HIGH FADE: THE HARDEST WORKING BAND IN FUNK

EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW WITH EDINBURGH'S GROOVE GODS

Some gigs are great. Some gigs are bad. Some gigs are just so-so. It’s not often you get one that truly makes you feel glad to be alive. That’s what you get with High Fade.

We know that sounds like outrageous hyperbole; believe us, it isn’t. We experienced the band live for the first time last Friday at their gig in our hometown of Banbury. Hearing High Fade live is truly a life-affirming pleasure.

When you’ve finished reading this Pulitzer Prize–worthy interview, find where High Fade are playing next, grab tickets, and go! The band’s energy, musicianship, and obvious passion for what they’re doing, coupled with their unique sound — a rich cocktail of funk, rock, and a soupçon of ’70s disco — is intoxicating and irresistible.

Trust us, High Fade will be massive — and deservedly so.

High Fade: Oliver Sentance, Calvin Davidson, Harry Valentino

High Fade’s ascent has been meteoric since relaunching in the wake of Covid. The band notched up more than 30 million streams and views within six months of their first release. Their fanbase includes Jack Black, Emeli Sandé, Cypress Hill, Glenn Hughes of Deep Purple, and Brad Wilk of Rage Against the Machine — and us.

Equally at home playing festival main stages or busking in their native Edinburgh, guitarist and frontman Harry Valentino, drumming wunderkind Calvin Davidson, and bassist Oliver Sentance maintain a punishing gig schedule.

Having just completed a tour of Ireland, the band are now making their way across the UK to warm up for an extensive US tour next month. After reaching Oxfordshire, we caught up with High Fade ahead of their Banbury show.

Relaxed, friendly, and very funny, Harry, Oli, and Calvin were incredibly generous with their time, spending much of the afternoon with us. It was a sunny day, so we went in search of some green space for our alfresco interrogation.

We settled on a churchyard, where — with only occasional interruptions from aggressive squirrels and cigarette-toting lost souls in search of a light — we had a long, relaxed chat.

High Fade had plenty to say about the band, gigging, record deals, managers, and more, so this interview is longer than usual. We think you’ll enjoy the extra inches.

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Hello High Fade. Welcome to Banbury. Please introduce yourselves.

HARRY VALENTINO — Hello, I'm Harry. I play guitar and sing. I’m the frontman of the band. That includes driving and being sensible, at times.

OLI SENTANCE — Hello, my name's Oli. I'm 32, I live in Edinburgh and play bass for High Fade, and maybe do a little bit of singing when the time's right.

CALVIN DAVIDSON — I'm Calvin. I play drums, sing, and I'm 20 years old.

TEN OF CLUBS x HIGH FADE | credit Dave Shakespeare

Please describe High Fade for anyone who hasn’t heard you.

CALVIN — We find that one hard. The umbrella term's probably funk rock.

OLI — But then you get people saying kinda Rush and Red Hot Chili Peppers. The melodies and stuff are kinda pop too.

HARRY — I understand the prog thing as well. I’d say classic rock, prog, old school funk. A lot of disco in there as well. Definitely some ‘70s and ‘80s jazz fusion kind of stuff as well.

A heady brew. What’s your secret sauce?

OLI — It's just something new, man. I think people are getting bored of what's out there and it's something new — real musicians playing real instruments. It never stops.

Tell us how it started.

HARRY — I started High Fade at the end of 2018, but it was a different lineup then. It ran for about a year. We were gigging quite a lot but it didn't really go anywhere. And then the lineup changed and I phoned Oli.

OLI — Random phone call, out of the blue, going like, hey, I need a bass player

HARRY — Oli and I used to play in bands together when I was like 16, 17, playing in a couple of different projects. I phoned Oli and another drummer, called Pete. I managed to rope them in and we started playing. I'd got gigs booked and I had to make them happen.

OLI — We rehearsed for two weeks straight, pretty much.

HARRY — We did the first show and that lineup continued for about another year until Covid happened. Then Pete had to go back home to Malta, so I was left looking for another drummer. Then Oli and I reached a point where we were like, we need some consistency.

High Fade frontman Harry Valentino | credit Dave Shakespeare

How did you find Calvin?

HARRY — I showed up to the rehearsal room about a week after that conversation. I hear someone playing in one of the rooms and I’m like, who’s that? Are they in there on their own? That’s what I was looking for — someone who’d just show up to a rehearsal room on a Tuesday afternoon and get on with it. I stick my head in and go, oh, it’s you! I knew Calvin previously through photography and meeting him on the scene, but I didn’t know he played drums. I’d only ever seen him sing and play guitar.

OLI — The song he was playing was Bleed by Meshuggah.

HARRY — That's when I was like, this is the guy we need. I come from a heavy metal background as well. If you can play that you can probably play High Fade.

Calvin passed the Meshuggah test. What happened next?

CALVIN — I think maybe like a week later Harry sent me a message saying he’d got a proposition for me. That was June last year.

