“A supernova (plural: supernovae) is a stellar explosion. They are extremely luminous and cause a burst of radiation that often briefly outshines an entire galaxy…”

The Supernovas are a young 4-piece from the Holloway Road, in North London. They have been playing together since the tender age of 16, tearing up stages the length and breadth of the country. In their time together they have played alongside The Kooks and Larrikin Love, amongst others.

In January 2009 The Supernovas signed to London label, 360 Degree Music and pretty much before the ink on the contract was dry the band decamped to the wilds of leafy Hampshire, where they holed up for three days of recording. The fruits of these sessions produced their debut single, Ace Face, a damning indictment of a typical lowlife coke dealing blagger, backed with the blistering, Sgt. Major.

The Supernovas supported the release with a sold out launch show at The Social, in London, before setting off around the UK. 2009 culminated with gigs supporting Babyshambles in Cardiff and Manchester, before returning home to London for a 360 label night for promoters Stroll On.

The boys recently re-entered the studio to cut a number of songs, the fruits of which will see a couple of releases: in March the band will be giving away a one track promo only CD of the visceral live favourite Slaughter In The Gaza. This will tie in with the band’s first trip to the USA, where they will be playing in March, beginning with a show at SXSW in Austin, Texas
I sat down and spoke with Joei the lead singer and Guitarist.
Its refreshing to hear Punk, and coming from North London too. What style of music would you firmly put yourselves into?
Well when I put our songs into my itunes, I always put the genre as ‘Mod Punk’ so I guess that.

If you had name a star in the Galaxy what would you call it and why?
I’d call it Henry after the Roddy Doyle book.

How did you come across the others in your band? Whats your background?
Well, I did my first gig in a pub round the corner from my house which eventually became Nambucca when I was 11. I met Rizo and Panashe at our Secondary School which was where we first started the band and then after going through a couple of drummers, we met Moses at my college which has got us to where we are now.

What artists are you most influenced by?
I’ve always been very strongly influenced by Paul Weller. And recentley, myself and Rizo have been listening to everything by The Beatles on repeat! I also can’t get enough of the Northern Soul sound – be it the rare stuff or the stuff on Motown or Stax. My favourite track of all-time is the remix of Ramsey Lewis and Marlena Shaw’s versions of Wade In The Water. I got a 12-inch single of it on Chess Records last year. Cost me 20 Quid!

A lot of bands in London are still trying to create indie music. But your style is definitely different. What do you believe makes The Supernovas unique?
I think the fact that we have something to say makes us quite different from a lot of the bands around London at the moment. I think that is because a lot of the indie bands that are popular at the moment are typically private-school kids with nothing much to really worry about. It’s like, it doesn’t matter if there’s a war on because none of their friends are gonna be fighting in it. It’s doesnt matter if there is mass unemployment because their money is stashed away in some trust fund somewhere. So if none of that stuff matters, then whats the point in writing about it? You might as well just write a catchy little pop song about some girl you fancy instead. At least it’ll sell.

Congratulations to signing to 360 Degree’s music label, what exciting gigs, album plugs do you want to mention?
Thank you! On March 27th, we will be playing at The Lexington in London and will be giving out free copies of Slaughter In The Gaza which is being released for free on March 28th. That will be shortly followed by our second single City Of Smoke, which we are looking to release in the Summer.

Lastly who is the biggest music freak in your band and why?

That’s a tough one. We all freak out about completely different things so it’s hard. I’m definitely the Soul freak. Every week I have a new favourite song – this week its Michael (The Lover) by Geno Washington. But I think Rizo can be quite obsessive when he wants to be. Panashe is a musical freak because his taste is all over the place – same with Moses really. So it’s a tough one. I can’t decide.

http://www.musicvita.com/music-hub/82-home-page-articles/4262-the-music-freak-meets-the-supernovas.html

http://www.indiebandsblog.com/european-bands/uk-bands/the-supernovas

The Supernovas from London, have been around in one form or another since 2003, but the current line-up of Joei Silvester (Vocals / Rhythm Guitar), Rizo (Lead Guitar), Panashe Nyandoro (Bass) and Moses Elliott (Drums) has been together for three years. The songwriting is split between Joei and Rizo, with the instrumentation developed in rehearsal. The band is influenced by a wealth of music, Colombian, Ugandan, Zimbabwean, Jamaican, Northern Soul and Motown to name a few, which reflects in the output.

