Interview - When Rivers Meet

Photo credit: Rob Blackham

When Rivers Meet is an English blues / rock band formed in 2016 in Essex by husband and wife duo, Grace and Aaron Bond. We chatted with them about winning awards, their debut album and being out on the road in a VW camper.

RC: It’s great to see you winning four UK Blues awards and best new band from Planet Rock - how do you feel about all this positive recognition? Does it add to the momentum you’ve built up? 

WRM: Well, we have been totally blown away. We definitely didn't expect all of these awards and all of the positive response we have received. It is the first record we have put out for review so it was pretty scary when we sent the record out, but the response has been amazing and we are so excited we are currently recording the second album and really excited to get that out in November.

RC: Your debut album ‘We Fly Free’ has had great reviews and had been very well received - how do you start your writing processes together?

WRM: It always starts with either a lyric idea or a riff idea. Grace does all of the music and the melodies and I (Aaron) write all of the lyrics. Which is kind of back to front to what people expect. When we write together we are quite ruthless as to whether we keep songs or not, if we don't love them we scrap them quite early on, but it is a process that really works for us.

RC: So, blues or rock? Would you want to show both sides of your musical style in future recordings?

WRM: It is really important to us to have elements of Blues even though our sound is quite rocky, a lot of it is really inspired by a lot of Blues singers that we hope comes across in the music. Aaron is also inspired by a lot of Blues guitarists like Johnny Hooker and people like that and we are definitely into keeping the simplicity from the early Blues in our music.

RC: When it comes to touring, whose idea was it to convert a VW Camper to head out on the road with?

WRM: It was both our ideas. We had recently got married and we knew that we wanted to pursue music full time. So, a way that was going to make it viable was if we had the van that we could sleep in then we wouldn't have to book out hotels and stuff so we were able to just stay on the road for longer periods and go further afield and we converted the van together and we're so pleased that we did.

RC: It’s great to see bands growing through the time honoured tradition of being out on the road....how do you think all the gigs you’ve done together helped in developing and honing your distinctive sound?

WRM: It was really important for us to do it kind of the proper way and get on the road and test our music out and that was again the reason with having the van, was just to be on the road as much as possible. We started writing this new sound the more Blues/Rock influence music and we just wanted to see what people thought. There are no rehearsals that can prepare you for playing live, you just have to play live and it's something we both love doing, we love performing. So, it is definitely important for us to do it the old school way out on the road.

RC: You’ve really made the most of social media in these strange and restricted times - do you see a permanent place now for live streams, perhaps even streaming some of your shows when you're out on the road?

WRM: We absolutely see a permanent place in the future for live streams, we've grown so much through lockdown and that wouldn't have been possible without streaming live online Saturday night at 8pm BST on Facebook and so we will continue to do it. It might be in a slightly different form because we will probably be out on the road at the weekends in future, but we will definitely make time and a place for streaming live going forward for sure.

RC: Going out on the road in the new year with a band, how do you think your live shows will develop when you go out with a full band rather than as a duo?

WRM: Ahh Man! We are so excited about going out on the road with a full band, it's going to be amazing. When we play as a duo Aaron plays the kick drum, so he is so excited to be released from his kick drum so he can explore the stage and just to have that much more of a full sound is really exciting. We are starting rehearsals soon with our backing band members and our music is going to have so much more impact we are really excited about it. 

When Rivers Meet support King King on their October 2021 UK Tour. Tickets – www.thegigcartel.com<http://www.thegigcartel.com>
WRM perform headline 2022 gigs at Colchester Arts Centre (April 29) and London Garage (May 12).
WRM’s sophomore album is released November 2021. www.whenriversmeet.co.uk<http://www.whenriversmeet.co.uk>