HARRY — Calvin came to a jam and we all really got on well.

CALVIN — That first jam was great. We genuinely, instantly just clicked.

HARRY — Oli and I had just sacked off our jobs. I remember saying to Calvin, we need someone equally as committed. If this is what you want to do, fantastic — if not, it’s not for you. Calvin joined and played 14 shows back-to-back. That’s the level of commitment you want. Calvin’s our guy, and we’ve been on our way ever since.

Tell us about your first show together?

CALVIN — 30th of September 2022. It went really well. We’d had, I think, maybe only four rehearsals together, but it jelled instantly. You know if someone's right for a band, or if someone's not. Likewise, joining a band, you know if they're right for you as well. All the stars aligned. It was perfect.

HARRY — It was probably the most comfortable first gig. Oli and I both left that gig going that was actually sick. I didn't feel stressed at the gig. Usually when I had new lineups, I was having to hold someone's hand.

OLI — I think Calvin joining gave us motivation as well. That also helped me. It's like, yeah, this guy wants it, we've got to step our game up as well. This lineup's been a godsend, man.

HARRY — And that's when I feel like High Fade properly formed, because before that we’d chopped and changed so much.

In what ways did things change when Calvin joined. 

HARRY — Until you have a committed lineup, it’s hard to write songs. People miss rehearsals or gigs, things change, and it’s difficult to keep everyone up to speed. When Calvin joined, we’d write a song and play it that week. Burnt Toast and Coffee was written in 15 minutes and played the next night.

CALVIN — We've written so many tunes since then. It's not even been a year and we've written tons of stuff. I think the first one we wrote together was Dwee Ba Ba.

HARRY — We were in a rehearsal room, we were in a rush, and an old lady comes in and she’s like, your time’s up, hurry up. I’m like, no, don’t interrupt because we’re finishing the song.

Don’t interrupt the muse, woman!

HARRY — Exactly. That day we said we don’t ever want to be rushed again writing tunes. That set us to rehearsing in our own space. We’ll show up at mine, have a coffee, have a craic, and just a jam, and sometimes a tune will come out in 10 minutes, or you’ll spend three hours working on something. You need to have that time.

Does someone take the lead when it comes to songwriting?

HARRY — We all write the songs together. Every song is literally 33.3333%. We'll usually write the music first and then everyone will sit and brainstorm ideas for the lyrics and vocals.

CALVIN — I've always said there should be no hierarchy in a band — at least in the process of writing songs.

HARRY — If you’re a band, you write tunes together. Otherwise, you’re not a band —you’re one guy and a few musicians. I hate this frontman separation shit. I never do stuff alone. We did an interview with BBC Scotland and I refused to do it unless Calvin and Oli were with me. You can't pick us for Track of the Week, a track written by all three of us, and then turn round and go, oh, but only you.

High Fade drummer Calvin Davidson | credit Dave Shakespeare

Is songwriting an easy process for you?

HARRY — We don't force ourselves to write. What we do is, somehow, we all just get the urge to write tunes, and it just comes out. This is why we have our own label, because we don't want people breathing down our necks.

OLI — No one saying, 'If you release this you can’t release it like that.'

HARRY — From the start, our manager Simon has been like, set up your own thing, do what you want, because whatever you're doing seems to be working. He’s more like an advisor or mentor, rather than a manager telling us what to do.

How did you find Simon?

HARRY — Simon reached out to me saying he thought what we were doing was really cool. He works for a company called LabelWorx, which helps artists set up their own label. They’re a great company — easy to work with, quick to get you set up, no dodgy deals. They really look after their artists.

Were you ever tempted by established labels?

HARRY — No. After looking at all the options and turning down labels, Simon reached out saying he just wanted to help us release our own music. He helped us get a release schedule together and sort the marketing side — that’s his bag. He’s head of A&R there.

OLI — He’s been managing us since February. After that is when it started to really go in terms of the Spotify side and the monthly listeners all going up.

CALVIN — And mainstream media as well: PR, getting us on radio, doing interviews. He's very good at funnelling the right things that come down, especially as there’s more going on now.

HARRY — Calvin and Oli know this, but for the last six months I’ve been an absolute stress head. But that’s what happens when you’re trying to make something succeed. Now that it’s really going, it’s actually getting easier. I spent four years building and pushing. Now we’ve got a great team around us — artwork people, an engineer, a mastering guy, Simon, two agents, and everyone we need.

The dream team. No regrets about going it alone?

HARRY — None. I feel like so many independent artists are getting absolutely screwed over. They're signing shit deals. You're better off releasing your own tunes. Keep hold of your publishing. I don’t care how much they’re giving you, it’s not worth it. Find other ways of making money: cool merch, touring, busking.

OLI — Don't give your music away!

CALVIN — It literally takes 15 seconds to google what a label strategy is for music.

