Getting to Know… Face of a Stranger | Interview 🎤

In the 392^nd Q&A in our Getting to Know… series, we get the inside scoop from West Midlands, UK alternative rock band, Face of a Stranger. 

“Ithink we kinda just write what we feel at the time, if there’s a cool topic I’ve been thinking about, I usually write lyrics that coincide either with my interests in horror and sci-fi, or go from personal experience, observations, & opinions..” Awesome, 🎙 Face of a Stranger, specifically Mitch! In response to our first burning question, Joe adds, “I think what makes us unique is our very wide musical taste and inspiration.” Joe and Mitch the inside scoop on their West Midlands, UK alternative rock band: the genesis, goals, musical influences, and current and future musical endeavors. So, without further ado, let’s jump right into 🎤 Getting to Know… Face of a Stranger: Interview No. 392!

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

Mitch: Thanks for chatting with us, first of all. That’s a good question. I think we kinda just write what we feel at the time, if there’s a cool topic I’ve been thinking about, I usually write lyrics that coincide either with my interests in horror and sci-fi, or go from personal experience, observations, & opinions. We never nail ourselves down, always going for something that excites us. And doing cool covers, like ‘Blinding Lights’ by The Weeknd, ‘Propane Nightmares’ by Pendulum, ‘Hero’ by Chad Kroeger, in the past we’ve done ‘I Guess I’m Just Too Close To Love You’ by Alex Clare, ‘The Monster’ by Eminem & Rihanna. We just do what we love, and we love what we do, and we’re all mates and get on really well, maybe those things altogether, that’s the secret sauce.

Joe: Yeah, I think what makes us unique is our very wide musical taste and inspiration. If you listen to our set it sounds very cliché but there really is something for everyone, people who aren’t really into rock or metal at all will enjoy 🎵 “The Road” as its one of our more mainstream tracks. And then people who like heavy aggressive music will find some of the newer material like 🎵 “Stonewalled” or 🎵 “Oblivion” more to their taste. This follows onto the new EP as 🎵 “Forget me Not” is very slow, depressing and emotional and then straight to 🎵 “Skirmish”,  which is fast energetic and in your face.

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

Mitch: I don’t know about juicy, this may be a somewhat anticlimactic answer, ha-ha! I started a project called Loud Thought, after 2 projects that didn’t take off fully (Life Therapy, and 5th Syndicate), from there, the band had a very different line-up.  Then I met Joe through a mutual friend who used to get me gigs on the acoustic circuit, also Joe’s former band mate, I asked Ben to join too, and went from there, the goals were just to make kick ass rock music. The name came from Joe when he was listening to Alter Bridge song ‘Find the Real’, the lyric goes: “I look in the mirror only to find Face of a stranger,” and so,  FOAS was born. We went through lineup changes after mid 2014, and now we’ve really got a great line up that can allow to go further and do what we love.

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?

Mitch: Goals, well that’s easy, keep doing what we love: making cool metal music, tours, play Download, Bloodstock…hopefully…one day. Release music videos and make an album. At first, we just had no real direction in terms of goals, but now, we know where we are and what we want. Even though we made good music back then, it feels more focused now.

Joe: Like Mitch says, I think the main goal we have at this stage is to keep making music that we love and enjoy making. Anything after that is a bonus.

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

Mitch: Oooh! Well, if you’re from the West Midlands and aren’t influenced by Judas Priest or Sabbath then you’re a donut short of Homer Simpsons daily diet, ha-ha! I mean, you’ve got Creed, Metallica, Staind, Nickelback, GnR, Maiden, Sabbath, The Offspring, Chevelle, Element Eighty, The Blank Theory, Crossfade, Kyuss, Tool, Meshuggah, Pantera, Linkin Park, Slipknot, Alter Bridge, Shinedown, Machinehead, Stereophonics, Matchbox 20, Oasis, etc. There’s a lot of influences sprinkled in, and we have a lot of cool ideas for future music, keeping listeners on their toes, and keeping us on our toes too.

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.

Mitch: I’m not afraid to admit that I told a really dumb joke on stage once, back in the day, a long time ago when we were first starting out: “why did the bubblegum cross the road? Because it was stuck to the chickens foot”. There’s was like one guy in the audience that laughed, ha-ha! I laughed, because if ya can’t laugh at yourself eh?!

One of the craziest things that happened was getting a gig supporting ‘Mentallica’, one of Europe’s biggest Metallica tribute acts, and the night was hosted by Johnny Doom and Loz Guest from Kerrang! Radio. That was awesome, Loz and Johnny enjoyed our music and that was a high compliment from 2 great guys in the industry.

Joe: Yeah! Mitch’s joke was probably the worst joke I’ve ever heard, ha-ha! We had an amp blow a fuse at our latest gig which was a bit of a nightmare. It happened about 20 seconds in to the first song.

Mitch: Oh yeah! 🎵 “Artificial Life”, opening song, Ben’s amp blew out and you had to whack your jack into another head. My mate Richard Jevons (guitarist for Burning the Padre) was filling in for Ben that night, he lent us his head, and Rich had to carry the song for a bit while you got the amp going again, Rich had a few weeks to learn the songs, he’s a guitar tutor so we knew we never had to worry about quality with him.

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?

Mitch: I think the first time we performed our set list in 2013, that was just incredible, so all of those songs were my favorites at that moment in time. I enjoy performing 🎵 “Artificial Life” the most at the moment tbh, it’s a banger! But, there’s a new EP coming out, and there’s some meat and potatoes there which are gonna be very fun to play, like 🎵 “House of Bone and Flesh”, 🎵 “Skirmish”, and our most emotional song to-date,  🎵 “Forget Me Not”.

Joe: I think 🎵 “House of Bone and Flesh” is probably my favorite at the minute although it tends to change regularly. It’s a long song has plenty of different sections with some really cool guitar harmonies which makes it really fun to play. I also really like 🎵 “Artificial Life”, Mitch did a really great job with the vocals on that tune.

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

Mitch: I love writing short horror stories, I’m also pretty good at doing impressions of fictional characters, ha-ha! I love cosplaying as my fave horror characters at Comic-Con. I play guitar, not for FOAS as of yet, but I love playing acoustic at open mics. I’m also half-decent at Darts, and I’m really good at telling jokes that only I laugh at, apparently, ha-ha! Oh, and Cornwall is the best place on earth.

Joe: To be honest I wish there was more left of center stuff to know about me! I do all the usual stuff like going to the football, playing football and going to the gym. Nothing out of the ordinary unfortunately! 

Mitch: Joe is being humble, he’s got a keen eye for the workings of how songs can shine, be different, and kind of have their own language. He’s also a very funny dude when you catch him at the right moment.

Closing out, what is Face of a Stranger currently working on, promoting that you can share with us or want us to know about? We love secrets, but there’s no pressure.   

Mitch: Currently we’re starting up a YouTube series called “We Play What You Want”, so people ask us to play a song on our socials, and we select 2 to play, we’ll do an acoustic version of our original songs too, and a cover we want to play. That should be starting in December. We’re writing new material too, even before the new EP ‘Monsters Among Us’ drops in Feb 2024.

Joe: Yeah we have a new single out 🎵 “Artificial Life” on the 1st of December and then a full EP out in Feb as Mitch says, We’re also going to be playing at the Metal to the Masses competition in Coventry next year which is exciting!

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

Mitch: Thank YOU for your time also.

Follow… Face of a Stranger: Instagram • Facebook • Spotify • YouTube

Getting to Know… Face of a Stranger: Interview No. 392 [📷: Brent Faulkner / The Musical Hype; Face of a Stranger; Tumisu via Pixabay]