Graphic Nature: "Graphic Nature is such a cool group of dudes; it's great fun"

Kent metallers Graphic Nature - who take their name from a track on Deftones' 'Koi No Yokan' album, 'FYI' - are breaking through with an incendiary new...

Kent metallers Graphic Nature - who take their name from a track on Deftones' 'Koi No Yokan' album, 'FYI' - are breaking through with an incendiary new EP, 'new skin'. A visceral statement of intent, it's a marker of big things to come. Frontman Harvey Freeman takes a break from watching Supernatural to tell us how his band came together.

Hi Harvey! When did you realise you wanted to make music? Did the process come naturally to you?
I think I was about 7 or 8, I had just got myself into "rock" music, and all I knew is that I wanted to play drums in a band. I got my first drumming lessons at 9 and carried that on into bands after I left school. It wasn't til I was 15-16 that I really wanted to learn how to do vocals.

What's your favourite thing about being a musician?
The live shows for sure! There's something euphoric about being on stage shouting your lungs out for half an hour a night. As a very socially anxious person, that time spent playing live music just changes me as a human and gives me a huge boost of confidence when I get off stage to actually socialise and relax with the people I meet at our shows.

Is Graphic Nature your first venture, or have you had other projects before?
It's not! I've been in many bands prior to this one, all of which were great experiences, and I made some lifelong friends from members of each band I played with. Graphic Nature, however, is such a cool group of dudes to play with; we don't argue, we have the same vision for how we want our music to sound, and it's just great fun.

How did you lot meet and decide to form the band?
We met by playing a show together in our other bands. Things obviously didn't work out with the other bands we played in originally, but we all got on and had the same vision as each other, so GN was born! Purely from a love of no bullshit drama and good music.

What's been the highlight of your time together so far?
Getting signed to Rude Records! Seeing all of our hard work finally pay off is a great feeling, and I can't wait to see what the future holds.

What makes for a good Graphic Nature song?
A lot of trial and error. We never stick to the first thing we write because we always feel like a song can be improved over time. We spend a lot of time making these tracks, and we feel that once the song is finished, we can rest knowing we've put all of our effort into making it the song!

You've got a new EP coming out, how did it come together? What can you tell us about it?
We started writing this EP at the end of 2019/the beginning of 2020 and recorded it during lockdown 2020. It was a lot of back and forth sending files to each other demoing stuff at home, but it was a great time to really get stuck into it to create what we believe to be the next evolution of Graphic Nature.

What else do you have coming up?
We're currently in the process of working on new material and looking at touring as much as we can this upcoming year! The last two years were a struggle for all bands, so we can't wait for the touring circuit to be back to normal!

Taken from the March issue of Upset. Graphic Nature's EP' new skin' is out 25th February.