By Keith Walsh
Having met playing music in their UK homeland, the members of Agency-V released their debut EP No Divide in 2020. It’s a stunning (though too brief) set of melodic rock with an electronic foundation. The new single by Agency V, titled “We Can Erase You” is a satisfying tease from their upcoming full length album, due summer 2024. I chat with Marie Williamson (vocals), Lloyd Price (synths, programming), and Peter Steer (guitars).
Popular Culture Beat: ’We Can Erase You’ is so very dark and unsettling. As it’s science fiction, what is the real world situation you see going on that the tune references?
Pete: It’s not actually a science fiction theme although there are hints of that in there. It’s more about people such as politicians and celebrities who think they can get away with anything but there’s always someone lurking and watching these days who will eventually bring them down. It’s also a song about biding your time for revenge and retribution, there will always be a reckoning!
Marie: Pete wrote the lyrics for this track and I loved it the moment I heard it. Resonated with me on so many levels, so many misaligned people out there in the public eye!
Popular Culture Beat: That’s great video work. How did you get the digital text on the faceless faces? Was that chroma key (like green screen) or something else?
Pete: Regarding the masks, they are very clever and you can import your own text and images onto the actual mask using an app. We’d been looking everywhere for something different to wear in the video and stumbled across these.
Popular Culture Beat: How does Peter or Lloyd like the Prophet 6? I’m assuming that was the main synth on the track including the Numan-esque melody lines (though I think he used a Polymoog way back when).
Pete: I absolutely love the Prophet 6 which I bought back in 2017 as I wanted a real analogue polyphonic synth, as it’s a modern version of the class Prophet 5 from the 1980’s. Actually, it wasn’t playing those lead synth lines it was playing along with the heavy guitar riff to give it a more electronic vibe. I think Lloyd will be able to tell you what plays those ‘Numanesque’ parts!
Lloyd: I’m going to confess, all the synth parts that I put into the track are a mixture of different soft synths. I found a great one called “Surge” a few months back. Even better, it’s a free one! Sorry to upset the synth purists reading this! The Prophet looked better in the video though… 🙂
Popular Culture Beat: How did you all meet during the COVID times?
Lloyd: I’d been friends with both Pete and Marie on Facebook for a while. I’d met Marie at gigs and bumped into Pete a few times when we’d played the same shows with different bands. I started chatting with Marie and just put it to her that maybe we should try some music together. I sent her a demo, the track that became ‘Never Meant To Be,’ and she came back with a fully formed lyric and melody in a day! Around the same time I’d been having similar conversations with Pete. I mentioned that I’d been chatting with Marie and so I sent Pete the track. Within days we had a fully formed track! It was quite amazing. And we just started chatting as a group and writing more and more music, which eventually became our first EP ‘No Divide’.
Marie: Although we couldn’t meet up, it was pretty cool that due to the powers of the internet we were able to use that dead time over Covid to create something that we are all really proud of. We didn’t actually meet up as a band in person until 2 years later in September 2022 when we filmed the video for ‘Give It Up.’
Popular Culture Beat: Finally, please tell me about the themes on the upcoming album. What can we expect?
Lloyd: The album is really evolving as we write more. The original EP was quite electronic/programmed/clean. We’ve taken that but are really pushing to make it heavier/dirtier. Personally I love bands like Nine Inch Nails, Jack White, St. Vincent… so I’m really interested in using electronics to make a noise! I’m quite keen to make our sound harder as we get to the end of the production.
Marie: As Lloyd says, the album really is evolving as we write. I think I can speak for all three of us when I say the title track for this album grew into something bigger than we initially expected! I like the diversity of the new tracks, all very different, each song with its own increasingly dark overtone embedded in the music and lyrics.
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Agency-V On YouTube
‘We Can Erase You’ On Synthbeat
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