Last Tuesday, Richmond natives Broadside made a huge combination of announcements.
Last Tuesday, Richmond natives Broadside made a huge combination of announcements. Not only were they signed to mega-indie Victory Records, they’re putting out a new album in May and had a new music video for their single “Coffee Talk”.
According to Ollie Bierman, the vocalist for Broadside, it was a big day for the band and it felt like reaching another level.
“We’ve been hiding this secret for nine months now so this is like our child,” Bierman said. “It feels like the next level cause like before we were just scraping our money together to put out Storyteller- our last and only single.”
Their album, out May 19th, is called Old Bones. Bierman explained that the album is a way to help understand things you can’t when you’re young.
“It sounds kind of cliche but the idea is that you go through this life and get weathered and tired and broken down,” said Bierman. “But the bones and structure of your core is still bones and they’re still holding you up.”
Bierman said that the album covers a wide range of concepts- from being abandoned as a child to burying a loved one.
“I talk about pretty serious things, but we wrote it to a pretty poppy melodic soundtrack,” he said. “I feel like each track sounds a little bit different.”
He added that they tried to keep melodic rock tones along with a gritty feel, pulling from their previous self-released single Storyteller. Bierman said it wouldn’t feel like the band’s older catalog. Their EP “Far From Home” was released before many members of Broadside, including Bierman, had joined the band.
“We wanted to make it sonically sound complete,” Bierman said. “But its more real, more metaphorically punchy as opposed to the old sound which was kind of more poppy and more naive.”
Up and coming producer Kyle Black produced the record on site in a Los Angeles studio. Black has worked with national acts like Paramore, All Time Low and Set Your Goals. Bierman said that the band was excited for the opportunity.
“You think he’d walk in there and he’d be total rockstar looking at [the band’s he’s worked with],” Bierman said. “We go in there and he was just so stoked to work with us. We went in there and we didn’t know what it would be like to record on a professional level.”
Bierman said that Black had lot of unique ideas, having him sing songs in different ways sometimes all day long. One experiment included Bierman singing through his teeth for most of a song, another he sang from across the room.
“He was super precise and adamant on certain tones and all these crazy things we never thought of,” Bierman said. “He could hear everything at once and really pick it apart.”
Bierman said that all the different experiments over the month and a half long recording process truly paid off.
“Honestly like listening to the record now in its mastered form its breathtaking,” Bierman said. “I can’t believe it.”
Even with a new label, record and successes bringing them further from home, Bierman believes that the band’s connection to Richmond won’t fade away.
“We’re all from here, all of our friends are here, our strongest fan base is here and we’re probably going to have a huge record release show here,” Bierman said. “We’re still incredibly humbled and at this point it would be almost impossible to forget our roots.”
