New Band of the Month: Steel Trees

South Yorksire trio Steel Trees first bust their way into CULTURED VULTURE hearts, via slapdash buzzsaw surgery, in a recent edition of our regular music feature PULSE: NEW MUSIC YOU NEED. If you didn’t catch that, as said, the band hail from Sheffield and bring with them a barrage of riffs sporting the characteristic fuzz and sludge of stoner, with the kind of adrenalized ferocity you wouldn’t characteristically attribute to a bunch of stoners.

Yet, here they are, bringing you the lowdown green groove through put-up-or-shut-up, punk rock fuck you-ery, touring hard ‘n’ heavy and supporting big names on the underground, as well as just big name big names (I’m looking at you Dinosaur Jr). The band have had a couple of releases so far, steadily earning them more avid fans as they go, with them just releasing their latest EP, ‘Ouch’ for free, because… well, that’d be telling. Get to reading the interview for some Steel Trees secrets and down lows, sweary opinions, choice recommendations, and general rock’n’roll.

Hello, and how are you? But also, who the hell are you?

We are Steel Trees, space punk professional pit village organ grinders from up’t t’north

We recently covered you in our regular music feature Pulse, but how would you describe what Steel Trees are all about in your own words 

Ta for that! We’re all about smashing the shit out of everything and anything that life throws at ya. We’re influenced by the good, the bad and the really really shit stuff. We just plug in, turn up and let ourselves go. Its a constant progression to top ourselves in every sense of the meaning.

 There’s a strong sense in your music that you are making the music you love, but what exactly does ‘the music you love’ cover? Stoner rock? Blues metal? Hardcore punk? Garage? Who would you say are your biggest influences?

All of that stuff dudes! As well as funky Prince stuff, Abba, Huey Lewis, Gary Numan 80’s pop, literally anything. ‘Int music brilliant…except fucking daytime Radio 1. Fuck that crew.

Are you more of a jam band or a band that brings ideas to the table and works them out? It sounds to me like you might play fast and loose with it and see what comes naturally.

Bang on. Although some ideas tend to be brought to the table. Its mainly whatever comes out in our 3 hour long noise-athon rehearsals at Dogs garage. A song can be going one way then a mistake can actually become the song. Keeping stuff loose keeps us on our toes and you never know how things will come out when playing live. Just the way we like it.

You recently released your latest single ‘Radiation Man’, was that a taste of things to come? New big releases?

We are working on new material that is light years away from our previous stuff. We’ve recently parted ways with our bassist and brought in new dude ‘Shades’ Lee Curran. Everything just got took up 1.21 giggawatts and has also deemed previous efforts including our upcoming EP ‘Ouch’ pretty much void. ‘Ouch’ will be released next week for FREE as we feel that you guys have gotta hear it still…but we hope everyone sticks around for a couple of months to hear our new songs which are fucking huge if we do say so ourselves. They’ll also be recorded by a super shit hot producer who will remain nameless for now ;)

Aside from on record, where can our readers come catch you live? Any dates currently in the pipeline?

At the moment we have only announced Bean Fest in Rawmarsh 11/7/15 and our own curated festival at University Arms in Sheffield for Tramlines25/7/15. Both are free entry and are full of top class bands. S’gonna kick arse! We will be posting updates on more gigs through our facespaz page www.facebook.com/steeltrees

Speaking of live, you got to support Dinosaur Jr. How did that come about, and how awesome was it?

J.Mascis had personally asked for our assistance in supporting DJ as they’d come in contact with one of our early demos. They were all sound guys, even though they thought we were from Scotland…..we’re about as Yorkshire as it gets…flat caps the lot.

Other than yourselves, obviously, who else should our readers be checking out? Anyone you’ve toured with or know?

Unicorn Hunters are good mates of ours and we’ve been shouting about them for a good while…looks like they’re just starting to grab peoples attention too which is awesome. They’re also reluctant to do any band cliches like they posted all of 12 months facebook statuses in one go “good gig”, “announcement soon”, that kind of jaz. There’s not even any creepy band pictures of the lads floating around. Simply put.. just fucking go and see em live. You will not be disappointed.

Lastly, and certainly not leastly, if you had a pet culture that was especially cultured, what would you call it?

Fuck Pet Culture.

VULTURE NOTE: Your writer here didn’t check his questions for typos before sending them off, it was supposed to read ‘pet vulture’, but still, fuck pet culture.