INTERVIEW: Mike Hawkings & Dan Henderson – Sertraline

For up-and-coming bands, getting onto festival stages can often seem like a bit of a difficult task. But for a while now though, programs like Metal 2 The Masses have been seeking to rectify this, with nationwide battle-of-the-bands style competitions being used to fill up the New Blood Stage at Derbyshire’s Bloodstock Festival. On the first full day of this year’s event, we were lucky enough to chat to guitarist Mike Hawkings and bassist Dan ‘Hendo’ Henderson from one of this year’s winners, SERTRALINE, to find out a little bit more about their experience getting to join the festival.

This is your first time playing Bloodstock – how have you been finding the whole, slightly-damp experience so far?

Mike: Erm, it’s been fine mostly. [laughs] When the sun went away it was kind-of cool temperature-wise but then when it came back it was absolutely beating, blasting hot, and now it’s just gone and freezing again.

Have you attended before as punters at all before this?

Mike: Not Bloodstock, no. I’ve always wanted to go, but I said to myself a while ago “I’m not gonna go to Bloodstock until I get a chance to play it” – and we did it!

Dan: Here we are! [laughs] It’s been nice really though, because this is the first festival we’ve gone to as a band full-stop; we’ve never been even to just chill out at one, so now we’re all here, it’s something we’ve been wanting to do for a while now.

And of course, the reason you’re here this weekend is thanks to the Metal 2 The Masses competition series, which bagged you a slot on the Hobgoblin New Blood Stage – specifically the Lincolnshire sector for you guys wasn’t it?

Mike: It was, yeah. We were on in Selby but then after that, we got through our heat, and then the venue unceremoniously got closed down with pretty much immediate effect. And so we thought that was curtains until we were given a couple of contact numbers from people we could maybe jump on the back of other competitions with, and the guys in Lincolnshire managed to get us onto that, which we’re really grateful for. So it was like the odds were kind-of against us from the start, in a way.

What was it like going through that whole process then, given you ended up on such a non-traditional route?

Dan: Well, like, we’ve always every now and again had the odd hiccup or hurdle, and weren’t really expecting anything, but still just went for it, and it was a little bit disordered at first because it was like “Okay, what’s our fate going to be now at M2TM?” and obviously when we were then given that other opportunity we were like “Alright, we need to come back swinging even harder”, because we kinda felt like we had a bit more to prove because we’re still going for it and everyone kind-of knew the story. I think it gave us maybe that little bit more drive to go for it a bit more.

Mike: Especially in the final; the atmosphere in the final was quite intense because everyone was really trying to prove themselves. Every band there was great.

In a broader sense, how important do you think opportunities like M2TM are to up-and-coming bands such as yourselves?

Mike: It’s great really; I will admit I was a little sceptical at the start but then we played the final and realised how well-organised it was, and there’s so many bands throughout the separate stages that’ve had great gigs regardless. But I mean, for bands that didn’t get through the finals and semi-finals, the room was packed, and obviously it’s helped the venues out as well. So it’s been a positive thing for everyone I think.

Dan: You know, you sort-of get through to your final, you win it, the opportunity you get’s amazing. But even if you don’t, you still pick up a lot and meet people, and music’s all about the networking; bands talking and getting on gigs, gig sharing, touring together and stuff. And it offers lots of opportunities and doors to be opened just by getting on a couple of them.

So, having said all of that – for anyone who might be unfamiliar with you guys, how would you describe the overall SERTRALINE sound?

Dan: We always struggle with describing ourselves really.

Mike: The way I kind-of see it at the moment and the way we’re kind-of going is that we’re a cross between JINJER and TESSERACT. A couple of us recently got to see JINJER and I didn’t really know about them, I’ve not known about them for too long, but they are low-tuned, fierce and they’re absolutely not what you’re expecting so hopefully we’ve got a bit of that ourselves.

So far you’ve just got two SERTRALINE EPs to your name, 2015’s Bury The Ghosts and last year’s Guilty…

Mike: Yeah, I think that’s due to change, hopefully very soon. With any luck there’ll be something far more indicative of what we are currently.

Dan: We change, like, I wouldn’t say a lot, but we move kind-of with the times and with our influences as well. There’s not really any sort of bands that we only listen to, we’re always finding new music and new bands that we like, and that does influence sort-of your next lot of writing – it does for us, for sure. We’ve got a bit in the vault of SERTRALINE, and it is exciting stuff; every single tune we’re working on and every time I work on it, it gets more and more exciting.

Obviously you’ve got this performance today, and you’ve got dates booked through the end of the year, but is there much of a long-term plan for SERTRALINE yet as to whether more touring or recording comes after that?

Dan: We don’t kind-of wing it or anything I’d say, especially at this point because we’re working on that new material. So, we’re probably likely to drop back on the gigs a little bit, we kinda hide away for a while and write and do our thing recording and then afterwards it’ll be time for gigs. We’ll do bits here and there in-between if decent offers come in, but we try and focus a little bit more on that writing time.

So has the writing actually properly started already then?

Mike: Yeah, we’re playing a brand new song in the set today actually, and it’s a lot of fun, so we always look forward to breaking something like that out.

Is there any timeframe yet as to when we might get to hear new studio output from yourselves then?

Mike: Early next year we hope.

Dan: Yeah, that’s what we’re looking at.

Mike: We’ve got our skates on, as it were. [laughs]

Dan: With Bury The Ghosts and Guilty, we wrote them and recorded them in quite a short time, we kind-of blasted them out, so we’re enjoying taking our time with material at the minute.

You were mentioning before the kind-of evolving nature of the band’s sound over time. Is whatever comes next likely to be a complete departure from those two existing EPs then?

Dan: Not complete, no. It’ll still have the SERTRALINE sound, but it’ll be portrayed differently. It’ll be somewhat heavier [laughs]

Mike: It’ll be more technical, the production will be closer to how we sound live I think, really capturing the characters of the guitars and things like that. Lizzie’s really come into herself at the moment screaming-wise, she just gets better and better at that.

Dan: Yeah, every gig, every practice, every time it just gets better every show.

Mike: So yeah, it’ll be a noticeable transformation but not necessarily a departure.

Is there any message you’d like to give to the readers of Distorted Sound Magazine who might be SERTRALINE fans?

Dan: Yeah, keep the awesome support up for a start, keep listening because there’s big things coming. Keep your ears pricked.

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