By | Band name | Plastic Barricades |
| Members | Dan Kert – vocals, guitars, keys; Paul Love – drums |
| Location | In between London and Paris |
| Founded in | 2008 |
| Similar Artists | We’ve been compared to a lot of different bands, from Oasis, Placebo and Feeder to Death Cab for Cutie, Coldplay and The Shins |
| First release | “Mechanics of Life” LP was release in Sept 2017, that is our debut full length effort, but we did release several EPs, dating all the way back to 2008 |
| Links | Facebook | Spotify | Website | Instagram |
| The Music Addict’s Verdict | Plastic Barricades plays quirky Brit-rock/pop that grows on you pretty quickly. |
Dan Kert, singer, guitar player and one half of London alt indie duo Plastic Barricades answers our questions.
How was the band formed?
The band formed more than 10 years ago in Estonia, out of necessity to sing our hearts out.
What’s your songwriting process like?
We always try to capture the spontaneous moment and not ruin it with too much afterthought. Honesty is very important for us – so we don’t really rely on post-production when it comes to writing and recording. We are who we are and we don’t want to pretend to be someone else. Music usually comes first, a lot of songs were written in a jam, right there, on the spot. Lyrics take a bit more planning and rewriting, but the music usually dictates a lot right away. Sometimes it feels like the song is just writing itself. The we just sit and observe and follow.
What are your influences?
We grew up with Nirvana, Oasis, Led Zep, The Beatles, closely followed by Snow Patrol, Coldplay, Muse and Radiohead. In the last couple of years we’ve been quite keen on Death Cab For Cutie, mainly due to their inspiring realism and honesty and very diverse catalogue.
How would you describe your music?
Romantic, hopeful and honest.
What’s the one thing that makes you/your band stand out from the rest?
This is a tough question, so I will use a diversion technique and say “no other band is called Plastic Barricades”. On a more serious note, we just write from the heart, we don’t follow trends and try to stay away from boxes.
What’s your latest release?
We’ve just released our first single from the upcoming sophomore album. The single is called “One for the Road” – and we like to describe it as “an ode to freedom of exploration”. It was written, recorded and mixed in a backyard Shed Studio in North-West London and inspired by “On the road” novel by Jack Kerouac, first published in 1957. Music video for the single, created by band’s art-director Elina Pasok, uses amateur footage, filmed in the late 1950s around America by families with their brand new cutting edge handheld cameras. You can hear Plastic Barricades’ trusty old Ford Transit’s happy growl in the first few seconds of the song.
What are your touring plans for the next few months?
We are currently working on the music video for our second single and also finalizing some mixes for the album. Touring will follow in 2020, after all the work for the second LP “Self-Theories” will be done. When we start touring it is usually quite hard to stop, so this time we want to take our time and get the album sounding epic first. Follow us on the usual (anti)social media websites and we will make sure to sneak you into the front row, so you can catch all the plectrums and drum-sticks (we cannot throw them further than that).
He's also a regular contributor at the excellent news site Montreal Rampage
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