My Inspiration: The Strands – Need Anyone

Sunderland quintet The Strands drop their first single of 2022, Need Anyone, a song focusing on frustration and the need to be heard. Sound wise, the track is a bright burst of well-crafted indie rock with crisp production, hooks aplenty and a chorus so rich in melodic euphoria that it elevates your essence to a higher plane.

The Strands will play their first headline show of the year at Head of Steam, Newcastle on Friday 29th April, but before they do that here they are to tell us more about what inspired the song…

Need Anyone was recorded back in January with Chris McManus at Blank Studios. He really helps bring our stuff to life and gives a lot of input into our tone. During the creation process of Need Anyone, We took inspiration from our own surroundings and personal situations. After seeing an addition of a fifth member, we needed to take a new approach when recording, influencing the introduction of live synths and additional instrumentation. We also found ourselves being a lot more relaxed in the studio with another member and I think that made for creating a much better outcome and you can really hear that.

The track follows the story of a person who is angry at the world and desperately wants their voice to be heard. The character is always pessimistically down on their luck throughout the song as they face constant challenges with their life. This includes struggles with their relationship, constant fears of failure and their non-acceptance of their situation in life.

The Streets album A Grand Don’t Come For Free was the primary influence of our new track. This album particularly resonated well with us as it touched on real life events and issues that can be seen in our own lives and surroundings. We reference similar themes and lyrical undertones throughout ‘Need Anyone’. This includes relationships, youth culture and working class backgrounds and behaviours. 

The album is directly referenced lyrically in Need Anyone with the line, “You’ll have to earn a grand, no it don’t come for free”. We can feel by the lead up to the chorus that the character in the song has merely accepted the fact that they have no way of breaking out of the harsh cycles of their working class life. This is bitterly displayed in the thought-provoking lyric “Where I come from you’re nothing and you’ll be happy.”

Musically, we found ourselves developing a softer, pop influenced track and still took inspiration from artists we love in our genre like The Academic, Inhaler and The Vaccines, whilst also including 80’s pop and sci-fi type synth sounds. We explored multiple other creative avenues when in the studio and implemented these new sounds into our live performance. 

We can’t wait to play Need Anyone live for the first time at our headline show at Head of Steam Newcastle on Friday 29th April. We are yet to play a gig since the addition of a fifth member and I think the addition has made the live sound and presence of our band intrinsically better. I reckon it’s going to be a hell of a night to remember.