Grace & Aaron Bond of When Rivers Meet are a Blues + Roots Rock duo from England.
Interview conducted on September 20,2020
By Dan Locke
Their soulful vocals lock into harmony with a natural chemistry: Aaron’s bold, driven guitar is grounded by his solid kick drum, and Grace’s unique slide mandolin and fiddle combine to create a wall of sound. With a combination of well-crafted self-penned songs and reworked traditional, performances are fearless. Their new EP ‘The Uprising’ is out everywhere now
What is your upbringing?
A- I was brought up in a working family (My Dad was an Oil Rigger) and I’m from a small country town in Norfolk UK
G- I was brought up in a small village in Cambridgeshire UK, about 10 miles from Aaron and my Dad was a Farming Engineer
How did you discover music?
A- My Parents loved their 60’s and 70’s music and played it all the time. My Dad was a big Elvis fan and my Mum loved the Beatles, so that’s what I was brought up on.
G- My mum and sister played a bit of piano and my family just loved music. We used to have family sing songs all the time and we all played some kind of instrument or other.
How did you start to write music?
A- We started writing music about 6 years ago. We were in our own separate bands at the time and just decided one day to write a few songs together.
How did you two meets?
G- We met down at Aaron’s local pub, I was the barmaid on my first shift, and Aaron happened to walk in and we just started talking. Funnily enough the first thing we spoke about was music. So, it must have been fate from that first moment 😁
How did the band get its name?
A- We were on holiday in Sardinia and we were looking for a name. Believe it or not, it’s one of the hardest things we’ve ever had to do. We’d not long been married and we didn’t think Bond & Bond sounded like a band, more like a building firm 😂 We were standing looking over where two rivers met and we just thought “When Rivers Meet” that’s perfect! Were the 2 rivers meeting and creating music.
What was your first performance together like?
G- It was great fun. Wed played in other bands before separately so to be together playing was just awesome!
How was it to tour the UK in a self-converted VW camper?
A- Just amazing, we had loads of fun gigging all over the UK and being in the van was just awesome. And because we self-converted the van, we managed to build it to the spec we needed, i.e. loads of storage for all our stuff.
What was the title of your first original song? Did you record it?
G- Funnily enough our first song we wrote was called “I want a Winnebago” and it was awful, so definitely no recording of that song 😂
How do you figure out mic placement for recording your music?
G- We let our Producer/Recording Engineer Adam sort all that kind of stuff out, it’s something that changes pretty much every song that we record.
Back in 2019 you started to release a single once a month. What made you decide to do that?
We wanted to do something a bit different, and releasing a song a month seemed a pretty cool thing to do.
Tell me about your EP “The Uprising”? Why that title?
A- We felt that “The Uprising” was as statement of intent. We gave up our day jobs not long before to follow our dreams of being professional touring musicians. We knew it was gonna be hard but we were willing to fight for it.
What is your favorite track on the EP?
A- My favourite track is “Freeman” I just love the slide guitar
G- I love “Tomorrow” It’s such a cool song, especially in these times.
How do you stay healthy while touring?
G- We try and eat as healthy as we can, lots of fruit and we do a bit of Yoga every day, which can be difficult if it rains outside 😂
What are you’re feeling about streaming music?
G- I think streaming is cool, it’s just nice and easy
Digital vs. vinyl?
A- We both prefer Vinyl as a listening experience, you can’t beat the romantic side of putting on a record and just sit there listening, the way it’s always been done.
Let me throw a question at you, which you have asked on your Facebook page. Heavy metal music has existed longer as a genre then Blues. Some historians believe heavy metal is actually a big influence on Blues Music. Yes or No with a statement to back up your answer.
A- I love Heavy Metal and Blues, but I just can’t think that Heavy Metal was around before the Blues. For me Heavy Metal is all about the Electric Guitar i.e. G’N’R, Metallica Etc. Blues started acoustically and progressed into Electric with people like John Lee Hooker and BB King. But that’s just my opinion, I could be completely wrong.
What is the mental health situation of the UK? How can public help the doctors and nurses on the front line?
G- I think mental health of the UK is really good considering what’s going on in the world. To help the doctors and nurses on the front line we need to follow the guidelines from the experts and be as sensible and as cautious as possible.
Do you think kids should go back to school his fall?
A- The way things are going at the moment probably not, but having said that it must be really tough on parents, especially if they both have to work. I’m not sure what the right answer is, because those on the frontline have to work, they keep the country’s going and we would be in real trouble without them.
What song from the past is in your mind right now? Moreover, what is the meaning that song means to you?
A- “Sunshine of Your love by Cream”, I just love that song and the meaning for me is that were in this life together until the end.
G- “Love walked in” by Thunder. Don’t want anyone to throw up, but it just reminds me of when we first met.
How do you feel the Covid-19 virus going to affect the music business in the future?
A- Really don’t know, but one thing is for sure like everything else now in life, the music business will have to adapt and change, because we don’t know when this virus is going away or if we are ever going to find a cure.
What have you been doing with your self-quarantine?
G- Were so excited that we’ve had the chance to release a second EP called “Innocence of Youth” which we recorded pre lockdown, and we’ve been busy writing for our new album “We Fly Free” which will be released on November the 20th 2020.
Have you discovered or rediscovered any new hobbies?
A- I’ve been feeding the wild birds in the garden, and discovered Netflix 😁
G- Yep Netflix 😂
Many artists are doing nightly concerts over either YouTube, Facebook, Twitter or Instagram. You have been doing Live Streaming during the lockdown. How is that going?
A- We’ve been doing a live stream every Saturday night at 8pm BST and it’s been going great. Also, we’ve just started doing a music quiz every other Sunday for our fans.
G- Yeah it was really weird to start with, but we’ve got a real community going on with our fans from all over, and we’ve got to know loads of them as well. We’ve got a fan group page called “The Rivers Meeting Place” where our fans who call themselves “The Rapids” they share music, jokes and things like that, it’s just awesome.
Live Nations just started Live Nation from Home. Which are concerts from artist homes. An all-new virtual music hub keeping fans connected to their favorite artists featuring daily live streams, performances, new music and more. Do you think it will be possible to make a living doing concerts this way?
A- I can’t see why not, there are others that are doing it i.e. (Melissa Etheridge) and at the moment it seems it’s the only way for artists.
Live Nation is starting to do the first ever U.S. drive-in concert series — LIVE FROM THE DRIVE-IN — which started on July 10, 2020. Now there are many other Drive-in concerts popping up. Do you think this is something you would be willing to do?
G- For sure that sounds like a lot of fun, we would love to do something like that.
For smaller bands who do not play large crowds, this is not really an issue. How do you see bands going back to smaller venues and doing things like play for the door, with no guarantees?
A-While the weather is good, I suppose the only way is to play in the beer gardens ticket events that can ensure social distancing and a bit of a crowd.
With Social Distance being the norm. Do you feel that it maybe the end of music fest for the next couple of years?
A- WE would love to tour the US for sure, but unfortunately the way things are at the moment we would not be able to do tour anywhere until we were convinced that everyone would be safe and that goes for festivals also, can’t see anything happening until at least next year.
What about Holographic concerts in our living room?
G- That could be a really cool thing to do, does that even exist?
How do you see yourself in the next five years?
Hopefully touring the world playing really cool Gigs and everything being back to normal.
Anything you would like to say in closing?
A- Thank you so much for spending time with us on this Interview, that’s just awesome, stay safe and well and hopefully we will see you out there on the road as soon as we can.
G- Come join us on our live streams on Facebook every Saturday night at 8pm BST we’d love to see you there.
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