Roll of the Dice: 9 questions with Cold Years

Roll of the Dice is a short interview format with a variable amount of questions. A pair of dice is rolled and the total, between 2 and 12, is the amount of questions we can ask. All questions are given to the interviewee(s) at once, and no follow-ups are allowed. The interview may be lightly edited for content and clarity.

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We are just a few short weeks away from the release of A Different Life. The highly anticipated new record from Scotland’s Cold Years was recorded with Brett Romnes at The Barbershop Studios in Hopatcong, NJ. TGEFM is quite excited to have had the opportunity to Roll the Dice with Ross Gordon, the band’s vocalist and guitarist and getting to chat about their influences, the future and one of New Jersey’s best ice cream shops.

Congratulations on the upcoming release of A Different Life! Let’s start it off by talking a little bit about how the record came into existence. What was going on at the time that helped kickstart and influence the songwriting process?

Thank you! We were on a tour a lot and it just kinda started happening naturally. I use voice record on my iPhone a lot. It just was like this huge bank of hummed melodies and guitar chords, and like just random notes. Almost like an audio scrapbook. I was so stoked to get home and get to work on it. We were just so stoked to get back in the saddle and get a new record pulled together. It took us about a year and we ended up with almost 30 songs, and we had to then whittle them down to the 12 that would make the record.

– What album or band or significant singles made you go “Yeah, this is what I want to do”? Not just an influence but who or what was the catalyst?

Bad Religion – No Control
The Bouncing Souls – The Gold Record
Rancid – Let’s Go
Those are standout records from my collection during my youth. I mean the list is pretty endless but I remember specifically listening to Cheap Trick‘s “Surrender” for the first time and knowing I really wanted to write my own songs.

We’ve all got a few, what is your biggest regret? A gig you turned down, advice you didn’t take, what one thing do you wish you handled differently as a musician?

I wish we’d started out with more confidence. When you’re younger, you think everyone is better than you. It impacts your ability to have faith in your art. It took me a long time to get over that, and I think now I don’t really care. We just go out there and play our music as well as we can and have a great time doing it. We also love our art.

What have been some of the most memorable moments or experiences as a touring musician so far? What’s been the most unexpected? The weirdest?

There’s so many. Haha. It’s hard to choose; we’ve gone through a lot. From breaking down in multiple countries and being stuck on a highway for hours on end in pouring rain drinking red wine in the back of the van to playing Copperbox in London to 10,000 people. From playing the Astra Stube in Hamburg (our first European show back in 2017) to then coming back and selling venues out all over Europe. The journey is awesome and I can’t wait for the next part of it.

Cold Years is from Aberdeen, Scotland. It’s such an interesting, diverse and generally under-appreciated place that has bred so much amazing and innovative music.  Why do you think the area churns out so many progressive musicians and songwriters? How does the area feed into the music you are writing, if at all??

I love Aberdeen. I went through a period of hating it for a very long time because of the ties to the oil industry and the huge rich/poor divide that created. But now I think it’s a really cool place. It’s awesome to see so many independent businesses thriving in that new environment. All of my friends and family come from there and I miss them a lot. That comes through in our music, I think (as does the weather, haha). It’s a dull, grey place that is coming back to life.

In other location based queries, you recorded this with Brett Romnes at The Barbershop studio in northern NJ.  I personally grew up less than a quarter mile away and have been so intrigued by the work Brett has been doing there.  So many killer records over the last few years have come from The Barbershop. What is it about Brett and the studio that brings out the best in artists?

He’s a musician. A real honest, hard-working, gigging musician. I love his music so much. From I Am the Avalanche and Crime In Stereo to The Movielife, he just kills it. And he’s an amazing creative. His brain is music, his heart is music. He lives and breathes it, and brings an expert microscope to everything you do and just makes it better. We’d sit everyday and play the song unplugged, then get it live in the room and analyse everything. Take things apart, put them back together again. He taught us how to grieve losing a part of a song we really liked or didn’t want to lose. We used to drive out to this ice cream spot called “Cliffs” when we hit a creative block and we’d just sit and eat ice cream and talk about ’90s Brit music. Then blare Garbage or Elastica in the car all the way back to the studio and work until 3 a.m. I’ll never forget that whole experience; it changed my perception completely on making records.

One of our obligatory questions in these interviews also tends to be the one I have found most important on a personal level. Who are some bands on your radar that TGEFM readers may not know about but you think they should know about?

The Dirty Nil
Red City Radio
Single Mothers
Mercy Union

What’s next for Cold Years?

Touring. Touring, touring, touring. Festivals, touring. We will be back in the U.S. ASAP too.

Was there anything I missed that you’d like to share or dive deeper into with our readers?

Please check out our record!!! It’s out 26th April! Also, if you play in a band, keep doing it!