New Blood: Wicked Snakes

Time and time again a band will become successful and subsequently a whole host of similar bands will seemingly appear out of fresh air, some good, some not so good.

So while Nirvana helped open the door for a whole host of grunge greats, they’re also in part responsible for bringing the world 3 Doors Down, Finger Eleven and Puddle of Mudd. An example of this in more recent times was Gallows, who didn’t so much open the door as boot it down for a whole host of UK punk and hardcore acts. While there were plenty of superb bands out there, the scene quickly became over saturated. The four members of Wicked Snakes, then playing together under the guise of The Orchard, were keen to make a change and do something more unique to themselves.

“We quite like being out of the common stream of British heavy music,” says frontman Luke Davis. “With The Orchard we were much younger and just focused on getting extremely drunk and thrashing out a lot. Now we’re concentrating on our fan base and doing something interesting for people who don’t want to just listen to relentless heavy stuff.”

Hailing from Staffordshire, the band formerly known as The Orchard comprises of Davis, along with guitarist Dave McQueen, bassist Andy McQueen, and drummer Ash Hunt. That band played their last ever show on the same night they played their first gig under their new moniker of Wicked Snakes. Taking a radical departure from The Orchard’s hardcore punk sound, Wicked Snakes deal in psychedelic doom rock: Davis struggles to pinpoint their influences, but gives mentions to greats such as Pink Floyd, Black Sabbath and Queens of the Stone Age.

“There’s plenty of people that I know that are in bands that don’t like the music their band is playing,” says Davis. “Granted I listen to a lot of music that is different to the music I play, but I wouldn’t want to be in a really heavy band, I wouldn’t want to be in an indie band. I’m doing the sort of music I find interesting.”

It wasn’t long after the transformation had taken place that the band found themselves a home at Wolf At Your Door Records who released their debut EP Lead Me To The Sun last November. It opened the band up to a whole host of new fans, and encouraged them to start work on their forthcoming debut album Sleep Dance. The quartet’s determination to not fit into any mould and to constantly evolve has resulted in a considerable progression in their sound, to the point where they believe that their debut album will offer listeners something genuinely unique in a world of copy cat bands.

“I think a lot of people are expecting the album to be like the EP, but I think there will be quite a few surprises,” says an excited Davis. “It doesn’t sound like anything that I’ve heard before. There’s probably some band from the nether-regions of God knows where that have done before, but I’ve never heard anything like it.”