Q&A with Indie Trio Second Thoughts

---

I’ve been really highly anticipating my first artist interview! Second Thoughts sent me a DM on Instagram and I was instantly blown away by how good the song submission sounded. It’s well-produced, well-recorded, and it brings back strong 2010s UK indie rock vibes.

Second Thoughts is a 3-man band from England; they’re fresh on the indie scene. They have two singles out on SoundCloud, one of which can be accessed on Spotify too, and they’re working on a new EP to be released in just a month! I couldn’t be more excited about their sound, so I sent them a few questions to learn a little more about them.

---

Hey! Can you give us a little intro to Second Thoughts?

Jude: Hiya! We’re a pretty new indie band from this small market town in Hertfordshire, which is a county just north of London. I’m Jude, I do a bit of the singing and rhythm guitar. Ben’s the other singer, who also plays lead, and Dave plays the drums.

For people unfamiliar with Hertfordshire, what’s one special thing about living there?

Dave: There’s this man who rides a bike around our town everyday waving his arms around and singing loudly in a happy way. He may be my favourite thing about where we live, might be my hero.

Haha, sounds like a good time. Your band brings a pretty happy vibe – how did you all meet and decide to start making music?

Jude: We all met at school really. I’ve been friends with Ben for a while – he used to help me with guitar when I did my own solo stuff. Then we realised we wanted to make a band, and asked Dave cos we knew he was sick at drums. All came together quite quickly to be honest.

Dave: Playing in a band was something I’d always wanted to do for ages, so it was pretty exciting.

You guys have two singles, ‘Wonderhow’ and ‘How could I be so blind’ out so far – and they slap! What’s your songwriting process like?

Ben: This is an odd one to answer since there are so many different ways that our songs come together. Since it’s the instrument I play, every melody I come up with is created on the guitar. Sometimes an idea I’ve come up ends up being translated onto another instrument, but that really depends on the song. I rarely start a song with the rhythm guitar since I usually find it’s just a little too vague when I’m trying to come up with the whole picture for a track. So generally I start with lead, then add the rhythm afterwards. What I’ve found though it’s much easier for me to write songs when I’m working with the other guys. To be honest, it usually comes together quite quickly.

Jude: Well I mean it really depends on the song we’re working on to be honest. With our first track ‘Wonderhow’, Ben had this sick idea for a chord progression but didn’t really know how to progress it. I came up with a melody that I thought was alright, but it really came together when we sent the demo to our producer Michael Keefe, who put an entirely different spin on it.

Jude: Then with our second track, ‘How could I be so blind’, I just played around with some chords for a bit ’til something ended up sounding cool. It was originally gonna be pretty down-tempo actually, then the other guys again changed it up, turning it into what it is today. There’s no set formula particularly, just whatever works at the time.

I have to say – these are definite bops. I feel like I’m going into freshman year of college when I listen to them. Obviously, I can’t wait for more – what should we look out for from you guys next?

Jude: I guess the next big thing is our EP, which is coming out in October. It’s got those singles on it, but also lots of new ones from Ben which I’m looking forward to people hearing, and a track which we kinda teased already called ‘another guy’. 

Any experiences during the recording of the EP that you’d want to share?

Ben: There’s this track on the EP called ‘Bad at lying’ that was pretty eventful. I’d come up with this idea for a lead at home and recorded it on my phone speaker like a week before we were going to Michael’s. I showed Jude and Dave at school and through that they introduced me to Joy Division, who we decided we should take some inspiration from when recording it. When it got around to the day we were gonna record it, we couldn’t find the right guitar tone to replicate the sound I’d recorded prior, so we ended up just using my phone recording. Turned out great in the end, looking forward to releasing that one.

Sweet. We’ll keep an eye out for the release! What’s been the most memorable experience you’ve had with the band so far?

Dave: During our first gig, our cover of ‘Disorder’ by Joy Division, played in several different keys at once, was pretty memorable. I feel like the audience was a bit confused. Oh, and throwing a bucket of water over Jude was a real highlight of my time in the band, as well as my life in general really.

Jude: That was for this photo shoot we did for our EP coming out in October. It’s called Stay Hydrated so we thought that could work pretty well. Look out for that photo in the future I guess haha.

That cover, and that EP cover, both sound really cool! Glad you guys are having fun with it while making such solid tunes. Speaking of solid tunes, Lazy Plays is all about music recommendations, so what music have you been obsessed with lately?

Jude: I could literally be here all day – I guess all the pretty light-hearted indie bands like the Kooks, boy pablo etc. Then older bands like the Smiths, Radiohead, the Cure are all on constant repeat. I dunno about the other guys, but they’re all a pretty big inspiration when I’m writing.

David: So much honestly, I’ve been listening to ‘Souvlaki’ by slowdive more or less on repeat recently. From this year ‘Schlagenheim’ by Black Midi is incredible, it’s kinda like a sick and twisted form of math rock with a pretty creative drummer. Oh and finally, ‘What now’ by John Bap which is is this experimental soul album with drum samples from an unfairly talented young drummer called Mike Mitchell.

Ben: From a guitarist’s perspective, I’m a big fan of Stevie Ray Vaughn. All the songs and leads I’ve written are basically written off blues licks in some way or another, so he’s a big inspiration for me. I’ve got lots of other bands I love too though, like the 1975. I’ve always thought of guitar inspirations and band inspirations as separate really, so yeah I love lots of artists. I’d love to blend all those sorta styles together in the future. 

What’s the very next song you’d want someone to throw on right now?

Dave: ‘When the Sun Hits’ by Slowdive.

Jude: ‘Just Like Heaven’ by The Cure. Kinda sounds similar to ‘In Between Days’ and I love it so much.

Ben: ‘She’s American’ by the 1975 and ‘Crossfire’ by Stevie Ray Vaughn. Both very different, both very cool.

Any bands in your local scene that you think people should check out?

Jude: Yeah for sure, our town’s actually got such a good music scene. Other bands like The Sukis, Hunnybee’s and Just Concentrate, they’ve all got projects coming out pretty soon, all definitely worth checking out. Oh and of course, our producer Michael, who’s also got lots of stuff his own solo stuff up on SoundCloud too!

Cool, thanks so much for taking the time, guys. Let’s leave the people with some info on how to find & follow you on the web. Cheers 💖

Follow on Instagram: @secondthoughts0

Follow & listen on SoundCloud: Second Thoughts

Follow & listen on Spotify: Second Thoughts

---