Introducing Eddie & The Wolves – An Interview and Review of Their Debut Album “War”.

Howdy All, Roctavia Rose coming back at you with a pretty cool heads up that I recently got on the debut album “War” from UK band Eddie & The Wolves. Their first album is set to be released on June the 25th 2021 and has some serious bits of delicious Zeppelin grit coursing through it. Honestly, I already have a few Eddie & The Wolves songs running through some of my heavy rotation playlists so I was pretty excited to be bestowed with this opportunity. Don’t ask me how the Brits seem to have a knack for zeroing in on that back-woods, down-home, bluesy, dirty Rock ‘N’ Roll sound that you’d be used to hearing pumping out from a family cookout down in Tennessee…but somehow Eddie & The Wolves have found it too.

Along the way, Eddie & The Wolves have opened for Slade, Razorlight and Reef and shared stages with Arrielle, Adam Slack of The Struts, and Kelsey Karter. When you are finally able to have a listen of their debut album, you can expect to hear sound profiles with influences from Fleetwood Mac, Stevie Ray Vaughn & hints of Black Sabbath speckled throughout the 12 song wild romp that is “War.” But let’s really dive deep into what makes Eddie & The Wolves’ premier album so very special. Ever try to catch lightning in a bottle? Well that’s the feeling that comes to mind when you get to create music with, through, & at times centered around someone you love…your best friend. Founded in 2018 in Derby, UK, Eddie & The Wolves is composed of Eddie Saffell – Leader of the Pack on guitar & vocals, Char Saffell – Eddie’s Rockstar Other Half on vocals & percussion, rounded out by Time Keepers Kieran Harris on bass, and Liam Foster on drums.

For me, this wasn’t just another album review. I found it really quite special to preview music from a band founded on being a group of friends & lots of love. Also, who doesn’t hope to end up marrying their best friend someday? That’s usually the common goal when you’ve gotten to know each other through many years & shared so many of each other’s ups & downs. However when you get to draw a finite portrait with those that you are closely connected to, capture love in that creative process & then paint it with soundscapes set to the wonder that music brings, it takes on a magic of its own. It’s exactly for these reasons that I wanted to take the time out to ask Eddie what the driving forces behind their very first album were and he did not disappoint with his answer:

“It’s definitely an amalgamation of the last three or four years of me and my wife’s relationship. What usually happens is she writes the lyrics and I write the music but neither one is mutually exclusive. I would say the songs that she had written for the album were a lot more passion driven and broad scoped, whereas when I write songs they are usually more focused on how I’m feeling and who I’m feeling that about. So that means we’ve got quite a broad message through this album- we touch on love, sex, mental health problems, loss and betrayal, and grief. It has a lot of different energy between tracks but the vibe is still rooted in our sound.

For the last year and a half we have worked solidly on this album and before the pandemic we were meeting two or three times a week to actually structure songs and write ideas. There might have been a full demo that I’ve written but it didn’t feel like a fleshed out fully intact song until me and the boys had got together to arrange it.

This album came from a place of love, sort of looking inside of each other’s heads and taking what we were thinking at the time and pulling our ideas together, basically pooling our resources. We recorded this album together over the course of several months at my home studio. One of the biggest achievements of this album is its authenticity,  it’s unapologetically Eddie & The Wolves and no one can take it away from us. What’s interesting about the creation of this album is where a lot of bands who are performing classic rock would go to a studio and try and emulate how a classic rock band would record in the 70s (by using tape machines and vintage microphones et cetera to achieve that sound) we didn’t shy away from using modern technology to our advantage. So for this album we marry vintage technology and recording methods with modern equipment and computers and synthesisers, with up-to-date mixing techniques.

I hope when people listen to this in its entirety they feel a little more closely connected to me and my emotions and can empathise with what I’ve been going through and how I’ve been feeling. My passions, my hopes, my dreams, I hope that the listener can take away a piece of my art, and it can become personal to them and they can take it on.”

Me being my mischievous self, asked Eddie to also answer the tough question of which song on the album would be his favorite, & he fielded it like a champ:

“If you ask the rest of the band I think they would say their favourite track is War. It’s pretty electric when we play it together and we all really bond through it on stage.

I’ve put so much energy into this album myself; I recorded it, I mixed it and I mastered it etc. Char did all the artwork for the album as that’s where her talents lie, alongside the songwriting of course.

We’ve worked really hard ourselves on this and because of that I don’t think I can choose a favourite, there’s just so many favourite parts in each song but I do know that this body of work is some of the best I’ve ever made.”

A lot of real raw grit, true love, & effort was put into the creation of premier album “War” by Eddie & The Wolves, so when this one goes live June 25, do please purchase a copy & stream it in its entirety through your favorite music sources. Hungry for more Eddie & The Wolves? Check out the links below!

Love & Rockets ~ Roctavia

Check out even more from Eddie & The Wolves below

Eddie & The Wolves! (eddieandthewolves.com)
YouTube
Spotify
Twitter
Instagram
Facebook