Ones2Watch Home

Yeah, thats right they sound f-ing mint. Brash, melodic, anxious then soothing, what mint sounds like is hard to define or predict, but the results are some of the most novel music kicking down your playlists door. Not knowing much about this UK upstart 4 piece, a group that clearly lives for the creation and emotion, we wanted to dive into their excellent upcoming project, its crossover styles and general brash vibes. Also above trends and pretense, especially in their interview here are the amazing irl results:

OnesToWatch: Why are you guys such an awesome band?

Kelvin: I think what makes us sick is that we wear our hearts on our sleeve, and we bring our different loves and passions to the mix and it ends up creating Sounds Mint, which is something that's pretty unique. Pretty special. 

Obviously, I'm of the generation older than y'all that grew up with bands being everywhere. Things have changed remarkably since then – something like 80% of music put out now is by individuals or duos. Why did you guys decide to make a band? 

Rudy: We all grew up listening to bands in our own way. But it’s due to a bit of a fuck it attitude, that we chose to be a band… you got to do what you want to do. Obviously, you want success and you want to be able to make music a career and live off it, but at the same time, if you don't love what you do, then it's pointless. You won't have the drive to get to where you want to be anyway. Everything comes in cycles and it's all happened at the right time. I mean, for all of us, this is probably our third or fourth band. 
Me and Kelvin were in the same band beforehand. So, the process is, if it fails, just start again. 

Kelvin: It sounds quite lonely to be a solo artist, man. My missus is a solo artist. We have loads of late night chats about the pros and cons of being a solo artist versus a band. You keep 100% of the money as a solo act, but all the winds are just on you. No one cares as much as you do, whereas I feel like, as a band, we all equally care about this, so it's quite nice to just be able to celebrate our wins and talk about our losses as a team. It’s a joint effort. 

It’s like marriage. 

Layla: I never had any interest in being a solo act. I actually always wanted to go into production and then I started playing in bands when I moved to London and decided maybe I don't want to be in the background. I like being in a group. 

Okay, so let me get the origin story of Sounds Mint. 

Rudy: Some of us were in the same band before this, and when that fizzled out, we just really felt like we didn’t want to stop. There was a six month period where we were “bandless,” and then we set our minds to it and said we needed to keep writing songs and not let this stop us from being musicians. We made six demos, which ended up being the first tracks that we ever released. As we made those demos and started showing them around to people, it just fell into place.
One of our mates heard the demos and recommended Robbie, and then we were working at a studio where Layla was engineering, and they both were just excited about the music. That was when Sounds Mint was officially born, from all of us just feeling like we could take it far. We released “Fallback,” our first song, in 2022, and played our first show. 

Do you write as a group? Does everyone bring different ideas? How do you guys make your music? 

Rudy: I think it's a mismatch of everything, really. 

Kelvin: I write all the lyrics, but sometimes the sonics will come first. It also depends what we have around us because sometimes we make demos at home and that might be super stripped back. It might just be chords and vocals. Sometimes we're going into a session with George who we like to make a lot of our tunes with, and producers who have a live room and a drum room, and then we really go in on the sonics before the words come together. Everything lends to a different style or song. The more lyrical stuff, it can apply to many types of sonics, whereas sometimes the sonics will inspire the song, if that makes sense. 


Rudy: In the studio, we tend to work with people who we have a good workflow with. That’s how we have the best sessions, and if things feel too forced, we tend to stray aware. Sometimes we'll go in and do one full song in a day, and sometimes we'll do six, seven demos, ideas, and then come back to them later. I don't think there's one way that we do things, it’s just a free process of getting through. 

Kelvin: Everyone plays different instruments as well. Rob sometimes does the bass lines. Layla's done guitars and I've done bass and guitar. We're not too precious about who plays the instruments. It’s about the songs at the end of the day. 

Layla: Yeah, that's what I was going to say as well. 
It's nice, because we're all able to pick something else up and mess around with that too. You get a lot of different vibes from each of us. 

Kelvin: Because we all play our instruments differently, so it's cool. Everyone has their own personality. 

When you guys are crafting songs, when do you decide something's finished and ready to release?

Layla: There’s often a debate. There’s definitely been times where some of us feel the song is done, when others think it needs work. Some of us will love a song. Some of us will hate a song. But that can also change with time. There's been songs where initially I didn't like them, and then maybe I'll listen to it again a year later and I'm like, oh, I love this… Or it could go the other way. 

Kelvin: Yeah, some songs we love and then we're like, oh, this sounds like shit.

Layla: “Incel Savior” was one that Kelvin and I did late at night in the studio and we came back to it probably six months later and decided we liked it.

Kelvin: It’s always different. Personally, if a song doesn’t feel good immediately, I move on to the next thing. I'm a big believer in just being a vessel and letting inspiration go through – songs write themselves if you let them. Obviously, we then go back and forth about the sonics, but I think the initial thing is about capturing that song. 

