it fits into ?

Well here is a question for debate amongst us, think it fits into the popular music catorgary, lined up with the rest of the british bands like embrace, coldplay etc… I would describe it as indie/rock or uplifting guitar driven music.

10. Your new E.P is to say the least beautiful, it has an extremely epic, melodic and dreamy sound. It reminds us of Talk Talk, Embrace, Radiohead etc.  Where was it recorded/produced ?

It was recorded at the Mill studios, Diss..which is in Norfolk. And has been mixed and produced by Jonny Cole, the owner of the studios. He has worked on some great artists and we built up a really good understanding. Also worth  a mention is Dave Pye who engineered and assisted production.

11. Who are JUST and what does each member play ?

www.just-band.co.uk