With both Rizo and Joei having been born in 1987, the same year as the last naked eye sighting of a Super Nova from earth, the band name does have a personal attachment. Energized by the fun of creating music and playing, The Supernovas bring their own blend of influences to ’80s new wave and ’70s punk.

The Supernovas

The highly fuzzed guitar takes me straight back to a guy called Dave, who used to play guitar in my band in the deep and distant past. High voltage rock is controlled as the bass and drums crack out an energetic framework to the song. The Supernovas write about the current social landscape, with music that reflects the morass of life which they write about. With the layered vocals on many of the tracks, the lyric is given an extra boost, determined that the message is not lost in the powerful instrumentation.

The Single Ace Face a wryly written lyric reflects the Northern Soul influences of the band, with a nod to to the UK Subs.

band website

Back in October Laurence from 360dgm passed me over a promo copy of the single Ace Face, which I just didn’t get a chance to listen to at the time, I got older, the CD gathered dust. Tidying up one day in December brought the CD back to life and I immediately regretted not playing this straight away and getting The Supernovas on the site. After a slight delay in getting hold of Joei, here we are 3 months later, apologies to Laurence and the guys in the band.

With a new single Slaughter In The Gaza due for release in the near term and numerous gigs around the UK, it would be worth trying to catch The Supernovas when they are in town.

1st Stop: 13.12.09 @ CARDIFF UNIVERSITY

Luckily for us, Strummerville were nice enough to lend us their van a.k.a The Magic Bus for the duration of our 3-part Tour with Babyshambles. This would prove to be a life saver, as it meant that no matter how much rain might be falling outside, we would always have some sort of shelter from it.

So we set off bright and early on the Saturday morning and began the 150-mile jaunt to the Welsh capital, with high hopes of bumping into the cast of Gavin + Stacey or better yet, maybe even meeting Ryan Giggs! Naturally we stopped along the way for service station food, although to be honest, I’ve eaten so much of that recently that it all just seems to have blended into one meal. All I’m sure of is that at some point over the last 2 weeks I’ve eaten McDonalds, Burger King, KFC and a lot of Pizza. I’d like to think that one day, we’ll have caterers looking after our dietary needs but alas, for the time being, it is not to be.

Not long after crossing the Severn Bridge and only being charged the price of a car, we were in the venue and had discovered our first major set-back of the day… 2 of the volume controls had been snapped off of Panashe’s Bass Amp. “Matty..?”. It materialised that as our trusty roadie Matty had lifted my guitar amp out of the van, he had managed to bang it off of the Bass Amp, which was where the damage was done. This meant that we had to start ringing around every Music/Repair Shop in Cardiff to try and get someone out to sort it on a Saturday afternoon at 3:30pm We were in luck. A lot of it. A friendly guy called Dave came out to us and just happened to have the exact part that we needed to fix the output control – which at least meant we had some sound.

With all of that sorted, we went to wait in our dressing room which was a small, yet very nice and clean room with a sofa and a TV with a built-in freeview box in it. Just what you need when you’re doing nothing on a Saturday afternoon with a crate of Becks at your disposal: Soccer Saturday. After cheering to sound of Jeff Stelling’s voice telling us that Chelsea had dropped points to Everton, we went to watch Babyshambles soundcheck. I was amazed at how tight their rhythm section are. Adam and Drew are virtually in each others pockets. Then you decorate that with Mick and Pete’s guitars and Pete’s vocals and you have their sound in a nutshell. Very-well worked out.

By the time all of that was done, there wasn’t much time left for our soundcheck but we did what we could. It’s funny though. The sound when your playing in big venues is so far removed from what it is when your used to playing in small sweaty venues in London. It never occurred to me that I would need to have any drums coming through my monitors onstage because it’s usually the loudest thing in the room! But naturally, I learned from my mistakes there as I couldn’t here any drums at all during the first 2 songs of our set. That meant that my timing was obviously a bit loose but the crowd didn’t seem to notice. Once I’d sorted that out and got them to turn the drums up onstage, the next issue came along.

Somewhere about half way through our set, Rizo’s guitar just completely stopped working. His Marshall amplifier has always been the weakest link in our backline and predictably, it gave up at the worst possible time. So, I gave him my guitar and announced that we would play Stars And Stripes whilst Matty fought with his amp to get some sound out of it again. Luckily that worked and the rest of the set went as well as could have been expected. Although all the technical mishaps did cost us a couple of songs from the set.

Immediately after the gig I went into the crowd to say hello and pass out a few badges, etc. I was really pleased with the feedback and I have to say it was one of the friendliest crowds that we have ever played to. We sold some vinyls, took a few photos and accepted some gifts (Guesty).