You all mentioned you'd been in different projects. 
I think that's sort of inevitable as a working musician, creative. If everything works out for each one of you, what does that look like for this project? Where does that take you, what happens? 


Kelvin: If this project works out I'll be a very rich man living in the country, basically. I'm young, but I'm not that young. I'm trying to enjoy life as well. I think like, you know, when you first start getting into bands and being a musician, I think you can get full up in wanting to be super cool and being super underground and not do anything that's seen as selling out. There’s a big misconception against trying. But I really want to do this for a long time, so I’m going to try. 

Layla: I’m more than happy to try. Ideally, this will be something that we can do full time – tour the world, not just once, lots of albums. That's the dream. Not have to do anything else. I don't mind if people think I'm a sell out. I don't mind if people think that I try either, because I think trying is way cooler than not trying. 


These days, most people are struggling for a living wage, so I think the selling out thing is admirable.

Layla:
I work two jobs and then do session work as well to be able to live in London and be in a band. I don't think there's anything wrong with that. If people want to perceive success as being a sellout, then that's a bit crazy. 


Rudy: I just want to be able to be comfortable and explore my life. 
The main goal for me would be to be respected by other musicians, like the people I look up to and that have inspired me. If I had that impact on future generations and I was respected by musicians, I would die a happy man. 
But obviously, money and being able to live and be comfortable is a goal. We all work other jobs, you know, I've been making coffee for 10 years and I can't wait to the point when I don't have to do that and I'll celebrate it.
But that's not full on success for me. There's more than that. 

Okay, I'm going to pivot into some, hopefully more fun questions. Who's the best communicator in the group? 

Kelvin: I think we're all belligerent. 

Layla: I don't think any of us to be perfectly honest.

Rudy: Between everyone's ups and downs, I think Kelvin probably has a good balance with everyone. 

Kelvin: It's me, guys. But, I can still be quite strong minded and whatever. 


Layla: It's definitely not Rudy. 

Rudy: I'm just always right. 


Who's the most humble, after those responses? 

Layla: Also, not Rudy. 

Kelvin: Rob. Rob's so humbled that he doesn't even speak. 

Rudy: Rob's just happy. He just enjoys the ride. 

Who's the glue? 
When everyone's down, frustrated, ideas aren't flowing, who can bring everyone back to a happy place? 

Rudy: I would say Rob is the team morale, for sure. 

Rob: I like everyone to get along, you know? Even if you're pissed off, he’ll make you laugh. 

All right, you guys just did a gig. You're all starving. You get back to someone's place. Who's making the food and what do they make for everyone? 

Layla: Kelvin.

Kelvin: I'm the one. My smash burgers are pretty famous.

Layla: I'm a good baker, I'll supply the cookies. 

Now I know why you guys are such a good band. What's your recipe, Kelvin, for smash burgers? 

Kelvin: Instead of using salt, you just go for the MSG. You go with the MSG, you go with the pepper, you put some egg in it, to make the burger nice and moist. And then the key is to have that griddle as hot as possible, so it really caramelizes. It's all in the process, you know? I

If you guys could perform with any lineup, who would be in it, and where would you play?

Rudy: All my favorite musicians are dead. 


You can go back in time.

Rudy: I don’t know where, but I would want to play with Fela Kuti. I think that would be pretty fun. 

Kelvin: I'd love to open up for Brian Jonesestown Massacre because they famously don't have anyone opening up for them. 

Layla: That's sick. 

Kelvin: I’d like to be backstage and see the toxicity, firsthand. 

Layla: Like in the prime of their craziness? 

Kelvin: Yeah, in 1996, when they were punching each other up on the stage. I’d like to be a fly on the wall on that tour, for sure. 

What's a piece of advice you'd give to yourself at the beginning of this project? 


Rob: Get ready for lots of changes. 

Kelvin: I think advice for me would be not to throw away any ideas, man.
Hmm. But also throw away ideas. I'm contradicting myself. 
There's a lot of ideas that shouldn't have been thrown away, and there's a lot of ideas that should have been thrown away, basically. I've been too precious, you know?

Rudy: I think for me, similar in that sense, is to just be open and have faith and trust your gut. And regardless of what anyone thinks, be determined, because in order to have anyone else believe in you, you need to believe in yourself first, as corny as that sounds.

Layla: I'd say be less nervous about putting things out there. I feel like I've slowly become less nervous, overall, as a person. 

All right, guys, last question. At OnesToWatch, we love when artists put us on to other artists. So who are your favorites right now?

Kelvin: I'd love to shout out our good friends, Alien Chicks. We've done a lot of shows with them, and vice versa, we're kind of coming up together and it's just super sick to see their progress. They're like really smashing it live. They're just really nice people, their music's unique. 


Rudy: Shout out to Shiva. She reminds me of Patty Smith. She's like a super strong female punk artist. 

Amazing, thank you guys so much for your time!

sounds mint: Thank you!