Phil Knox and his friends have been making music around the Manchester area for decades. It was only in 2018 that Ventrelles formed, and 2020 when their first single, County Lines came into the works… You guessed it, right before a global pandemic, which would derail pretty much all forms of human contact.
So what does one do when trying to build an audience and connect with them? When many were disheartened by the effects of lockdown on their creativity, Knox felt as though this was prime time for moving the wheels on his writing and producing for Ventrelles.
“There was a big music community going on on Twitter, because everyone was sat at home doing nothing, so we thought we should just do it. And I was lucky because I had to furlough for a few months so I could just write songs and try stuff out and was probably never going to get to live that life again. We’re kind of the lucky ones in some ways.
Phil used the pandemic as a time of opportunity to explore his own creativity, something that, as he says, none of us will ever have again. Lockdown saw a new, almost renaissance of creativity and music, which is something that resonates with Phil, it seems. But as much as the creativity and music making is for the soul, part of it, for some, is building that relationship with an audience. So when you’re taking off in prime isolation, how does that even begin to work?
“We put out County Lines and we had nothing behind us but we kind of made waves and came out of nowhere really. But we seemed to connect with a good few hundred people and that felt like the start, so we just cracked on with it.”
Twitter was a considerable help… During lockdown, the saturation of art increased rapidly and Ventrelles found their niche there and clicked with their audience. For a band that grew up in a small world where to be able to make music, there had to be scouting agents and meetings, making music from home and getting support for it online music have seemed pretty remarkable.
Phil’s productivity hasn’t always been so rigorous. By his own admission, during the early days of the band, he was anything but prolific.
“At the time we were like 16,17 years old, post-rave children and a little bit messy. I mean, looking back, we just didn’t know what to do other than just get twisted and play music. We didn’t have any ounce of professionalism in us. We’re older now and we’ve got it all out of our system. It’s all about the music.”
Knox looks back at his times as a younger band member and remarks that “life was different, you could get away with murder for a start, there were no phones.”
“I think the independent music scene now, at the moment, it’s hard because of the cost of living and everything, but musically it’s really thriving and there’s a lot of bands that came from that reconnection and people collaborating again. And lockdown wasn’t the best time but musically it mixed things up a little bit, and people went back to what they loved.”
So Phil recognises the beauty that came from that reconnection when the world opened up again and draws on the new emersion of creativity and music styles. The change in pop culture that ignited with everyone being bored and unsatiated allowed Ventrelles to explore what they wanted to do and really start something. Somewhere along the lines, managers and agencies decided they wanted well behaved bands rather than the epitome of rock and roll and, though Ventrelles were exploring their post-rave, rock and roll motives, this seemed detrimental to how they are determining themselves now and putting all focus on the music. For Ventrelles, it’s all about the music.
Find Ventrelles’ links here:
https://ventrellesband.bandcamp.com
Words by Niamh Robinson, @niamhsjournall on Instagram
Leave a Reply