We sat down with the four-piece alternative rock band in the studio to find out more about their debut single, the band's name, and what’s to expect this year...
How long have you been playing together for?
Paul: It was during lockdown, Brad and Joe were sending tapes to each other, just different ideas for songs and stuff. Then off the back of that, they asked me to have a jam with them and join with my ideas.
Brad: I just wanted to keep myself occupied during lockdown really – and I always hated singing as I just thought it sounded the same – but I knew Joe was a bit of a singer so I went and asked him.
Joe: I’ve always loved the stuff Brad has written so I was just waiting for an opportunity to sing it.
Tell us a bit more about the band name.
Joe: It was always on a long list that we had made, but it just completely stood out compared to all the others.
Brad: It’s just Nottingham – and we wanted that local affiliation.
Joe: People from Notts know what it is, but everybody else just sees it as a band name.
Brad: And I like the fact it’s a play on words with ‘Bored’, it’s just how everyone’s feeling about Broad Marsh – how they have been for the past twenty years.
So, how did you meet in the first place?
Brad: I used to work with Joe, and Paul’s misses and mine are like best mates, so we met many years ago. We were in another band together and I lived with Jade, so I knew you all separately for a while.
Joe: I didn’t know Jade and Paul that well until last year, we bumped into each other at Glastonbury, and we’d already been in the studio together at that point – but we barely knew each other.
Do you share similar musical backgrounds or inspirations?
Paul: I’d say we all have some different tastes in music.
Brad: I’d say it’s all within one realm though. I don’t want to say loads of different stuff and different bands because guitar wise, I like the really reverberant, noisy guitar rock – lot’s of early 90’s stuff.
Paul: I’m more into heavier stuff like Queens of the Stone Age, bands like that.
Joe: There are bands that people reference when speaking about us but we don’t want to say certain bands are a key influence, like Joy Division for example.
Brad: But I wouldn’t say we sound like them, I guess you can just hear certain parts when we play together.
Joe: It’ll be interesting to see, when more music is out there in the next few weeks, who people compare us to.
There are all these subconscious things that come out in the creative process
Your debut single The Grind is out now. Can you tell us a bit more about it?
Brad: I had it pretty much all laid out as a track quite a while ago. In lockdown, I was playing about with it on GarageBand, but I realised I didn’t want to sing on it, so I asked Joe.
Joe: I used to walk around with it playing in my headphones, I loved it. It’s a fairly dark song, but lyrically it’s got a few different things going on. It’s ultimately about trying to work out a balance between work, life, love…
Brad: And forest.
Joe: There is some weird stuff going on in that song. Without getting too deep, as a vocalist and lyricist, there are all these subconscious things that come out in the creative process.
Paul: It’s just about being able to write and sing about things that you feel close to and listeners have the option to grip onto it and understand it. It might’ve happened to them at one point in their life.
Joe: And when we get up on stage, we want to be into it, we want to be all there and feel it.
Out of the handful of gigs you’ve played, have you had any memorable moments?
Joe: We got to play Rough Trade, 31K, and The Bodega for Beat the Streets – which went well. It was a packed room, and we got some great feedback afterwards. It gave us the urge to write more tracks and carry on working together - but we don’t want to play every gig ever in Nottingham.
Paul: We don’t want to feel too saturated in our own city if we play the same gigs. People will stop getting excited or not bother turning up because we’re everywhere all the time.
Brad: Having it all go well with no major dramas is great – but it is still early days for us.
What can we expect from you guys later this year?
Joe: Hopefully we’ll be releasing a new track soon, we’re just trying to work on putting together a video for it.
Paul: I think next year we’re going to push for the recordings and gigs, but next year we’ll be pushing for festivals a bit more. Towards the end of the year I’m sure we’ll try and venture out of Nottingham.
Bored Marsh's debut single 'The Grind' is out now
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