Live4ever Presents: Pretty Vicious


Pretty Vicious



Who?

The members of the band are Brad Griffiths (vocals and guitar), Elliot Jones (drums), Tom McCarthy (guitar) and Jarvis Morgan (bass).

Where?

We are all from a small town in the Welsh valleys called Merthyr Tydfil.

How?

Brad was in a covers band, and Elliot and Tom were also in a separate band together. Brad, Tom and Jarvis were all in the same year throughout school and have known each other most of their lives, whereas Elliot is two years younger so he wasn’t as close as the rest of us. Underage drinking is rampant in Britain and especially in Merthyr; one night in March 2014 Brad, Elliot and Tom all met with their other friends down a field by the river to camp and drink. After a lot of boozing we decided to start a ‘side project’ as we were all in different bands at the time. Two days later we decided we needed a bassist, so Tom went with Jarvis down to a Miles Kane show in Cardiff and asked him to join the band. Jarv went and bought a bass a few days later and started to learn how to play it. The rest is history.

Why?

The band has a massive variety of influences such as Iggy Pop, Roxy Music, Queen, The Smiths and Bowie, to Oasis, Nirvana, Stereophonics and Pearl Jam, to more recent bands like Drenge.

Past?

Brad worked as a receptionist at DW Sports which he f***ing hated and left the moment the band recorded our first three songs. Tom worked at a call centre at EE, which he actually quite enjoyed. Jarvis was doing his A-Levels and still trying (and failing) to pass his Year 10 GCSE Maths exam, and Elliot was still in school up to the last day when he did his GSCE Music exam in the morning and supported the Manic Street Preachers in front of 10,000 people in the evening.

Present?

Our sound is a mix between the lush melodies of indie and Britpop and the raw power and sound of early punk and grunge. We just try to make music that people would either want to sing along to or jump around and fight to as we’re f***ing sick to death of all these ‘safe’ bands just making music that they know will make them money and not trying to do anything different at all.

Future?

We want to be as big as is humanly possible, what serious band wouldn’t? Headline Glastonbury, the lot. We’re loving how far we’ve come so far already, and we’re loving every second of what we’re doing now, but we know that things will only get bigger which is mental exciting.

Did you know?

Every second of being in this band has been one long, weird story so far. So much has happened that it’d be impossible for us to pick just one story, seriously. We wouldn’t trade this for the world, nothing compares to going out on the road. All the experiences are once in a lifetime and any band that complains about being in a band can f**k off because it’s truly amazing.



What’s next?

We’re recording the album this month! 2016 has been the foundation year for 2017, which is going to be absolutely huge for us! We’ll be releasing the debut album and touring our bollocks off all around the world at as many festivals as we can. So it’s fair to say it’s gonna be wild.

Live4ever:

It’s just rock and roll and so it goes…Pretty Vicious’ ‘Cave Song’ struts and swaggers into action with stop/start dynamics, explosive sticks of dynamite that strike into the night sky. Guitars sleazy, snaking around the struggling victim in the blistering heat, smoke choking the venue rooms, bluesy and bruising, sticky tar brushed against the lungs and cigarette ashes arising as the tune charges on.

It’s primitive in the howls and hisses of vocals. Ground-breaking no, but earth-shaking yes, the song has a magical pop structure using space and silence to add extra vibration to the landscape, like itching surgical stitches after a lobotomy, everything is active and alive. If you like guitars that play chords, bass that twats you across the face whilst a stampede of drums shatter the glass of skyscrapers, all while having a sinister lullaby about local life drilled into your ear, then it’s for you.

There’s charm here, but it’s two-faced and acidic and utterly captivating.

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