Exposed Vocals Interviews Templars

Templars was formed by Glenn Coope, Scott Kincaid and Charlie Savage. Glenn and Scott had been playing music together for years, in their previous band. Things didn’t work out in the interest of the band so they broke off and formed Templars with Charlie Savage. Charlie was found as the lead guitarist from online advertising. The band got writing and went to UCLAN recording studios to record their 2 singles ‘Under the City Lights’ and ‘It’s Fine’. The band had a good response from people after these releases, gaining a large fan base in a small amount of time. They are now currently in the process of writing music for an EP and performing gigs. They have just release their latest single ‘I Wanna See You Again’ which displays the bands indie colours.

Exposed Vocals: So tell us your story. Where did you grow up? What made you decide to become an artist?

Scott: I grew up in Stockport, Greater Manchester, the same with Glenn but Charlie is originally from Birmingham. I started to learn how to play drums at 13 years old. Since then I have loved playing and making music. I met Glenn a few years ago, just last year I joined a band he was playing in at the time. Since then, me and Glenn built a great friendship and loved creating music together. The band unfortunately fell through, so me and him decided to start a new project utilizing Gumtree to find Charlie, from then on Templars was formed. We instantly started writing and recording and within a couple of weeks of being together we travelled to Preston to record our two singles ‘Under The City Lights’ and ‘It’s Fine’.

 

Exposed Vocals: How did you come up with that name? What was your inspiration behind it?

Glenn: When me and Scott were discussing about forming this new band, we would spend many phone calls trying to come up with a name. Scott always had a preference of having a band name that consisted of just one word. Adding on to that, I preferred a band name where a plural term for a group of people is used. After some research we eventually became attached to the name Templars.

Exposed Vocals: What do you think about online music sharing? Do you ever give your music away for free? Why?

Scott: Yes! Of course, all of our music released to date is available for free download from our Soundcloud profile and to be streamed on Spotify and YouTube. People listening, connecting and enjoying our music is better than being paid for it.

Glenn: I feel in modern society, music should be freely accessible to all. I don’t believe while you are starting up as a band to try and sell your music to get people to listen to it – chances are they might not even like it. The end goal is you want as many people as you can to listen to and enjoy the songs you create, and having them out there for free makes it much easier to achieve that goal.

Exposed Vocals: Since everyone was a start-up once, can you give any smaller or local bands or artists looking to get gigs and airplay some tips?

Scott: I would say to just literally take any opportunity handed to you. It all comes down to the quality of your content, professionalism and networking abilities. Unless you really push your music through promotion and playing gigs, it won’t reach anybody.

 

Glenn: My advice would be to make sure you’re in a band with a great bunch of people you can have a laugh with and enjoy spending time together. The greater chemistry you have, the greater your music will become and it will motivate you to keep working hard in the process.

 

Exposed Vocals: Where do you usually gather songwriting inspiration? What is your usual songwriting process?

Scott: With us it tends to be very unpredictable. We tend to write most of our material when we’re just messing around and ‘jamming’ with each other.

Glenn: My songwriting inspirations derive mainly from writing about my personal experiences in life; I know it’s cliché but I feel that’s the best way to get across what your songs mean that people can relate to. Writing a song to me is just a form of eloquent poetry, writing songs about love, lust and loss.

Exposed Vocals: Do you have a band website? What online platforms do you use to share your music?

Charlie: We don’t have an official website yet, but you can follow what we’re up to on Facebook (http://www.facebook.com/templarsband) and follow our Twitter (@TemplarsBand). We regularly post videos about the band on YouTube, such as music videos and live performances

 

You can check out the music video for our debut single ‘Under The City Lights’ here:

Exposed Vocals: If you were given half a million dollars and a year off, what would you do? How would you spend it?

Charlie: We would love to invest the money in touring around the UK. We love playing gigs and we want to get out there into the music scene as much as possible. Either that or we would invest the money into recording in a high quality studio – since we currently record our singles independently anyway.

Exposed Vocals: How do you find ways to promote your music? What works best for you?

Glenn: The use of social media is probably the best way to get your songs heard. The world is so well connected and for music that means it’s easier for your songs to get heard globally. We normally promote our music on our Facebook page, but recently we have been making more use of Twitter and SoundCloud to try and reach out to more people.

Exposed Vocals: So, what’s next? Any new upcoming projects that you want to talk about?

Scott: We’ve got our latest single ‘I Wanna See You Again’ ready to be released but we’re waiting for our big music video to be finished in production. We’ve done all the filming for it and a friend of ours Alec McEwan has done a fantastic job directing and producing it. We have all band members acting in the scene shots and we even have some actresses playing different roles in the video! The video will be out on the 12th June, so you should definitely keep an eye out for it!

Exposed Vocals: If you weren’t making music, what would you be doing?

Glenn: I’m coming to the end of my university degree in Biomedical Science, graduating in a couple of months. Unless our band somehow manages to take off where it is sufficient enough to become a full time job, then I will probably continue pursuing a career in science and research.

Exposed Vocals: How do you juggle the rest of your responsibilities while trying to stay ahead in your music life?

Glenn: Well I’ve struggled a little juggling the band along with my education. I attend university at a different city so that’s also been a difficult obstacle to overcome. Luckily Sheffield to Stockport (Manchester) isn’t too far away and over the past year I’ve been more than happy to make the effort to commute to rehearsals. The other two lads work full time, Scott works as a railway engineer and Charlie works as a legal accountant. Regardless of what profession we are, we still find time doing some we love and enjoy.

Exposed Vocals: What should fans look forward to in 2016?

Charlie: Seeing us live at one of our gigs and the release of our debut EP in the near future. You should definitely look out for our big music video being released in June for our brand new single ‘I Wanna See You Again’!

 

If you haven’t already, you can download ‘Under The City Lights’ for free!