We caught up with Sahara this week, a four-piece from Dundee. The recently formed quartet have already been featured as one of XFM's Scotland's Breakout Acts as well as proving popular in countries around the globe. Here's what they had to say...
1. Who are Sahara?
Sahara are a young four-piece band from Dundee, Scotland. Formed just 3 months ago, we have already been named as one of XFM Scotland's Breakout Acts and have been featured on many blogs across the world in places such as the USA, Spain, France, Australia, Belgium, Italy, Venezuela and Brazil.
2. Who are your biggest musical inspirations?
We're collectively inspired by bands such as Arctic Monkeys, Temples and The Strokes but all have different individual inspirations; Circa Waves, Haim, Led Zeppelin, Jack White and Kasabian to name a few - whereas some of us are also influenced by hip-hop and rap.
3. How would you describe your sound?
We would probably at this moment in time describe our sound as fresh, vibrant and energetic indie rock. However, since we're still in the early stages of being a band, we're still experimenting with our sound. For this reason, we don't like putting a label on our sound yet as it can often put people off our music who aren't into the genre we describe it as; the last thing we would want being a brand new band. Although in our song 'Blind' there's definitely an element of psychedelica - it's probably the most unique thing we've came up with so far. We'll be re-recording that soon.
4. Where do you see yourselves in five years time?
In five years time we hope to still be writing, recording and playing gigs in different cities in the UK (and beyond if we're lucky enough). It's hard to judge where we'll see ourselves in five years time as all the amazing things have happened to us within the space of two/three weeks (XFM, supporting Model Aeroplanes, airplay in five countries, featured on blogs, even being invited to do this interview) made us realise that anything is possible! A lot of it is down to a man called Jim Gellatly, he's basically the voice of new music for Scotland and we were lucky enough to be played on his radio shows on XFM and Amazing Radio. We're so grateful and are glad people are willing to give young bands like us some exposure. We're only 16/17 and all of this has came as such a pleasant surprise to us, it was completely unexpected - we honestly haven't really thought it through!
5. What's next for Sahara?
Our next aims are to probably continue writing and recording new music. We're also really hoping to support established bands because that's one of the main ways people are discovering new bands nowadays. It seemed to work for Jake Bugg anyway haha. It's a great platform to be heard and is a brilliant all-round gig experience. We were lucky enough to be invited to support one of our favourite bands Model Aeroplanes at their sold out gig at The Reading Rooms in Dundee at the beginning of May and it definitely boosted our plays on soundcloud and gave us a few more followers.
6. Where can hear more from/about you?
You can hear more of us and from us here:
Soundcloud: /saharatheband
Twitter: @saharatheband
Facebook: /saharatheband