Scene: Post Rome

Sunderland’s alt-rock/pop purveyors Post Rome follow up 2020’s earlier releases ‘Different Kids’ and ‘Want to Believe’ with their new single, The Idea of Having a Boyfriend. It’s a pounding, expansive, guitar driven offering with impassioned vocals, hypnotic chorus and a finger click dropdown that explores the feelings of people who just like having a partner rather than liking the person themselves. The song is released today and the band are doing a livestream performance tonight to celebrate. To get tickets, click here.

Here, Drummer Jamie Martin talks about the band and the Sunderland music scene in a tough year…

It feels strange casting my mind back to the start of 2020 and Sunderland’s music scene in a pre COVID January. It feels  more normal wearing a face mask in Sainsbury’s than it does to think about being at a live gig with a standing audience.

2020’s music scene has unfortunately took a hit from the global pandemic to say the least. My condolences genuinely are with any working musician who has been affected. However to be fully earnest it’s been interesting to watch some of my favourite bands on the scene rely on releasing music to express themselves rather than through the medium of live gigs.

Bands like deep sleep, Plastic Glass and PICNIC, to name a few.

Myself and Post Rome took this time to focus on writing and obsess over production ideas. We’ve also been able to release our emo pop tune ‘want to believe’ during the midst of the concert cancelling corona. We plan on releasing our next single ‘The idea of having a boyfriend’ on the 14th December too.

As a band and as best friends we’ve realised that we’re not too sure where we fit in within this scene but 2020 has taught us that we need to rely on each other and our circle. Make sure you’re in a band with people you like and can trust with ideas, make music, the rest isn’t too important. 

Would love to shout out the garage studios in South Shields, Kyle Martin is an amazing producer and has communicated with us so well even though we haven’t been able to meet up a lot. Also face time is such an important tool.