EP artwork by Max Rollason / photo by Jay Izzard
THE STINGRAYS
NEW PROJECT FROM MEMBERS OF YELLOW DAYS’ LIVE BAND RELEASE THE DEBUT EP ‘MY
EVERYTHING’ – WATCH THE VIDEO FOR THE TITLE TRACK HERE
As part of the YELLOW DAYS live band, Hector Delicious, George Van den Broek and Milo-G have performed together all over the world since they were teenagers. But in-between globe-trotting tours, they’ve sporadically surfaced to play all-new music as The Stingrays at packed, wildy-received shows in London to audiences who are in the know. Now The Stingrays step into the spotlight in their own right as they share their debut EP ‘My Everything’.
The EP’s title track makes for a compelling introduction into The Stingrays’ eccentric world. It’s a hazy daydream in which classic psychedelia swirls around the laid-back warmth of George Harrison circa ‘Living In The Material World’, the band’s three-way vocal harmonies and mesmerising, completely on-point musicianship providing a quality that’s impossible to ignore.
Bassist Hector Delicious says, “‘My Everything’ is about the weak-kneed effect of love. Just melting under the gaze of someone special. How simple things like the sound of them saying your name and being able to hold them makes you completely powerless.
And all you can do is hand over ownership of you and your world. As that’s all the things you have and are able to offer them. In exchange of course, all you want is them, forever.”
The accompanying video for ‘My Everything’ puts a playful, subversive twist on the classic tropes of small town English life and is filmed with a grainy, over-exposed palette that conveys its off-kilter sense of nostalgia. The video first depicts The Stingrays riding through a small village on a three-man bike looking a bit like a youthful version of The Goodies and causing trouble wherever they go. But whether they’re having fun in an arcade or enjoying the bleak weather on a Kentish beach, they never quite escape the attentions of a mysterious older gentleman who seems to follow their every move.
Somehow the EP’s second track, ‘Just A Fish In The Sea’, possesses an even more timeless quality than its predecessor. Rich, sonorous vocals from George Van den Broek bring classic ‘60s soul to mind, while the evocative guitar keeps its emotional resonance in freeflow.
Drummer Milo-G adds, “‘Just a Fish In The Sea’ is about existentialism. About how powerless we are in life, it’s a testimony of the belief in fate over free-will. How small we are in the big picture of the universe and let alone just this world we live in.
It encourages you to just enjoy the small things in life and that that is truly enough to live a happy life. That the larger greater forces should be or are by nature left to the stars, universe or even god depending on your outlook. Not to creatures like us.”
Both songs were recorded when The Stingrays gathered for just their second ever studio session beneath the Dom’s Subs sandwich shop on Hackney Road, east London. The trio were joined by guitarist The ib, and the session resulted in further tracks that will follow in the future.
Hector Delicious and Milo-G have stepped away from touring with YELLOW DAYS, aka George Van Den Broek, to make The Stingrays their priority, but George still wanted to be able to play music with his old friends. 2023 saw them release seven tracks in just six months, all recorded during their first studio session, and now they’re stepping up a gear. Their other music at times moves into stranger, more frenetic material but their unique sound will instantly engage people who discovered them via their previous work. The Stingrays and YELLOW DAYS have both the surface-level similarities and deeper differences that you might encounter in two distant cousins who have never met.
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My life is a soundtrack, i track my life through music, photography is my passion, my escape, my expression. Without both i have pieces missing, thankfully i’m blessed and get to combine both.
Born in Manchester, lived in Australia for 22 years where i was heavily involved in the Australian Music Industry, firstly in bands (Singer) and then managing bands (all original), I moved back to the UK, Wales specifically 10 years ago
