Band Of Skulls' Marsden & Richardson introduce themselves with soaring debut single 'Outsider', out July 29th through So Recordings
After originally making a name for themselves as two thirds of the anthemic British rock outfit Band Of Skulls, emerging duo Marsden & Richardson are now looking to focus on a far more atmospheric direction as they deliver their soaring debut single ‘Outsider’.
While Band Of Skulls are known for enormous riffs and blistering pace, Marsden & Richardson are looking to take their new project on a warm and more captivating journey. Channelling a smooth and airy aesthetic, with some truly heartfelt and emotionally-charged vocals, this initial effort makes for a rich and shimmering introduction to their sound.
Speaking about the new offering, they said, “Outsider is a song about strength, vulnerability and identity. It’s about losing yourself and finding yourself anew, and that self being stronger than you imagined. It was inspired by the many great women artists who have consistently gone against the grain to follow their passion.
“This is the song that evolved the most in the recording process for The Marsden & Richardson album. It began as a raw guitar and vocal demo and quickly changed into a brooding and epic widescreen piece, layered with drums and a pulsating baseline. The vocal was captured on Emma’s first take and felt so natural it had to be kept. Russell added fender Rhodes which together with Tom Edwards’ soaring string arrangement added to the truly filmic quality of this song.”
Russell Marsden and Emma Richardson first started writing songs together in their teens after meeting at school in their Southampton hometown. Forming Band of Skulls 17 years ago with drummer Matt Hayward, they went on to make five acclaimed studio albums together. Now, the pair have temporarily stepped away from Band of Skulls to focus on a new musical project they’ve been dreaming about since their earliest songwriting days.
Unlike their heavier Band of Skulls repertoire, Marsden & Richardson is far more stripped-down and personal, allowing fans to clearly hear the duo’s soaring, melodic harmonies alongside lush orchestration and a more personal, emotive style of songwriting. “In the past, often we wrote a song and then just turned it into this loud thing,” Russell laughs. “We’ve always sung in harmony but we kind of stupidly decided to have the loudest sounding band behind us, which then makes it really hard to sing in harmony! This is the first time that we’ve written songs like this and not converted them into rock and roll songs. We’ve gone in the opposite direction and it feels very exciting.”
The pair say writing in a duo and building on a song-writing partnership that’s lasted so long made sharing the personal songs much easier. “I think perhaps the songs did start off in a more individual place but when we get together, we leave space in each other’s songs for the other person to be a part of it,” Russell explains. He says because the songs were so personal, they worked hard on finding a balance between being open and writing a song they could realistically perform without getting too emotional.
Their new material began to be put together just prior to lockdown; it was written and recorded in a new, DIY make-shift home studio in Russell’s basement with the two playing almost all the instruments between them for the very first time. “I’m a guitar player, Emma plays bass and we both sing, but with this project, all of the jobs became outs. I’ve written a song that pushed me to the edge of my talent but we learned so much from this and could tinker with songs an unlimited number of times until we got it perfect.”
The home studio freed the pair from time constraints and enabled them to perfect their songcraft and production. For the first time, Russell produced the new material entirely by himself. “It was something that I always really had an interest in and always wanted to do,” Russell explains. “The situation kind of forced me to just do it – there was no way of meeting up with anybody or working with anyone else. I’d worked with some amazing producers in the past – Richard X, Gill Norton, Mick Laune and Ian Davenport. All of their talent and skill, it felt like I had them on my shoulders when I started work on the production. I spoke to Ian during the process, and I confessed, ‘I’m going to try and take control over this’ and he was like, ‘Oh, I always knew you’d do that Russell,’ which was actually very reassuring.”
Whilst this project is very much separate from Band of Skulls, it is still very much “running alongside” what the duo are doing now, according to Emma. “We wanted to look back to those simpler times, records with just a strong songwriting duo like Nancy and Lee, Simon and Garfunkel. They sort of created their own self-titled, self-contained kind of sonic world and we wanted to do that with this.
“We also wanted to celebrate our own songwriting partnership. We’re very proud of these songs and we hope they stand up for us forever. If someone wants to know what we can really do when writing a song, these songs should be the place to look. We’re so proud of everything we’ve achieved.”
DISCOVER MARSDEN & RICHARDSON