Hundred Reasons: Rising Sun

British alternative rock heroes HUNDRED REASONS burned brightly with their emotion filled anthems and high octane live performances but ultimately and unfortunately dissolved as band although not before leaving behind a series of brilliant albums and many great memories.

The band have got together sporadically over the years, playing the odd gig including live celebrations of their debut album Ideas Above Our Station and it looked as this would be it for the band but now, they are back with a brand new album: Glorious Sunset. We caught up with guitarist Larry Hibbitt to hear all about Glorious Sunset, and what led up to the spectacular return of HUNDRED REASONS.

With the impending release of Glorious Sunset, the first topic that was put to Larry was the impetus of how HUNDRED REASONS got back together and to make the new record and he explained to us in depth the reasons and what transpired. “It started off just talking about doing a solitary gig, which would have been the first time in 10 years, and we were thinking that would be a good reason to do 20 years of Ideas Above Our Station, because we’d done the 10 years one but then we just started kicking about the idea of doing some new music to go with it, so it wasn’t completely out of the blue.”

The creation of the album happened at a fast pace and when the live show was hampered by the pandemic, the results were gold to the army of HUNDRED REASONS fans although as Larry tells us, it was still unexpected how it happened. “We ended up writing quite a lot of songs very quickly and getting creative in a way that we hadn’t done for many, many years. In that time, the gig had been cancelled twice because of COVID and then we’d ended up with an album and by accident, we had become a band again, written an album and had a tour on sale.”

While the band were on hiatus, each member went on to do their own thing with Larry turning to his work as a producer (he produced Glorious Sunset as well as 2006’s Kill Your Own and 2007’s Quick The Word, Sharp The Action) but he told us that they still kept in contact to an extent during the band’s downtime but really connected again while making Glorious Sunset. “Yeah, loosely. We didn’t really see each other often, we all live in different places but we’d keep in touch loosely, bump into each other at gigs every now and again but we certainly hadn’t kept in touch as a band, so it was good to reconnect with everybody.”

Larry also expanded on the trepidations he had about HUNDRED REASONS doing anything again. “It hadn’t been talked about before and to be honest, for years and years, even when we did the last shows, it was never even mentioned that we might try and write some new music, it was just like, we’re going to play the first album from start to finish. I was definitely against the idea of doing anything, just for the sake of it. We had occasionally talked about doing gigs over the years, but if there’s no reason to do it and If it’s not going to be good, then let’s not bother because you don’t want to be one of those bands that sticks around too long.”

With the recording of Glorious Sunset, Larry told of things being done differently this time around and how the whole process worked. “It felt like a long time had passed, because it had and, but also the way we made this record is is unique amongst our records, we’ve never done an album like that in the way we made it. At no point were we all in the same room as each other. The process of making it is a very 2022 record to make. The drums were recorded in California, which is where Andy [Bews] was and couldn’t leave because at the time it was COVID. He went to the studio, I was listening in on Zoom and talking to him so the drums were done like that. The the rest of it was done with Colin [Doran, vocals] and Andy [Gilmour, bass] who came into my studio in Brixton pretty much one at a time to do their parts in the evenings and then I put it all together.”

With a tour with fellow British rock bands HELL IS FOR HEROES and MY VITRIOL imminent when Glorious Sunset is released, Larry tells us he is looking forward to the live dates. “It’s not exactly a gruelling tour like we were used to in the early 00s, it’s put over two weekends so we’re out of the house for four nights! It’s gonna be great and both of the other bands are old friends of ours and current friends of ours as well. It’s going to be really good fun and we’re very much looking forward to it!”

With HUNDRED REASONS firmly back with Glorious Sunset, for now anyway, we finished talking to Larry who continued to look back at the good memories he has of the band, their debut album Ideas Above Our Station, and their present status as he does of times past. “It does feel like a long time ago but I can remember making that record, almost as if it was yesterday. It was quite a formative part of our lives, spending that much time in New York and meeting a load of great people there and all the touring we did. They’re good memories to me…”

Glorious Sunset is out now via SO Recordings.

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