Formed during their university days, Eddy Smith and the 507 have officially made their mark on the UK americana/blues scene. To watch the band perform is a transformative experience, whether it’s the powerful story and vocals behind ‘The Ballad of Bobby Grey’ or the jazzy upbeat ‘Love Sick’, Smith’s raspy voice elevates the lyrics and embeds them in a soulful space.

At Buckle and Boots Festival, Manchester, Eddy Smith chatted to (on a hay bale, no less) Building Our Own Nashville about their upcoming tour, their latest album and how he looks after his voice.

My first question: where does the 507 come from?

So we all met at Kingston University in South West London – that’s where we started playing together. It was room 507, which was a dusty old rehearsal room at the back of the campus that no one ever used apart from us. That’s where we used to get together, where we rehearsed and where some of our first songs were born – some of which we still play to this day. So, when we left university, we thought we’d name ourselves after the room that we used to use to rehearse and write in.

Your first headline tour is coming up – how does that feel?

Pretty exciting. It’s also quite, like, a lot to think about because we’re entirely self-managed, so all of the admin and the logistics and the pressure to sell tickets and stuff it kind of falls on us – well me, really. We’re just crossing our fingers and hoping it’s going to go really well. It’s our first time doing it.

37 thousand monthly listeners on Spotify – a lot in Australia: Sydney, Brisbane and Melbourne. Do you know why?

Oh, really?! No idea (he laughs) I didn’t even know. I figure it’s something to do with it being playlisted over there.

Have you ever been over there?

No, never. That’s what I love about it – our music is being played in countries that I’ve never been in. I think I’ve been to eleven countries in my life and now our music is listened to in over 100 different countries. It’s crazy, so strange, but I’m not complaining about it! I just love that it’s out there and it’s being listened to.

I first saw Eddy Smith at Live in the Living Gives Back in London earlier this year. Smith was without his full band – just him and his keys – and he shared the stage in the final writers round with Nick Edwards and his band, and Wood Burnt Red. The boys worked together seamlessly, with Smith picking up the keys during some of the other artists’ songs.

Had you met any of them before?

I always have this with people, I will meet them for the first time but because I’ve followed them on Instagram and often, we’ve been talking over Instagram and liking each other’s posts, I feel like I’ve known them for years. I’ll meet someone literally for the first time and it’ll be like ‘Hey!’ and I’ll give them a big hug. But you’re like, we’ve never met before – it’s kind of weird, but you feel like you’ve known them for such a long time, and it was the same with those guys. I’ve obviously followed them both for a while and then I met them in person and it’s like you’re old mates.
It’s one of the positive things about social media, especially in a community like this. It helps to bring everyone together and you need it, really, because it’s impossible to do this by yourself. Coming in as an outsider is always quite difficult but once you get welcomed into the community it’s the best feeling. You can come here by yourself, but you will see people that you know. You will not be alone because you will know a lot of people here.

Did you choose the genre or did your voice choose the genre?

That’s a good question, actually. I’ve always liked a certain type of music. Originally, it was sort of 1960s/1970s – what was then just known as rock music, but it was sort of late Joe Cocker, Rolling Stones, Van Morrison, The Beatles, that kind of music. But I think nowadays that kind of music is considered to be country/americana, like rock and roll. We’re not a country band. Our music is not country music, but it is influenced by country music and it is influenced by blues and rock and roll. The fact that we’ve been welcomed into this country community with open arms is really nice because, like I said, we’re not (entirely) country.
But the voice thing, I don’t know, it’s just…I guess it suits the genre. I might just be quite lucky because I love that kind of music and that’s how my voice sounds, and the stars aligned at that point (he laughs as he webs fingers together).

Were you just jamming to something one day and you were like, ‘hang on…’

Well, it was a slow process because I’ve been singing since I was 14 years old. I didn’t sound like this then. There is a certain element of…you try to emulate your idols, the people you look up to, so I would always sing along to Joe Cocker and say I want to sound like Joe Cocker or Otis Redding or someone like Sam Cooke. I’ve always loved that style of vocal and I think you kind of manifest it in a way…I think it was just the sound, I was like ‘that’s what I want to sound like’. And you know, after ten years, almost halfway there…

Do you have to do anything to protect it?
(voice)

I just make sure I take some time off. Summer’s a bit difficult because it’s festival season and it’s very busy but for the rest of the year, Sundays and Mondays will always be like my ‘weekend’. I’ll take a couple of days off, completely rest my voice – no singing, just relaxing, and that is enough time for my voice to completely regenerate.

