We are super thrilled when we have opportunities to introduce you to the artists who started their musical journeys in 2020. Route 500 is a new independent project that began after feeling constricted for a few years within the
music industry. It is a new beginning to regain creative freedom and purity.
‘A Horizon Awaits’ is a powerful debut that will stay with you. It is one of the songs that you will want to listen on repeat, especially if you are taking a long drive into the night. Rocket blind into the dark. The song has such a cinematic sound that when I close my eyes I travel in time.
We are super thrilled to introduce you to Route 500.
Congratulations! You just released the haunting debut single ‘A Horizon Awaits’ Tell us about your journey up until this important release?
Thank you – It all started last spring really, after feeling uninspired for some time I began writing again and knew that these songs had a place somewhere new in my life. ‘A Horizon Awaits’ was one of the first and as the project developed I was worried it could get left behind so it felt like the right way to introduce what was to come.
I have to admit that maybe one of the reasons why I connected with the song so much is that it has a vibe that reminds me of Jeff Buckley and Radiohead. They say that if a song reminds you of something you know, it’s key to success. Was that intentional?
It’s certainly a compliment, I wouldn’t say it’s intentional but they are perhaps my two greatest musical inspirations so I appreciate that that’s coming through.
What is the story behind the song? Do you remember the moment the song was written?
I remember writing the song over two separate days after I had relapsed and wound up in hospital. I stayed through the night and ran into an old friend who was experiencing something similar and I got a little lost in that world.
The song drifts between sanity and insanity, the sky was where I felt I had lived most of my adult life and it’s a place I have a complicated relationship with but in the end, I always realise that there’s is no in between, if I want to find myself on land again, I have to let go of anything keeping me from it.
ROUTE 500
I absolutely love the music video for the song. Did you use the images from the trips you had? What was the concept for the video?
Thank you, yes I took a lot of footage whilst travelling around the North Coast of Scotland without any particular intentions of how I would use them.
The scenery was absolutely breathtaking but a variety of emotions can be found within that landscape and I wanted to show it in a different light. It’s vast, it’s harsh and desolate, the long winding roads seem to lead to nowhere and you feel so far removed from everything, it’s so much more than its picture-postcard beauty.
I like to capture the movement of travel too, the mindful momentum.
I’m most content when I’m moving and have nowhere to be but where I am.
ROUTE 500
How did you come up with the name Route 500?
After much trial and error Route 500 just conjured up the right images for me, it suits the direction of the project and the unpolished theme. It’s also the name of the road we travelled in Scotland, the one you can see in the video.
What does it mean to you starting your musical career during this historic year?
The industry has been badly hit this year so it can be a little daunting to be entering into something new but mostly it’s empowering, more than ever I appreciate what I have and no longer want to waste time on anything that doesn’t hold meaning to me.
Where do ideas for songs come from? Tell us more about your creative process.
My ideas come from processing existence, the mind fascinates me. Most days I like to put down my observations in some creative way and I’m finally figuring out how to feed them into each other through drawing, taking photos, writing and making music.
Wrong Colour is a label and a blog looking into the mental health issues. Do you remember how it all began?
I created Wrong Colour in September 2018 whilst in Italy at a real turning point in my life, I remember sharing the earliest posts whilst in the backseat as we drove around Lake Garda.
It became a project that kept me busy in the early days of sobriety and still does to this day. Mental health issues are all too prevalent in the indie/alt music scene and I felt there was a need for a platform where people like myself could feel comfortable and encouraged to talk about taboo subjects like suicide and simply what goes on inside our heads.
Also it’s just a good place to share all of the wonderful music that’s out there as that’s what helps me and so many others through the darkest times. It’s just a very positive place that I hope to continue expanding.
Music to me is Spiritual, something higher that connects with me beyond words and can always break through and make some kind of sense even when nothing else does.
ROUTE 500
Do you have a song, that when you hear it, you’d say, “I wish I’d written that”?
At this moment, the entire Adrianne Lenker record ‘songs’, it just blows me away every listen. If I had to pick one song then maybe ‘ingydar’.
What you got planned for 2021?
A lot more music, there will be an album in the New Year and we’re looking forward to playing our first shows, it’s going to be a good year.
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