The culmination of two lives spent soaking up every experience life can throw at them, ANDRENACHROME isn’t just a sound, it’s a fully immersive experience.
Appropriately named after the mind-altering compound, Adrenochrome, featured in the literary classics, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas and A Clockwork Orange, your first taste of the band is The Power of Nightmares, an invitation to explore or retreat from reality.
Made up of Steve Chrome & Sam Souls, we sat down with the duo to understand more about how they came together, their debut release, and loads more.
Read on!
T.H.E – Hey guys! Welcome to T.H.E – Music Essentials. What have you been upto?
Steve Chrome – Hi Guys and thanks for having us! We’ve been madly busy finishing our songs for the debut album of which we intend to release 2020 as well as setting up a record label, making the first video for ‘The Power Of Nightmares’, setting up all the backend infrastructure for our label and distribution.
Sam Souls – yes, we’ve been busy busy, mixing our album building a live studio, setting our label on the road and most importantly learning how to hashtag, and like and add, and subscribe and comment…. basically learn the new world language of the ‘selfie made generation’.
T.H.E – How did you guys meet up? Were there any obstacles you guys faced when you started “ANDRENACHROME”?
Sam Souls – We met doing the rounds in our hometown scene, I knew Steve was really talented and knew our schedules would eventually collide and we’d put something together. We started tinkering with acoustic stuff and then I think I took a left turn (to Asia) and it made sense to hit the electric roots from our rave days and fuse ‘song with the track’. Pop it in an email and send it across the world and back. It’s great seeing that little yellow envelope when you know it’s got musical surprises in it from afar.
Steve Chrome – we found common ground instantly and our ideas seemed to interlock without effort, it just felt like we could bring the best out of each other musically and we had a similar history of musical trajectory during the 90’s so it was kind of all boxes ticked creatively. It took a few years to get ANDRENACHROME to where we felt was the sweet spot largely due to Sam moving to Thailand and opportunities that were presented to us that we probably were not quite ready for looking back – but everything for a reason, right?
T.H.E – The name, “ANDRENACHROME” is a mind-altering compound that is featured in the literary classics, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas and A Clockwork Orange. What is it about this name that convinced you to make it the band name?
Sam Souls – haha, yes, Steve had picked it before I knew anything about it. What’s great to me is I’m a psychonaut and am a huge believer in the power of psychedelics when treated with Reverence and care. A dance floor is a powerful place. Perfect name for an electro-charged outfit pondering the meaning of this bonkers life eh!
Steve Chrome – So yeah, that’s an interesting question that eludes to the fact there was some thought put into the name when actually there wasn’t much thought given other than the fact we just liked the sound of Adrenochrome (correct spelling) as it kind of jumped off the page as a chemical generation band name that nobody else had used. The association with Hunter S Thompson’
Fear & loathing was prevalent, so we changed the spelling to make it more nuanced and to avoid any legal recourse!
T.H.E – How would you describe your sound currently? And is it very different from the acid house that you guys have been a huge part of, especially Manchester?
Steve Chrome – I think we would say it’s not for strict indie guitar fans and it’s not for strict club EDM fans but it’s for anyone who likes synergies between the two, there are many artists who straddle these genres and we’re conscious of not trying to get too constrained by categories so that we can be freer creatively I guess. At the heart of it all is electronic production but there are slide guitars, live bass and drums etc sprinkled across some of the tracks that just keep things organic and looser and therefore juxtaposing the syncopated kick and snare to groove to. It is very different from the Acid house music we jived to back then but our influence does come from US house pioneers such as Deryck May, DJ Pierre, and Chicago house mixed with a thousand other things. We only have 2 rules; one rule which was to avoid musical clichés wherever possible and the other to carve proper songs out of lumps of electronic production pieces.
Sam Souls – exactly, it’s rooted in song craft and melody. In traditional songwriting but using the tools of our times. It’s the future-retro dichotomy. Your mojo and your music have to keep moving somehow so it’s the rave days stuff but it’s the Bowie and Nick Cave too, its black magic and human error its exploration of this new language and terrain, a kind of communication or signal we are sending back into the future world.
T.H.E – How did “The Power Of Nightmares” come about? Considering this is your debut release, what made you guys decide on releasing this now? And was there a certain amount of pressure?
Steve Chrome – Great question! ‘Nightmares’ is actually nothing like the rest of our output actually, it lives in an unusual musical timing space and is very immediate, a statement piece. We were nervous about putting it out as a debut but thought what the hell! We believe in it and there’s nothing much like it out there so there is pressure yes, it’s something we can’t control how it’s out there and we are riding the gauntlet but that’s how we tend to roll with ANDRENACHROME, we follow our instincts and learn as we go, we don’t have anyone else to advise us either way, we take full responsibility and whilst that’s a great place to be it also can be a challenge when we get stuck on a decision which is probably why it took us so long to get to releasing anything cause we are thinkers, I can overthink everything and get inertia and Sam brings pragmatism and fuel to keep moving.
Sam Souls – It came about by chance. We’d planned the album sequence and pondered how many singles and what they might be. TPON seemed to be an interesting reveal as it’s not a track that can be pigeonholed to easily. It’s 3.5 mins which is pretty much all we know about the delivery of singles these days. It’s also a little nudge at the times and where we could be heading.
T.H.E – Which artists do you guys look at for inspiration?
Steve Chrome – Anyone doing something from an honest place really. That excitement and wonder of hearing music that inspires is something harder to find maybe now we are a bit older but no less impactful when we do find it. Sam is much more tuned in than I am to what is out there, but I still closely follow stalwarts like Underworld and James Lavelle (UNKLE) as well as Thom Yorke and Little Dragon. I (Steve) also loved Royksopp, Air and recently Maverick Sabre, Baxter Dury (Ian Dury’s son) and Fat White family. All doing bonkers things creatively with a genuine love for ingenuity.
Sam Souls – yeah, anybody who is looking to reveal something truthful. These are days of the hard sell to the algorithm. Something nutritious and with a true intent is a good food to us. I’m reading a lot about ancient ritual and how it codes modern culture so people like John Dee, Alistair Crowley, inspire my perception of the modern world lately and musically I guess the Beatles will always find a way into my ideas as they just found ways to break the boundaries over and over again. Contemporary music I’m really starting to understand The 1975 and in particular Matty. I think he’s got some really strong ideas and isn’t afraid to let the music be whatever it is as it leaves that wonky mind’s eye. That band has had me doubt myself and find layers of myself I think I’d not previously known. That’s where the buzz is for me.
T.H.E – Lastly, what can you tell us about your plans for 2019?
Steve Chrome – More single releases, Live gigs and streaming gigs from our studio, like the Boiler room setup basically. We are planning our own electronic music event at a venue in our hometown of Lincoln which will have live electronic artists including us as well as DJ’s plus immersive 3D visuals and we hope to launch it early 2020.
Sam Souls – yes, preparing to stream live events from our studio Boiler Room style is proving to be fun. Our label is developing a new club night in our town with some extremely talented friends of ours who run another label across town so we have big plans to bring to the City and create a live outlet for our music and other fantastic electronic talents we have in town… and of course bring in some of the best emerging electronic artists in the country. Get our singles out and of course, hashtag, hashtag, add, like, subscribe, unlike, but most importantly get this show on the road and start connecting to REAL human beings and creating something beyond a thumbnail and the flick of a finger. Our dancefloors are starting to become that powerful place – People need people.
