The Story So Far
If somehow you’ve landed on this corner of the internet reading this blog post, it’s likely you’ve come across us before, if so, we’re sorry. If not, welcome.
The idea of the blog is to give some much needed context to the endless stream of whimsical, and at times alarming, content you may have seen on our various social feeds. In this first post, we’ll dive into the brief and frankly boring backstory of SOMB: who we actually are and how we ended up delivering our noise to your unsuspecting ears.
Scared of My Brother (SOMB), as the name suggests, is a family affair: two brothers (Toby and Arthur), one sister (Pheebs), one brother-in-law (Andy), and two randomly generated NPCs (Tom and Lewis).
The band’s formation is probably a familiar story to many musicians. Originally two separate bands, both cursed with the same unfortunate drummer, eventually merging due to the relocation of various friends and a few enemies.
The current lineup came together sometime around 2024 and by this time the trio of Toby, Arthur and Lewis had done most of the heavy lifting putting together demos for the tracks that eventually became our debut EP. The demos themselves were recorded across several beer and haggis fueled weekends in an old stone cottage, surrounded by a bog in the North of Scotland, surely it’s obvious now how we acquired such an upbeat and jovial sound.
Somewhere along the line, driven by a mix of pity and desperation, Andy and Tom entered the picture. Then once it came time to think about live performance, Pheebs joined in to bring some much needed sparkle to our otherwise damp atmosphere.
Demos in hand and endless hours of bickering later, we decided it was time to get into the studio and do some real recording. Enter the fray: the outstanding Mr Ally Kelly of Al’s Audio Barn at Music Base in Edinburgh.
All jokes aside, Al has not only put up with our nonsense and helped us polish our tunes to the point where they’re ready for release, he’s also been willing to work around our real-life responsibilities by letting us split recording sessions across various weekends and evenings. Without this, it would have been almost impossible to get these tracks over the line.
So, a big shout-out to Al — any Edinburgh based musicians looking to get some recording done should absolutely hit him up.
If you’re still reading, you should be commended for your above-average attention span, or possibly condemned for soaking up this entirely useless information, whichever you prefer. By now, though, you get the picture: band forms → makes demos → releases EP.
It’s at this point we need to give a begrudging acknowledgement to Toby, who took it upon himself to get our music out into the real world by getting involved in the excellent online community of independent artists and radio stations. Through his relentless intimidation tactics, we’ve been able to connect with some great folk from all over the world and gain some traction with our tunes.
In no particular order, we’d like to give shout-outs to King Ern, Snapcat Bandits, Scotland Rocks Radio, and Radio Wigwam.
Lastly, RIP Duywne Duzzy Clayton, an absolute legend of our community you will be missed
No further comment,
SOMB