It didn’t seem like we had been offstage that long before the next 2 acts had finished and it was time for Babyshambles’ set. By now, the crowd were well-oiled and fairly riled up for it. They went onstage and the place erupted like a volcano spitting out warm beer. We were clever enough to keep well away from the front row watch it all unfold from the side (well out of warm-beer-splashing distance). After the gig we hung around for a bit until everyone had left and went to move the van.

With nowhere to stay, we were forced to put The Magic Bus’ shelter to it’s ultimate use. It was a good job we’d brought plenty of clothes as we had no other option but to sleep in the van. Its hard to explain just how cold it was but I can honestly say hand-on-heart that it was the coldest thing I have ever experienced. According to the sign on the side of the road on which we were parked, we were allowed to park there until 8am he next morning.

However, at not long after 6.30am, Panashe and Moses both woke up and decided that enough was enough. They decided to drive the van around the block, just to get the heaters going and then they would park up until we had to move on again. This trip around the block ended up turning into a seventy mile jaunt back down the motorway until they started feeling sleepy again, at which point they pulled into a service station and parked up and slept for another 2 hours.

We all woke up just in time and headed back home feeling very hungover. Although it was a pain having to drive back to London in between each date, the bonus was that it meant that we could get as pissed as we liked after each gig without fucking up the following performance. Something we might as well take advantage of now before the schedules start getting a bit busier…

We went with KFC in the end. No big surprise there.

What a producitve 3 days though! As well as the 5 songs mentioned in the previous blog, we ended up finishing off Everyone’s Fighting, Stars And Stripes, Only I Can Call You Mine, Promises and Valentines! That’s a total of 10 songs in 3 days which is good going by anyone’s standards.

I think the fact that we got so much done owes alot to the whole Days Inn, middle-of-nowhere setting. Sunshine Corner Studio is neatly tucked away in a garden shed in Fleet and the whole vibe that Smiley (the Producer who owns it) has is a very chilled-out and relaxed one. I think these 2 factors work well together to produce the best results. The fact that you are staying in a smelly old whole in a service station in the middle of the motorway with a choice of shit or shit for dinner kind of works as a constant reminder that you are there for a purpose. It’s not about egos or being rock stars, it’s about making music. And that keeps you focussed on the matter at hand.

Then, as long as you have that mind-set, the comfortable, relaxed atmosphere that the studio has gives you the space and the perfect environment required to just knock out the tunes to the best of your ability.

If there are any aspiring bands reading who are looking for somewhere to record, then I’d strongly recommend looking this place up. You’ll even meet the world’s friendliest dog for your trouble (his name’s BJ)! But enough about that, I’m starting to sound like a travel agent!

It’s bedtime now but not long before I’ll have to wake up again and head for Cardiff to support Babyshambles tonight. If anyone fancies coming then gizza shout on 07864157671 as we should have a couple of spaces free on the list.

Goodnight x

Just thought we’d share with you all the fact that we are currently occupying the great Days Inn Hotel of Fleet Service Station for a couple of days while we get our heads down and do some recording.

So far, recording is going better than we could ever have expected, with Shot Down By The Fuzz, Denial, Diamonds And Gems, When Will I See You Again? and MDMA all in the bag already with a day and a half left to go! We’re just about to get started on Stars And Stripes and Everyone’s Fighting so hopefully, they’ll both go as smoothly as the rest have.

We’ve got some beers in for tonight and Gavin + Stacey is on so hopefully we should have adequate resources to keep ourselves entertained for the night!

The only other thing we have to worry about tonight is whether to eat shitty KFC for dinner tonight or even shittier Burger King…

We’ll just have to wait and see! X

That’s right people.
We have just been added to the bill for the Babyshambles gig at Cardiff University this Saturday 12th December!
We will also be supporting them at Southampton Guildhall on Dec 15th and Manchester Ritz on Dec 17th!
Then, once we’re back we will have a couple of days to calm down before playing our big end-of-year show at Hoxton Bar + Grill on Tuesday 22nd December with Krakatoa and Inwits! Tickets are available for this gig at http://www.wegottickets.com/event/61855 – get them now while they’re cheap! They will be more expensive on the door x

Alright Gang?

Just letting you all know that if anyone is planning to go and see Babyshambles at SOUTHAMPTON GUILDHALL on Tuesday 15th December or at MANCHESTER RITZ on Thursday 17th, then we will be supporting them so get down there early!

