All the way from Inverness Scotland, The Signal will make their debut at Rebellion Festival this year. Down to earth, hard working and becoming one of the “must see” punk bands, certainly in Scotland but they have ventured south and graced a growing number of venues.
Another band that can’t be pigeon holed easily, they bring Thrash/Punk/Metal with a definite flavour of Ska and the odd funky/flanged guitar in the mix. Nikki Signal grabs your attention immediately when ever she takes the stage and thrashes her braids as she furiously delivers her extreme anti-establishment lyrics in your face. The nicest person you could ever meet and dare I say, shy, but her on-stage persona certainly defies this. DIY to the core, this band will fit right in at Rebellion and bring some fresh hard hitting music to those lucky enough to take the time to see them.
Q. Rebellion has been running since 1996, when did you first hear about it.
We heard about rebellion back in 2007, it was round about this time that we had the idea to put a band together influenced mainly by old school punk, ska, rock and metal. We had all played in various types of bands since our late teens/early twenties and Nikki and I (Dave) both decided that we wanted to play music we actually liked and enjoyed playing rather than compromising our tastes in some covers band.
Q. What was your initial opinion of Rebellion, as a festival.
In our opinion Rebellion is the biggest Punk festival in the UK, Europe, the world and the penultimate platform for us to get our music out there. For many bands like us Rebellion will no doubt be the biggest event of the year, we have heard that it’s BIG and the atmosphere is electric, there’s a huge list of bands to see for starters, lots of stalls to and of course lots and lots of punks and skins, we can’t wait!
Q. Was it always your plan to play at Rebellion.
I’d be lying if i said it was always our plan, it has always been on the radar. We have gigged relentlessly since 2008 without any long term goals for the band other than to get known and to play in as many different towns and cities as possible. It wasn’t until about 2015 that we started getting noticed and the demand for us to play gigs and festivals became a bit more frequent. We became friends with many bands on the scene who had already played Rebellion so it became an obvious goal for us to achieve also.
Q. Do you have any stand out memories of gigging through the years.
Too many to mention really, a lot has happened over the past 10 or so years but i think our best memories are of playing Crammond Island of Punk in 2015, playing Edinburgh on Hogmanay at 2.45am, playing at Punktoberfest in Dundee. Playing with some of our favourite bands and peers such as Oi Polloi, The Buzzcocks, Stiff Little Fingers, Conflict, Angelic Upstarts and Subhumans all hold good memories us.
Q. Any bands that are a must see this year.
Some of the above mentioned of course as well as the Exploited, The Damned, Cock Sparrer, Cockney Rejects and many more. Sadly we will miss some of the bands like FEAR who I think are playing on the Thursday and Subhumans who will be on straight after we are playing on the Friday, hopefully we’ll catch a few songs from them and maybe catch up with them again to if were lucky.
Q. Will you spend much time at The Introducing Stage, do you check out any bands before Rebellion.
Like I said this is our first visit to Rebellion so we will definately be checking out the introducing stage before and after our performance. We are always checking out other bands, usually ones we haven’t heard off before who we are due to support or play with at a festival for example.
Q. As an artist, has Rebellion changed your outlook any?
It’s a huge festival, more than a one off venue. Despite our years and the fact that we all have full time jobs, mortgages, children and pensions a big part of our lives is dedicated to the success of our band. We hope that Rebellion will open other doors for us and that we can come back bigger and better for next year and for the years to come.
Q. Would you say Rebellion will be the highlight of your year.
Most definately, it is the highlight of the decade for the band, it will be the biggest thing we’ve ever done.
Q. How’s your year been, anything you’d like to share about what you’ve been doing band wise.
It has been a good year for us, I’ve lost count of the amount of times we’ve travelled to Glasgow, Edinburgh, Dundee and Aberdeen to support the likes of Conflict, Subhumans the Angelic Upstarts to name a few. We have been mainly pushing the CD we recorded last year (Suck It) and we’ve done a couple of new T-shirt designs taking a poke at the Tories also. We recorded some new material this year also but due to a lack of cash and time constraints we’ve put the recordings aside to use at a later date.
Q. Are you planning anything special for Rebellion, Single-EP-Album launch.
We are releasing a compilation made up of some songs we’ve recorded over the past decade simply entitled DEMOS. I think fans of The Signal will love it, it’s 100% DIY all the way, there will be a very limited supply available for sale at Rebellion so if you want one you’d better be quick!
Q. When do you play Rebellion this year, Stage / Time Slot.
The Signal will be playing on Friday the 2nd of August at 6.30pm on the introducing stage.
Q. Why should anyone come see your band, in a nut shell.
We are fast, energetic, diverse, very different and we fuse punk with ska with metal with thrash and trash, we deliver a tight energetic performance that will appeal to lovers of all music genres.