Ahsoka are an alternative rock three-piece with a twist. Consisting of Rhiannon John (vocals), Alex Amos (guitar) and Tommy Dowse (drums). Dripping in influence from Nirvana and Radiohead, the band offer a perfect combination of the two with a gut-punching female vocal. I recently spoke with Rhiannon about their latest gigs, the process behind their EP and what the future has in store for Ahsoka. 

You’ve been gigging a lot in Brighton lately, do you have any plans to play anywhere else in the UK?  

We love gigging in Brighton because it has got such a lively music scene and there are so many great eclectic bands here that we’ve had the pleasure to play with! We would love to play somewhere closer to home though like London or Birmingham – It’d be really nice to play in our hometowns soon! 

What made you decide to release an EP for your debut and not a single?  

We’ve written so many songs and having fun with them that I think we just couldn’t wait to share them with people. That’s definitely my reason for it, I’m too eager to release them one by one! 

The name of the EP is ‘What Bends & Breaks’ which is a lyric from ‘Transparency’ (one of the songs from the EP) why did you choose this as the title?  

We went for ‘What Bends and Breaks’ because its a cool lyric that we all liked and identified with in some way. I tend to get very metaphorical with my lyrics so it’s one of the few that all three of us were drawn to but for different reasons. I think it fits the concept of the EP as well. The idea of finding out what doesn’t break you and how much you can take before you snap. 

You did some recording at Brighton Electric for the EP, how was this experience?  

Amazing! It felt real when we started recording at Brighton Electric. We only recorded drums there but as soon as we got in there, for me, it kind of set in that we were actually going ahead with it and going all in! It was really cool to be in the other room and listen to Tommy smash up the kit – he really went for it and it sounded so good. As the first step of the recording process, it motivated us to completely throw ourselves into it. 

You guys worked completely alone on the EP doing all of the recording and mixing, why did you choose to do it like this? 

I think we wanted it to be completely ours. We all had this vision of how we wanted it to sound and we’ve worked so closely together on it, it felt right that we were committed to every part of the process. None of us had ever released our own stuff before, so this would be the first EP for all of us and it just made sense. Every choice on how it sounded was our own. 

You played your first acoustic show for the Fightback Brighton festival, how did this go? 

 It went really well actually! We were kind of hesitant on how well our songs would translate vibe wise and lyrically to an acoustic sound, but I think we pulled it off! The songs definitely had a different flavour to them, they still felt like our songs but with a different emotion attached to them. They felt less aggressive and more solemn to me. I wasn’t upset with that at all, I actually really enjoyed the new perspective! 

You recently played your first headline show which is very exciting, how did it go?  

Honestly awesome, we had such a good time! The supporting bands were amazing – We’ve played with The Kay Ohs before and they killed it as always and it was lovely to meet the guys in Hallan and Gutterflower. Really cool guys! We felt the nerves a bit because usually, we’re first support so we get on, get off and release all the tension for the night but there was so much more anticipation in the waiting! As soon as we got on stage though, it all just kind of melted away and we just went crazy. I loved it! It was so great to see everyone come and support us as well, we were very grateful! 

What does the future have in store for Ahsoka? 

More songs! I love the writing process personally because we all bring our own influences to a song and kind of smush them together and we all have such different musical inspirations so it’s always interesting to see what the boys come up with in comparison to what I write and vice versa! We hope to play some more gigs over the summer because we’ve been so lucky recently and we love gigging so much that would be a dream! As long as I’m having as much fun as I am now, we could be doing anything!

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