In other news, we will be having our big end-of-year Christmas Gig at HOXTON BAR + GRILL on Tuesday 22nd December with our good friends and labelmates Krakatoa and The Inwits! Tickets are available in advance at the knock down price of £5 here: http://www.wegottickets.com/event/61855

And if you haven’t already then get over to our official website – www.supernovas.360degreemusic.com – and join our mailing list to recieve a FREE download of Diamonds And Gems!

Nice one!

Joei x

www.supernovas.360degreemusic.com

The story of how we got to The White Hart in Croby in the first place is quite an eventful one in itself. It starts around mid-October when we were first booked to do the gig in the first place and arranged for Steve Strange (thats right, the Brownstock ditch guy) to drive us up for a small fee. All was going according to plan with this as recentley as around mid-day on the day before the gig…

“Alright mate? Yeah it’s Joei, just checking we’re still all good for tomorrow?”, “Yeah mate, no worries, what time do you wanna leave?”, “Flatsy said he can be here for 3:30 at the earliest”, “Alright then, that’ll do. See you then.” “Nice one. Laters.”

Job done. Or so you would think…

About 5 o’clock the phone rings and it’s a slightly sheepish sounding Steve on the other end of the line “Alright mate? Bit of an issue… I took the van in for an M.O.T. today and its failed on a couple of things and basically its gonna be in the garage til Tuesday so we aint got a van for tomorrow.”

Marvellous. So that means we need to leave for Corby (a small town somewhere in Northamptonshire) in under 24 hours and we have no way of getting there. Added to this, was the fact that we were playing in Harrow on the night in question and had no way of getting on t’internet to find an alternative. It was looking bleak. Then, a brainwave. Well more of a cheeky ‘you dont ask, you dont get’ sho than a brainwave, but still…

I gave Trish from Strummerville a text out of the blue, briefly explaining our plight and asked if there was anyway she could help us out.. And true to form, being the ever charitable woman she is, she replied something along the lines of; ‘Course darling, my wheels are your wheels x’.

So that was the vehicle sorted. But how to move it? It was agreed that if we were gonna have to pay for a full tank of diesel then we were no gonna be able to pay for a driver as well. And so, it came to pass that Panashe would have to go from his recent experience of barely driving anything other than an automatic Mini around the streets of London’s suburbs to being able to handle a manual Campervan along the motorway and up dark country A-roads that didn’t ANY street lights.

Now this might not sound like much of an adventure but it’s probably worth pointing out here that even I - the most cynical of simplistic optimists with no experience of driving anything other than Koopa Troopa’s Mariokart on the SNES (greatest game ever by the way) – thought he deserved a Scout’s badge. Even despite it ALLEDGEDLY taking him over an hour to get it out of the Strummerville Yard. The man deserves his dues.

So by hook or by crook, we ended up sat in a tail-back between Junctions 9-11 on the M1 with the stereo pumping, a nervous-looking Panashe in the driver’s seat with Rizo as his co-pilot in the cockpit, myself and Moses and the 2 seats behind with our feet up singing along and the great Matty Manning bringing up the rear in the DJ booth.

When we eventually got to the The White Hart, 2 and a half hours late, we loaded our stuff in so that the support band do some sort of soundcheck and decided to go and have a nice quiet drink outside. No sooner had we sat down and the boys lit-up a much-deserved cigare-!!!CRASH!!! I looked up just in time to see the motorbike driver fly over the bonnet of the car and hit the ground. Jesus Christ! As if everyone was on the same wavelength, about 20 people straight away pulled their phones out to call ambulances. About 5 minutes later, the blue flashing lights arrived and the crowd standing around watching began to swell. It was at this point that I decided it was probably best to go inside and try to think about something positive… “Come man, this is bad vibes, let’s go back inside”. The gang were not hard to convince.

We went to find a cashpoint and ended up sampling the local chinese take-away. I have to say that in all honesty, I wasn’t impressed. As we headed back to the venue with our food, the ambulance which had previously been parked outside the pub seeing to the injured motorcyclist slowly krept around the corner past us with its lights flashing.

By the time we got back into the venue, the crowd had returned to fill the room once more and The Examples were playing a raw set of catchy indie-pop tracks which I thoroughly enjoyed.

After them, it was our turn and I was pleased with our performance, which was nice because I felt like we were under-par the night before at Trinity in Harrow. We played solidly and energetically and although we didn’t play to as big a crowd as the aforementioned Examples, I felt that we had good chemistry with those that had stuck around.

