A COLCHESTER band have praised the town’s “fantastic” music scene ahead of the release of their latest EP.
South Hours, an indie-rock/alternative-pop band, packed out town venues before the coronavirus pandemic.
The trio are now excited to release their new four-track EP Simplistic Conversation next month in a bid to bring their music to their fans.
Front man Ben Ashurst said: “We are excited, we have been sitting on these tracks for a while and decided it is now time to release them.
“It was always a debate as to how to go about it, so we thought let’s put them all in an EP and people are loving it.
“We’ve already been asked to do a couple of gigs, restrictions permitting, and everyone seems to be getting onboard and excited to hear the new music.
One weekend before lockdown it seemed every venue wanted to book us and we filled every show, it was incredible.”
The 22-year-old had the idea of South Hours while studying at the Thomas, Lord Audley School with friend and fellow band member Max Hughes-Jones.
After attending Colchester Institute, Owen Hanton joined them to make a trio and from there the band blossomed.
Ben added: “The Colchester music scene is great. The college is known for being a place where young bands go and do really well and emerge back into the local music scene.
“My parents and the teachers there would always say back in the day the town’s scene was amazing.
“Lots of places seem to have lost this but Colchester has been able to keep it going.
“There are so many great bands from here and it’s a community, everyone works together and supports each other.
“I have really missed performing in the last year. We are renowned for our live shows as we love to jump in the crowd and really bring the music to the people.
“Max and I are always passing the microphone to people who know the lyrics and others have got on stage and taken the guitar and played the song themselves.
“Live performing is a massive part for bands to get right and that’s why we found performances so successful because people resonated with us and venues would want to book us.”
Simplistic Conversation will be released on April 23.
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