Second Storey Operator

Second Storey Operator are an alternative 4-piece alt-rock band hailing from Perth in bonny Scotland. The lads formed in 2015 in order to compete in a high school battle of the bands and well, not only did they come out tops but recently released their first single ‘Papier Maché’. Yeah folks, you had better watch out for those storey operators!

A brief, laid-back guitar intro is followed by frontman Tom Mitchell’s poetic and witty lyrics before the track changes its speed halfway through. Suddenly fuzzed up guitars and an overall cranked-up sound is interspersed with more reflective nuances before the tempo is on the up again. The band glides effortlessly between hard-hitting chords and song’s more sedate lyrics – working up an almighty crescendo. No doubt here is an outfit in the making which will leave listeners curious as to what the follow up single might sound like… or perhaps even an album?
It’s clear from the outset that the band’s chemistry is a strong one and while we’re at it, the band are: Tom Mitchell on vox and lead guitar, Andy Yau on rhythm guitar, Calum Pretious on bass and Charles Bowtle in drums. So far the band’s live performances take place only in Scotland (predominantly Perth and Edinburgh) but hopefully and in good time, a trip to London is on the cards too (Tom’s Scottish drawl should go done very well with punters south of the border). In the meantime, you can follow their moves via Facebook or check them out at:
https://secondstoreyoperator.bandcamp.com/releases

For those interested, this is what frontman Tom Mitchell would like to share:

“The band has been together in some shape or other for around 4 years now, I suppose the first instance of this was just covering our favourite bands’ tracks in a friend’s front room in Perth. We just had beaten up old amplifiers and no real experience of playing together, we didn’t even have a drummer at this point. Eventually we moved into a garage for practice as a full band – but the amps never really changed. I didn’t even do vocals in the band until two years ago, and never intended to continue singing but it’s stuck. Second Storey Operator is my first band and also a band that not just myself, but all of the members would like to see grow in terms of both live performances and how many people our music can reach. We’re constantly writing and sharing ideas so I think we’re in it until it’s been done to death and we’re all happy with what we’ve achieved as a group. I picked up my first electric guitar when I was around twelve after seeing my bigger brother play it around the house, after that music became the main interest I had at school and in my spare time, leading to the decision of studying Popular Music at university. There’s still nothing that really beats putting your ideas down on a guitar, or the whole process of song writing, there’s a lot of uncertainty surrounding the decision to become a musician and how secure a living you can make, but if you want it enough I think it’s worth doing.

So well, ‘Papier Mâché’ is our debut single and it’s available on all of your major music platforms such as Apple Music, Spotify, Bandcamp, even Tidal. We’d talked about putting out a single for a while and although this wasn’t the track we’d intended to use, we got the recording back and thought it had the goods. The idea behind the song plays on the idea that you’ve got these people in your life that get caught up in the negative, the wrong crowd, drugs and addiction, but you can still remember what they were like before they went down that path, as kids and as teens and that it’s a shame isn’t it? Our influences are really pretty individual to each member so I suppose we bring quite a lot to the table. Andy has always been big on The Arctic Monkeys, Charles was into Zeppelin, Calum I still can’t pin down to anything. I was a massive fan of Blink-182 when I wrote a lot of our first stuff. We all love The Red Hot Chili Peppers so I suppose that’s the main contributing influence. I think the contemporary rock scene in Scotland is doing great, there’s so many bands that have that DIY attitude and are now just throwing out solid material. I think that in the next couple of years to come we’re going to see the rise of a couple of indie/alternative rock groups that are going to be massive, hopefully bringing a breath of life into the genre with something a little different. I think the music scene in Edinburgh at the moment is particularly dire due to the lack of medium sized venues and although there’s plenty of brilliant local bands you can catch at smaller independent venues not enough people are getting out to support them. The music scene is never particularly constant, however I like to think that Edinburgh will be able to rival Glasgow for venues and shows at some point in the near future.”