HARRY — A lot of these deals are dodgy. Someone telling you when to put a song out or saying, ‘I don’t like this new single you’ve got; we need you to wait three months.’ If you wait three months to release a song, your career's dead. If they park your songs, you can't go to anyone else — you can't go to another label to release it.

Now things are really moving for you guys, can you point to a moment that made you think, 'Yeah, this is really happening'?

OLI — I guess what really set things off the last few months is we went and done three festivals in a row: Kendal Calling, Green Man, and Shambala.

HARRY — Shambala was sick, man. What a festival! What a vibe on the stage. It was nice because we closed the festival. It was a killer gig and it was kind of a wrap on the festival season.

OLI — Doing four gigs on weekdays and more at the weekends. The hardest-working band in funk.

HARRY — Any other band in this genre, you’d be lucky if they're doing one show a week. Sometimes we’re doing 30 shows a month. That's not because we're better; it's because we want to play shows. Earlier this year, we were gigging every night and busking every day.

CALVIN — We were busking in January and February in minus two degrees. Brutal, but so much fun. That's the thing, if we didn't get on, we wouldn’t want to do that.

HARRY — You wouldn't usually catch me out on in the street in January, bro. The only reason I was doing it was because I want to spend time with these fellas.

High Fade frontman Harry Valentino | credit Dave Shakespeare

Do you ever get on each other’s tits? Any irritating habits?

CALVIN — I think we're all quite proud of what we do individually. We're very good at communicating any issues like that. Like, after a rehearsal, we’ll have a little powwow of anything that’s maybe individually bothering us.

HARRY — We'll literally sit like this, have a chat, drink coffee, and we’ll ask, ‘Are you good, man?’ There’s brutal honesty. Having those conversations is so important.

Who’s the band diva? Who’s the organiser?

CALVIN — Oh, probably all of us, diva-wise. All of us, for sure.

OLI — I like organising things. Whether or not I'm good at it is a different story. I want to know where we're going, when, why — stuff like that.

HARRY — We all choose where the direction goes, but when it comes to execution — what’s the next move to unlock such and such — that's where Simon's helping us a lot.

What's something you think everyone should do at least once?

HARRY — Quit your job and chase your dream.

CALVIN — Take psychedelics.

OLI — Masturbate.

What’s something you will never do again?

HARRY — A normal job.

CALVIN — Masturbate.

You're on Death Row: what are you having for your last meal?

OLI — A steak bake from Greggs.

HARRY — A double bacon cheeseburger and Korean barbecue wings from this place in Edinburgh called Down The Hatch. That and a fat Biscoff milkshake.

CALVIN — I'd have a cheese-less pizza from Domino's. I'd have pepperoni, sweetcorn and no cheese. I'm not weird, I promise. If you go to Italy, you'll find a marinara pizza on any real Italian menu.

What’s your favourite smell?

OLI — I like patchouli. Or sugar waffles. Delicious.

CALVIN — A cheese-less pizza.

What's the best way to start the day?

OLI — Coffee and a cigarette.

HARRY — Or a Berocca.

CALVIN — Waking up and seeing Oli and Harry's faces in bed. [Awkward silence.] What's the next question?

What's the luckiest thing that's ever happened to you?

HARRY — Hearing Calvin play drums in the practice room.

OLI — I walked past a thrift shop with a Fender P bass in the window for £250. I thought, no way that’s real. The shop was closed, so I went back early the next day, worried someone would beat me to it. I went in, checked it out. It looked old, so I figured it could be legit. I asked the price, and the bloke knocked 10% off. I ended up getting a 1978 Fender P bass — worth about two grand — for £225.

High Fade drummer Calvin Davidson | credit Dave Shakespeare

What's the dumbest thing you've ever done?

HARRY — I chopped my pinky off as a kid. Shut it in a door. Took my pinky finger on my right hand clean off. I remember picking it up and taking it to my mum. They put it back on. It works okay now, but that’s why I play with my pinky out: it won’t stay curled up.

OLI — Broke my dick. And then almost got arrested for being drunk and disorderly, shouting about my penis.

Painful memories. What’s been your biggest career highlight so far?

OLI — Going to America! It's still not real yet. As soon as we book those flights, and when we get to the airport to get on that plane, that's when it's going to be real.

What advice do you have for someone starting out in music?

OLI — Take anything and everything you can: every opportunity. Immerse yourself in music.

CALVIN — Play with many different people as well. Figure out what works.

HARRY — And play with people better than you. That way you'll get better. If you're the best player in the room, you're not in the right band.

Thanks guys. That was a lot of fun. Can’t wait for the show tonight. Any final words for your fans?

OLI — Thank you guys for all the support. Stream the tunes. Stream the music.

HARRY — Without you we wouldn't be able to do this for a job. It doesn't feel like a job when you have this many people enjoying it. Thank you.

CALVIN — Peace and love. Love everyone.

OLI — We'll see you in America!

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► Stream Fur Coat by High Fade now on Spotify, Apple Music and elsewhere.