No herbal remedies?

No…a lot of my friends do, and they swear by it. I’ve never done it. I’ve never found it to be particularly beneficial. But everyone is different, and they’ve all got their own methods of maintaining and looking after their voices. Mine is just to take some time off and chill for a few days.

Favourite song to perform?

I think it’s got to be ‘The Good Times’.
Oh, actually, no, it’s ‘Middle of Nowhere’. It’s a slower one. For some reason I love that song and we’ve been playing that song for a long time now and it’s really sort of developed into something. When you first write a song, the song is full of these little intricacies that takes a while for the band and everyone to pick up on and now, with that song, everyone is so in tune, and it just sounds so nice to perform on stage and I love the song and the guys sing backing vocals on that song and the nice harmonies in the chorus. Yeah, that’s my favourite one to do.

When you sing an old song like that, is it like putting on an old pair of slippers, like muscle memory or do you try and switch it up?

I have definitely switched it up vocally over the years and I still do. I’ll do slightly different things and because I’m playing keys as well, I like to try and do something different on the piano, just try and experiment here and there. So, I do like to try and keep everything fresh, like it’s not like singing to a backing track where everything is exactly the same every time, there’s always slight differences. Some nights, you might play it a bit faster, or a bit slower, depending on what the energy of the room is but yeah, there’s always something slightly different. And I still get the words wrong, I’ve been singing this song for years and I’m like how’s this first verse go?

Hardest song to write?

Ooh erm…well, Love Sick took about three years. Maybe longer. So, Love Sick was written – Ash, the guitarist in the band, had this guitar riff like this chord progression and I really liked it and I came up with the chorus melody quite quickly but just couldn’t put any lyrics to it. And it was one of those songs where the longer it took to write it, the harder it was to commit words to it. Because once you get something in your head, it’s very difficult to be like, OK, now I have to make these actual words rather than just humming the tune, and so every word I tried to put it just didn’t sound right. And then, yeah, one day I just sat down and was like let’s just put some words down and see what happens. And what came out was Love Sick. And it did quite well for us actually, so I’m glad that we did it.

A career moment you’ll never forget?

Career moment I’ll never forget would probably be playing Black Deer Festival for the first time. We were booked on one of the smaller stages on the Roadhouse Stage at one in the afternoon and we turned up quite excited to play Black Deer Festival but not expecting anyone to really be there because it was one in the afternoon and a smaller stage. Like, there might be, if we’re lucky, 100 people…there must have been like 8-900 people in that tent watching us. And at that time, we hadn’t really experienced anything like that at this point – playing to a crowd this size – and it was just absolutely nuts. It was just the best feeling. The most unexpected thing to happen. We were on stage sound checking and there was just a tent full of people just like basically watching us sound check – which I hate because the sound check should be private and then you come out and it’s like BOOM – but no, honestly it was amazing to see so many people there, just incredible. And we had so many people from that gig come to future gigs which is what you want – like a conversion rate sort of thing – and it’s like, they become fans. The amount of people that come up to me here like, ‘oh I first saw you at Black Deer Festival’ and it’s such a nice feeling that you can connect with people like that.
We’ve had a few moments like that since, The Long Road Festival and here as well.

A career moment you wish you could forget?

I think it was probably in one of my early, early days, like just starting out and I literally – the band and I were playing to nobody. It was one of our first gigs and it was one of those ‘bring your friends’ sorts of things. But it was something like on a Wednesday or Thursday night and I was like no one is going to come out on a Wednesday or Thursday night and we just played a room to, like, the sound engineer. It’s kind of rough, especially when you’re starting out, because you don’t know how it works. And you start to think ‘ah it’s because we must suck, we’re awful that’s why no one wants to come see us play’. But it isn’t, you know, even for established artists, it’s very difficult to sell tickets for anybody these days.
Well, I say I wish I could forget it…it wasn’t my favourite gig by any means, but it is nice now to look back at times like that and see how far you’ve come. So, it’s kind of like a bitter-sweet moment – I’d rather we didn’t play a gig to no one, but at the same time it is nice to see your progress.

Eddy Smith and the 507 are on tour in September this year, their album is out now, and they will soon be releasing a live recording of one of their songs from a London show. The music, the vocals, the lyrics – there’s a formula here unique to this band, to Smith’s voice, and it’s nothing short of magic.