Getting to Know… Darlin | Interview 🎤

In the 320^th Q&A in our Getting to Know… series, we get the inside scoop from the retro rock band, Darlin.

“We’ve coined the genre ‘Retro Rock’ although have often been called ‘Indie Rock’, ‘Yacht Rock’, and our personal favorite, ‘Dad Rock’.” Very, very interesting, 🎙 Darlin! Prior to that response to our first burning question, the band provides some background: “Most of us come from alternative rock backgrounds, but as we’ve got older and more mellow, so have our music tastes… we decided to start a band that was influenced by bands we would have heard via our parents when growing up.” Like our many other Getting to Know Q&As, we get the inside scoop on Darlin’s genesis, goals, musical influences, and of course, current, and future musical endeavors. So, without further ado, let’s jump right into 🎤 Getting to Know… Darlin: Interview No. 320!

For those who may not be familiar with Darlin, what would you say makes you distinct or unique? How do you rock the audience’s socks off?

🎤 Hey! So, most of us come from alternative rock backgrounds, but as we’ve got older and more mellow, so have our music tastes and so we decided to start a band that was influenced by bands we would have heard via our parents when growing up. Fleetwood Mac, Blondie, Toto, Meatloaf, and Ozzy to name a few! We’ve coined the genre ‘Retro Rock’ although have often been called ‘Indie Rock’, ‘Yacht Rock’, and our personal favorite, ‘Dad Rock’.

Okay, let’s explore some juicy backstories. How did your Darlin form and what were some of the goals or the visions you had as a band early on?

🎤 As mentioned above, a few of our members come from relatively successful alt-rock bands including Kenai, All Forgotten, The Younger, Ellis Red, Chasing Cadence, MAVEN, and Victor & the bully, so we’ve used some of those contacts, and experiences to shape what we believe is the best-planned band we have ever been in. Behind the scenes, we’ve been collating albums and years’ worth of content, so that we’re never left on the back foot. We created a 1-year, fully comprehensive, fully flexible project and release plan that we launched in September this year. So far, things have been going really well and we’ve already achieved way more than we expected in 2 months. One of our short-term goals is to build a relationship with our local BBC Introducing station

Let’s talk more about goals.  Have your goals or your perspectives changed since first starting out? What do your aspirations or goals look like now?

🎤 Hopefully building that relationship with BBC Introducing Essex can lead into some major radio plays, meanwhile we’re currently busy booking our calendar full of festivals for 2023 + new on our first ever gig coming very soon. We’d love to get a decent support slot with someone like Blossoms, Clean Cut Kid or 1975 (aim high right?) but most importantly we want to build our own, loyal fan base.

Everybody is influenced by somebody else. Who would you consider some of your biggest musical influences and how are they influential?  

🎤 As mentioned in the first question, we’re very much trying to take a step back through time and go back to our roots, that leads us to the music that is parents were listening to when we were young and we have some brilliant decades to pick from (mainly 70s & 80s)! In addition to the above, artists like Heart, The Commodores, Foreigner, Journey, and Thin Lizzy have all been both directly and indirectly, huge influences on us as musicians but even more so in the music of DARLIN.

Ah, the fun stuff.  What’s your craziest tour story or the wackiest thing that’s happened during a performance?  Feel free to be creative.

🎤 We could definitely fill this answer with tour stories from previous bands, but this is a new band, a blank book ready to fill with new chapters and we’re yet to hit the road, so we’ll just leave this by saying ‘watch this space’ and ‘more to come in 2023’.

Up until this point in your career, what would you describe as your favorite song you’ve recorded or performed live? What makes that song special?

🎤 I think this is a real band divider, my personal (Rob – Lead Guitar) favorite song is ‘Without You Here’ (yet to be released), my favorite video is ‘New Sad Song’ (yet to be released) and my favorite song to play is ‘Ghosts’ (yet to be recorded). So, you’ll have to stick around if you want to hear those 😉.

Is there anything else awesome, cool, or left-of-center the world should know about you? Secret talents or surprising tidbits?

🎤 Not overly awesome, but outside of music, we’re all professionals, whether that be in recruitment, retail, project management, or people care… we’ve even got a ski instructor in the band. But I guess most importantly we’re all family people, dads, wives, husbands, and partners and sometimes the simple things can be the most challenging and the trickiest to ‘get good at’. If we can navigate our jobs, children, and relationships, navigating the peaks and troths of the music industry should be a breeze… right? 😛

Closing this thing out, what is Darlin working on, or promoting that you can share with us or want us to know about? We love secrets, but there’s no pressure. 

🎤 As mentioned above, we are currently following our release and project plan, we released our second single on Friday 18^th November and we have 2 more scheduled in the plan, we’re happy to give you the dates but it’s not common knowledge yet. New Sad Song – 1/1/2023 / Without You Here – 14/2/2023.

Thank you so much for sharing and taking the time to answer these questions, and best of luck moving forward. 

Getting to Know…Darin: Interview No. 320  [📷: Brent Faulkner, Darkmoon_Art, Darlin,  luis2500gx, The Musical Hype, Pixabay, OpenClipart-Vectors]