After playing a storming set at Nice and Sleazy’s in Glasgow last month, we caught up with vocalist/guitarist Drew Selby and rhythm guitarist Euan Mail of Manchester indie band Rosellas to discuss their formation, ambitions, influences and more.
Firstly, tell us a bit about yourself and your band.
Drew: We are Rosellas from Manchester, we have been going a few years now. We are just rock and rollers, we write guitar music and the proof is in the pudding when you come and see us live. We like to think that we are different, the songs that we put in our set to make our sound different. We are massively moulded by bands like The War On Drugs and The Verve and all those atmospheric, psychedelic influenced bands. Me and Euan bonded over writers like Michael Head and Morrisey, people that write proper lyrics.
How did the band form and how long have you been together?
Euan: Me and Drew met on the train coming back from a Blossoms gig and got talking about guitars and music. We were only 18 or 19 at the time, but it only became real when I found someone that I could write with.
D: I have been writing songs solo for years, but that’s nothing compared to writing in a partnership. Sharing writing duties is inspiring.
Can you remember the first time you realised you wanted to make music?
E: Me and my dad had went to see Noel Gallagher at Manchester MEN and saw grown men cry. Seeing these guys, some of them built like bouncers crying inspired me to want to create that feeling within people.
D: I started playing when I was around eight years old. I was brought up on The Red Hot Chillies and Pink Floyd and John Squire who, to this day, is still my absolute hero. I always knew that I wanted to do music, but it only became a reality when I met him [Euan]. I had written a lot of music, but sitting in a room with this guy was the catalyst for everything.
We first came across you guys in Manchester at Gullivers, how do you think that gig went?
E: That gig was a turning point, it was the first gig that we had done ourselves and sold out, and it felt like the start of something good.
What do you aim to achieve as a band?
D: We want to bring real music back! We never tell people what our lyrics mean, the beauty of it is that people like yourself will attach to what it means to you.
E: We don’t tell them what the songs are about unless they pay us some money!
Last year’s Somewhere Inbetween EP was great. Any new music coming in 2024?
E: It’s all about what we can afford. We are different to bands at our level, a lot of bands have been bankrolled. Any money we make from shows goes back into the band after travel expenses etc.
D: We have got the tunes written, when it comes it will be massive. The thing for us is that we need to have the team around us that will push that music to the heights that we deserve.
E: Every song that we have released has deserved better than what it got. We are not scared to do an album, it’s just about being the right time to do it.
For those who are yet to see you live, what can they expect from a Rosellas show?
E: What everyone always says to me is you are better than I thought you were going to be. We are better live than we are on record. There are certain bands that thrive on the production side, such as Spotify or TikTok, but we just enjoy playing live.
D: For us it’s all about joining tunes together, like bands such as Pink Floyd did on Dark Side Of The Moon, with good intros and outros. People are coming to see a show, we are not just sat there rifling through all the tunes bang, bang, bang, as some indie bollocks that is out there at the moment.
E: If you recorded our set tonight and played it in five years time it would sound just as good. We are not really a 90s revival sort of band, we like to create our own sound. Our track Slowdance was picked up by a TikTok channel and has been played hundreds of thousand times, but where are the royalties? We don’t want to be one of those bands that sells themselves out.
How did you go about choosing the tracks to be played on the tour and which ones do you most like playing?
D: My favourite one to play live is Feels Like Yesterday, it is so relaxing for me to play and I can sit back and enjoy playing it. Every tour that comes up we rehearse and just do what feels right.
E: There were maybe two tracks that were knocking about that didn’t feel right, it is more about what fits into the set. Slowdance was one of those tracks.
What’s next for Rosellas after the tour?
E: We have a headline show in at Manchester Academy 2 on 30th November. We will announce the support later, but we handpick all our support bands as we like to make sure that they fit into the vibe on the night.
Interviewed by: Alan Brown
