Posted on January 8, 2010 - by Mark Zonda

6 day riot situation

Out there – just while you’re sitting in front of your monitor like a brainwashed gibbon clicking random buttons on your keyboard – is a youthful word full of blokes starting bands teaching their mates out to rule the scene through do it yourself media marketing and improvised shows. They are brand new talents waiting to be discovered, trying just to express yourself and living the moment. Most of them. Some are quickly accelerating their steps to the way of success. That’s the case of London based “6 Day Riot”, with their fresh melodic pop feeling our hearts with joy and expectations. We had a talk with Tamara Schlesinger.

Mark Zonda: 6 Day Riot. How did you decided to form a band?

Tamara: 6 Day Riot was formed on the back of a solo project that I was working on back in 2004, at the time the guitarist and I decided to develop the original project and turn the sound and style into more of a band environment. We advertised for drums and bass and 6 Day Riot was formed. Since then the original guitarist and bass player parted ways with 6DR and Dan (the drummer) and I kept the band going and eventually we added violin and trumpet to become the fully formed version we are now.

Mark Zonda: Do you have so many musical influences because of so many blokes in the band? What do you all usually listen to, and how can you put together so many instruments during the recordings? I mean… is there some kind of ratio or is it a surprise even for you?

Tamara: We all have completely different influences, for example, Dan loves Jazz, Edd was classically trained and I love everything from Pop to Rock, that is why we sound how we sound. There is always the opportunity for someone to come up with a style that the rest of us have not been influenced by, and the combination of styles makes for much more interesting writing. In terms of instrumentation, we begin with the basics, I come to the band with my ukulele or guitar and a song idea or structure and Dan and Edd and I tend to work through ideas together, structure the song and develop the dynamics. From there we will play the tracks to the rest of the band, usually with an idea of which instruments work on which songs, but sometimes as can jam at this point and see if anything we haven’t thought of can work too.

Mark Zonda: Are you more influenced by mariachi, David Byrne or Sweden Indie Pop, like Billie The Vision And The Dancer and We’re From Barcelona?

Tamara: I love David Bryne and all kinds of pop music and world music, there really is not one main influence, in fact when I am writing I tend to avoid listening to too much music as I find it sometimes distracts me.

Mark Zonda: I absolutely ADORE your voice. Are you cute and sweet as your voice suggest or are you a rebel rockstar? Planning a solo career?

Tamara: Thanks! I am not planning on a solo career, the band is a perfect outlet for my writing and ideas, though I am interested in writing for other artists. And I like to think I am more of a rebel rockstar… but you will have to ask the boys about that.

Mark Zonda: Cambridge Folk Festival: what is it like?

Tamara: Cambridge Folk Festival was fantastic, it was a very important festival for us to play, it meant we were accepted by the folk world as well as the pop/indie world. There was pressure from ourselves to make it one of our best performances we had done as we wanted it to be a success. The rest of the music was great as well. We want to play again sometime, it is still up there as one of our favourite festivals we have played.

Mark Zonda: Any chance to see you play in Italy?

Tamara: We would really love to come over to Italy, hopefully in 2010, I lived in Florence when I was a child so I have fond memories. So, fingers crossed when we promote the new album in 2010 we can get over to play in Italy.

Mark Zonda: Break a leg!

6 Day Riot – “Every third sunday”

Waiting for our sight:

• What Will Replace MTV? (15)
• Our last year of independent? (7)
• Indie O’Clock: Tiny Tide and Nothing Meets All (7)
• Funny Little Bunny (6)
• Christmas Indie Ep from Japan (6)