Advance

Tom:  Three bands actually. I fell in love with the sound of VNV Nation, Assemblage 23 and Neuroticfish, and that introduced me to EBM / Futurepop initially. It all happened more or less by accident, Advance was never planned so it's a purely organic project in a sense. I started recording different things on a DAW I was using at the time, created an electronic piece and people seemed to like it. From there I decided I would play about with different things and make a couple of rough demos and again certain people seemed to like it. It really all hit when Barry Douglas (COG Promotions in Glasgow) offered me the local support slot for Assemblage 23 and it was then I started taking it seriously. Funnily enough I didn't even have more than three songs written, songs like 'Dead Technology' had to be written to make sure we could play live. At the time I had three songs; 'Fractured Existence' (the first Advance song ever), 'Enter the Wastelands' and 'When We Return'. I wrote 'Apathy' and 'Dead Technology' in a few days. 
Tom:  Kim has always been there - she is my other half for those who don't know. She joined as a live member in 2014 and has been involved since then. With the release of the new EP and after the great working relationship we have I decided to include her as a full member. This means in future she will also help with the writing process and I'm fairly certain that people will love what she has to offer. We have been in a relationship for seven plus years actually and we met through a mutual love of this style of music, so it's kinda poetic in a way.


Tom:  If I did think of another title at the time, I'm not sure what it would have been, I settled with Advance fairly quick. I would love to be able to give a great reason for the name but honestly I'm not even sure how I settled on the name; it's a name which conjures up different connotations for different people and I like that quite a lot it leaves it open to interpretation. 
Tom:  There is a demo somewhere with three tracks called 'Dead Technology' but I can't see me ever re-releasing anything from back then. Because of how I work I lose a lot of ideas through switching DAW or PC or whatever else that can effect workflow, and I think I've binned more projects than I've saved. 
Tom:  I'm interested in people's ignorance to their surroundings, A Sign of Things to Come is about greed, plain and simple, and is filled with lyrics like, "We are held in place, like parts of a machine/ we are all just human batteries to feed the elite".  It follows this path of how easily people are bought, how people have no real conviction anymore and how control of your own life is an illusion. 
Tom:  I suppose the biggest difference was time, and taking time to get things just right. After DXM I spoke to Adrian the label head and we discussed time periods for the next release. The AnalogueTrash guys are great - they give you time to do right by the project and make sure what you are releasing is worthwhile. I have a great working relationship with AT and one which will probably continue for a long time.
Tom:  Interesting point, and I would say it's another take on a hopeless society, but this time more contemporary. DXM is all apocalyptic and almost set in the future I guess, and this one is more grounded in reality, or at least our current reality. 

Tom:  Mostly I heard a lot of positive improvements from the first album.  The material is stronger in my opinion and it's more in line with where I want Advance to be. I'm not saying that all the albums will be political because they won't, it will meet whatever subject I think suits the material best. Nothing is ever perfect though. The curse of making music is that you are always improving and by the time you release something you have already improved since that point as well so things are always slightly behind that curve. Although, in saying that I think that it's more important how other people view it, we have seen in the past plenty of times where a band thinks something is their best work and it alienates the people who loved the band so it fails ultimately. It's a tricky one really. 
Tom:  It's early days but all the feedback so far is really good and it seems to be well received. Ask me that again in a couple of months, ha ha!
Tom:  This is the first time in ages where I've had no gigs planned, not even local ones. I'm focusing on getting the album done really.  If the right offer comes in, I'll have a look and see what can be done but I don't just accept gigs for the sake of gigging if I can help it. That said,  I'm hoping we'll play our first show outside the UK this year. Information about the album ... Short answer ... no but the long answer is it's going well. I think all the songs are nearing completion but I would like to take some time to go over them very carefully, cut out bits of filler and have an album which is something I will be happy to release. I have a title but I'm going to keep that under my hat for now.