After the gig we met some nice lads and a lady from the area. One of them was called Karl and he had heard of us previously and dragged his mates down to the gig which was a nice touch. We even managed to shop a few vinyls as well which was great. After drinking with them until the bar closed, we gave them a lift back into town in the Strummermobile, said our goodbyes and headed back to London.

We stopped on the way back for some incredible tasting, freshly-cooked Double-Cheeseburgers and spent the majority of the journey home listening to heavy Drum’n'Bass so that Panashe wouldn’t fall asleep at the wheel. By the time I got to bed it was 3:30am and I was in the perfect state to fall asleep.

So, we arrived at Victoria Coach Station with about 10 seconds to spare as we were the last people to board the coach to Portsmouth. (What seemed like) a short time later and we were standing in Portsmouth harbour looking out across the sea wondering where to go next… A short phone call to the organisers directed us into a cab and before you could say “Let’s get smashed at Southsea Festival”, we were standing in the venue with our wristbands in place.

The afternoon started exactly how it was intended to go on, with free cans of Strongbow and after watching Sam McCarthy, we all headed to the hospitality room for some WKD Strawpedos. I’d never done a Strawpedo with WKD before so that was a new experience for me and it resulted in blue stains all over my shirt. It didn’t matter too much though as I was wearing a black jumper over it so the stains were concealed. A ham sandwich and a couple of cherry tomatoes later and it was time to head back into the Southsea Social Club to get set up for our gig.

We got back to the venue and began to take advantage of their very low priced alcohol (£2.75 for a pint bottle of Magners?!?! That’s not even possible!!!). There was still time for some more excitement though before we got started…

Before we went onstage we decided to go out for ‘one last breather’ which couldn’t have been more perfectly timed as we got outside just in time to see a massive fight break out on the doorstep! The whole fracas lasted about 2 and a half minutes and resulted in the bouncers managing to pull the two bickering parties apart (after getting caught in the crossfire of a fair few punches) and breaking the whole thing up.

Being the opportunists that we are, we thought it would be a good idea to start the set with Everyone’s Fighting, given the nature of the atmosphere we were going onstage to. In my head I imagined this to result in a riot and for the gig to go down in folklore but alas, it wasn’t to be. What actually happened was we launched into an aggressive Everyone’s Fighting and the already shaken crowd decided that they’d seen enough Fighting for one day and although we played to an attentive crowd, the moshpit and eventual riot that I had perceived did not materialise.

After the gig we went traveling all around the various stages on the Southsea circuit, sporadically meeting up with our friend Mike who was having a running skirmish the bouncers. Basically they kept spotting him, throwing him out and ripping off his wristband, to which he would respond by getting another wristband or at one point making one out of plastic and then just going into a different venue until he got thrown out again!

Once the day was over and we had seen the Black and Reds play one of the best sets of the day, we headed to a party down the road from the venue. It’s at this point that the memories get very hazy. I distinctly remember dancing to my own ipod which had found its way onto someone’s dock and was providing the soundtrack for the room. We then retired back to John Towers to talk rubbish for a few hours before falling asleep.

The next morning arrived with a room full of hangovers and it was decided that the only way to deal with the situation was going to have to be via football and breakfast (although Jamie was not of the same opinion on the food front). So we headed to Drift Bar (where we were scheduled to be playing that night) and got a comfy seat with a decent view of the Manchester derby. After 6 minutes of added on time in a game where nobody got injured, Man United managed to knick the greatest derby game I will ever see with a Michael Owen special. Great pass, great finish, bad refereeing.

We then watched Chelsea vs Tottenham and by the end of the game, it was becoming more and more apparent that this didn’t look like a venue where a band were going to be playing tonight. The organisers were still recovering (and to their credit, I would have been too if I had gone to bed as late as them) and there was no sign of a backline. It wasn’t long before the official word came through that there was going to be no live gig there that night which was disappointing as Mike (the bouncer dodger) had planned to bring his whole family along but unfortunately, that’s just the way the cookie crumbles sometimes.

So we sat in Drift Bar until the end of the night (the Sunday Club turned out to be a John vs John back-to-back DJ session) and afterwards headed back to John Towers once more to get wrecked and watch DVDs. We watched Team America and Hot Fuzz. Hard to call a favourite but I would have to say Hot Fuzz stole it for me. There’s something about a vicar holding a machine gun that just makes sense to me.

The next morning, we walked back to Portsmouth Harbour and again, were the last people to board the coach, bringing back to London with us a whole new bunch of great memories.