“I don’t think anything’s missing from the commercial industry. I think it’s just that people sometimes listen to things because that’s what they’ve been told to listen to. That’s the power of Spotify algorithms and big studios. It does take quite a lot of mental and emotional effort to try and find music that is perhaps off the beaten track and enjoy independent artists. When we say ‘fight to make the music’, it’s often in those big decisions to say no to money, and to say we think we can survive. Who knows, we might sign with somebody in the future, but I try and write songs that sad people can listen to at train stations, essentially. I like to write songs that have a beginning and a middle and an end, which I don’t think songs these days have anymore. I like to write songs that are imperfect and complicated and at times hard to listen to. I don’t think we’ve ever written songs that people pop on in the background at a dinner party. We write songs to be played in your headphones, not on speakers. It should be a personal experience that reaches out to you and hopefully, help people understand their own emotional difficulties and their own traumas. Hopefully it will rebuild people by examining those traumas and becoming stronger because of them, not in spite of them.”
— Joey Batey (https://boysbygirls.co.uk/conversations/joey-batey)
