Room 94 are one of the most incredible bands around right now. Since forming in 2007 at school, the band have become one of the hottest on the rock scene. They’ve toured with Lawson and Union J as well as headlining many of their own tours across Europe. They won the Best International Act award Poland YoungStars in 2015. As for chart success, every album they’ve recorded has debuted in the UK Top 40 album chart.
It has been just over a year since Room 94 last released any new music. In that time, apart from playing as many shows as possible, the band have recorded a new album. This time it has been all in house. Guitarist Sean Lemon has been working incredibly hard to master the art of producing the album. On 15th April, the band finally released the first single of this new era of Room 94. Within hours it climbed to number 11 in the iTunes chart.
Ahead of this release, we spoke exclusively to the fiercely talented front man Kieran Lemon, to get the low down on this new track ‘Burnin Me Out’.
Hi Kieran. It’s great to have you all back making music again. It has been just over a year since we last had new music. Has this new album been something in the making since then?
Yeah, I mean we are always writing songs and making music, it’s just something we are always doing. I think we really started to write specifically for this new EP after we got back from touring around Europe in September.
We know that you have produced and written the upcoming album entirely yourselves this time around, how has that been?
It’s been really fun actually! It’s been a lot of long days and long nights learning a whole new skill with the producing side of things but it’s been awesome. It gives us a little more freedom and time to work on the songs without the time constraints you would normally have in a studio. We’re still learning but we are happy with how everything’s sounding and I think there’s something pretty cool about a band doing everything themselves from the music to the artwork to the touring.
This first track ‘Burnin’ Me Out’ is noticeably different from older Room 94 tracks like ‘When I Was a Teenager’. Has this been a conscious choice to go in a different direction?
The thing about us is we never want to regurgitate a sound we’ve had in the past, we are always growing and changing as people and so is our music. Fans that have enjoyed our previous albums should be able to connect with this song as it’s got a similar feel to the rnb/rock approach we had on our second album with songs like ‘Monday’ and ‘Dirty Dancing’.
We understand the next album is coming out in the next few months, is Burnin’ Me Out a taste of the style for the rest of the album?
Well, it’s sort of an introduction because every song on the EP sounds completely different to each other and for the first time we have a female vocalist featuring on a song which is pretty special. Burnin’ Me Out is probably the fastest and most aggressive song on the EP.
What’s the inspiration behind this song? Is it something you’ve experienced personally?
Last Summer we were writing a bunch of songs every day but we were missing that classic ROOM 94 fast paced kick you up the ass style song. The kind of song that you know is gonna be great live. Then Burnin’ Me Out happened and all was right in the world. Sean and I just sort of sat there trying out different things until something made us feel something. After we had a basic structure of the song it happened pretty quickly. We wrote and recorded the demo in a few hours.
What have you learn through this recording experience?
We have learned to trust ourselves a bit more and have a bit more confidence to try out new things that we haven’t before. Our ex manager and good friend Gary Raymond who sadly passed away this year always told us to have a go at recording our own stuff. We never thought we could, but here we are! Cheers Gaz!
How excited are you all to get on the road with this new material?
One word…BUZZIN’.
Do you have anything you’d like to say to your fans finally?
Hello, we’ve missed you…let’s hang soon?
A massive thank you to Kieran for taking the time out of his busy schedual to talk to us.
Burnin’ Me Out is available for download now from iTunes, and you can stream via Spotify
Let us know your thoughts on Burnin’ Me Out by tweeting us @CelebMix
