10 Minutes With Sahara Kings

Yet ANOTHER band from the music metropolis of Northern Ireland has surfaced on the music scene these past few months. Sahara Kings, made up of (ex) Bangor Grammar School pupils in Bangor,Co.Down, launched their first EP at an intimate gig in Belfast last month. There blend between indie/rock seems to be popular, as they have received a mass following of teens and local music lovers alike in the recent months. I caught up with lead singer Mark Byers to chat about the bands recent success on the local scene, their influences and of course their new EP.

Tell us a little about yourself. How did the band come together?

Hello, I’m Mark, I’m the lead singer and one of the guitarists in Sahara Kings (SK). I was originally a singer/songwriter, I had been playing around Bangor for a year or two before SK. I was asked if i would play a set at a charity event in my local church, I agreed, but I didn’t want to play alone, I had the idea of adapting some of my acoustic songs for a band, I originally asked Ryan Davison and Andrew Rutledge (Rut) to play lead guitar and drums. Soon after, I asked Alex Andrews to play bass and Michael Weir to play rhythm guitar. We originally were only going to play the one gig with the idea of disbanding afterwards. However after playing the gig and hearing the reaction we got, we couldn’t pass up on the support that we received so we thought we should keep playing together and see what happens. And the rest is history!

That’s quite cool! How did the name come about?

Well, Sahara Kings was a last ditch attempt at a name. We had no idea what we were going to call ourselves! We had originally thought of calling ourselves ‘Against the Tide’, but unfortunately it was already the name of a band. Then we thought of ‘Ghost Society’,but it was the same result as the first name. We spent a couple of days thinking of names – I remember one lunch time sitting in the music department of our school with Ryan and Rut going through books to see if we could find inspiration. We would close our eyes and walk round the Mac-Room with our eyes closed. Then someone would shout stop, you’d pick out the book you had stopped at, then flick through the pages and see what popped up! We did the same process again and again until you had a word, but this was rather unsuccessful! So we went with Sahara Kings and we’ve stayed with it.

You have just released you first EP. Where/Who do you take your influences from?

The great thing about being in the band is the difference in genres that we listen to, with different members bringing different aspects of their style to the band. This means it’s hard to pigeon hole our sound ; we find what works best from the bands we listen to and then amalgamate them to produce our sound. As for our songs, I would say that the songs that I wrote to play by myself have kept some of their original form, but have been shaped to fit the band. We don’t set out saying this is what the piece should sound like – we come in knowing what the basic shape of the song is but that’s it. We let the song build itself naturally. If a part doesn’t sound right, we’ll leave it and see of it works in another song, we never throw a song away. For example ‘Teardrop’, a song on our EP started as a chord pattern on guitar which Ryan had written, but we needed words. I had lyrics from an old song I had written that never seemed to work for me, but as soon as the we put the two together everything else in the song fell into place. Our newer songs came in a new wave of writing. I had to change my arranging style as I was no longer writing for just one guitar. I had to think of the song as a band and how it would work. The new style has given us the freedom to expand our style introducing new influences to our music and our playing.

Knowing the song ‘Teardrop’ that’s really interesting. I have to mention – you are yet another band coming out of Bangor – why do you think Bangor keeps on producing such good bands?

I think its the excitement of the music scene from Bangor which does it for people. Bands like Two Door Cinema Club (who we went to school with), Snow Patrol and Kowalski have really made Bangor a band friendly place. With so many young people having seen local bands work their way into the music scene and be commercially successful is really (I don’t want to seem cheesy) inspiring. I think this inspiration is giving young up and coming bands the drive to want to get into the larger music scene.

Cheesy! Your EP launch was really great! What’s it like when your up on stage?

Thanks! At gigs we try not to take ourselves to seriously and have a more light hearted approach. People don’t come to see an exact remake of the EP.  Playing live allows us to connect to the crowd in a way that the EP can’t and we can feel the atmosphere in the room. I’d say we were more nervous for the EP launch than any other gig we’ve played. It was just the daunting realisation that people had come to hear us! We’ve played so many gigs that we’re just another band on the bill or we’re just another part of the night, but the feeling that people had come to support us and to hear us was strange but amazing.I think we were more anxious about playing well and have people enjoy themselves than nerves.

How do the final new songs on your EP differ from when you penned them in the first place?
The transformation from pen to EP hasn’t been that drastic. Obviously some of the songs have differed in time but that’s more to do with the arrangement of the songs. When we went into the studio to record the tracks we didn’t want to change loads of aspects of the songs. We wanted to keep them the same as how we played them live.


It was great so no need to worry! Where do you see yourself in the next 5 years?
Hmmm that’s a tricky question, I honestly don’t know. I know in the near future we would like to play in Belfast more and across Northern Ireland, and hopefully into the UK, but I can’t tell what the future holds so you never know what could happen!

Any more gigs lined up?

Last year we made the decision to not gig from the the start of May till the end of June. It was mainly to allow us to focus on our exams. This year we’re kind of doing the same. With the rest of the band doing their AS levels, we thought it was better to let them get on with it. As for me I finish uni in the middle of May, so for the rest of the time I’ll be focusing on writing more songs for the band. If a gig or two do come up in this time we’ll normally think about it and decide as a group if we should do it or not. We’re hoping to have a very busy summer but those gigs will hopefully be coming in over the coming weeks and months.

Thanks Mark! I hope you enjoyed that as much as I did. I have the pleasure of knowing all the guys, and they’re all a great bunch of fellas! They really are great live, and their music is very mature for their age (the guys are all still at school) I wish them all the best in the future and hope they continue their recent success. Make sure you check out the guys music here, like the Facebook page here and give them a follow on Twitter here! 

Click here to see a video by Ross McConaghy who shot the EP launch at The Barge in Belfast.

NB – Also if you want a copy of the EP (which is really great!) just ask the guys using the contact above!

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