TOSHIN discusses their sound, latest single, and the all new music already being worked upon. Like many bands, this one wants to get out and tour as soon as possible. For now though, the band chats it up about their music and just what else the whole band is up too.
1. Please tell us about the history of your band and its members.
Toshín was born in 2016, and has seen quite a few changes in the lineup in the past four years. The current lineup is a six-piece band, fronted by me. Matteo Poli is our fabulous drummer, and the soon-to-be-married (!) Niall Stewart is our bassist. Louis Younge plays keys and sax and sings, basically does it all! My soul sister Shannon is the backing vocalist and hyperman extrordinaire, and our newest addition Alan Kenna is our guitar God!
2. What’s the origin of the band’s name?
So my name is Tosin (Toe-sin) but when I came to Dublin for college everyone just kept calling me Toshín (Toe-sheen). It kinda stuck, and here we are 5 years later!
3. Where is the band based out of and what is your music scene like there? Are there any local bands you could recommend?
We’re based in Dublin, Ireland, and we looove it here. The scene is so so so diverse, and there’s a crowd for every style of music under the sun! We’re really a live band and we’re really missing playing shows in front of people, so we can’t wait to get back to it once all this madness is over. I don’t even know where to begin with local bands – ZAPHO, Sky Atlas, Shiv, Nealo, Tolu Makay, Zeenie Summers and TOYGIRL are some of our best friends, and you need to listen to them all ASAP!
4. How would you describe your style?
We always find this question tough to answer – Our sound draws on so many different genres that it becomes hard to put into a box. It’s definitely soul/funk based, but we often dip into the rock world, and recently we’ve been leaning towards some more neo-soul, poppier jams. If Soulfunkrockpop is a genre we’re a perfect fit!
5. What have you released so far and what can someone expect from your works?
We’ve just dropped our latest single ‘She’ on all streaming platforms, and it’s our favourite tune we’ve released so far. It’s the start of a new chapter for the band, in a post-lockdown world, and we’re loving the direction we’re heading. It’s very neo-soul and sensual, and it deals with self-love, which is something I sing about a lot. Up until now, we’ve written songs about trashy men, daddy issues, girl power and so on, but I’m in a place right now where loving myself comes first, and that’s proven to be really important to me.
6. Do you have any new music in the works?
We do! We’ve been working remotely over the numerous lockdowns, and we’ve been writing and demoing songs. We can’t wait for the studios to open up again so that we can put down some songs!
7. How about playing shows and touring, have anything planned out?
I’m not sure what your lockdown situation is at the moment, but in Ireland we’re all sitting at home for the foreseeable future! We were in the middle of our first tour when the virus broke out, and we had to call off some shows, but we’re going to put them on as soon as we can and honestly there’s nothing we’re more excited about than getting back on a stage in front of a crowd and sharing that experience again! We’re also at a point in our development where we’re keen to play some shows and festivals outside Ireland, so once the world opens up a bit again we’ll hopefully be able to do that!
8. What plans do you have for the future as a band?
Some of us in the band are finishing up in university, so we’re trying to get through that right now, but once that’s done we’re planning to really get stuck into writing and putting together as much music as we can. We’re aiming for an album in the next couple of years, and that’s a thought that’s really exciting to us at the moment. On top of that, I think we’d happily play shows every night until we die, so we’ll get back into the live scene as soon as we’re able!
9. Where can we listen to your band and where can we buy your stuff?
You can find us wherever you stream/buy your music. Make sure to follow us while you’re there! We’re on Instagram as @toshin_music and twitter as @toshinband. You can also get our merch and buy our music on Bandcamp.
10. What is it you’d like a listener to remember the most when hearing your music for the first time?
For the most part, we write the music we write because we really enjoy playing it and listening to it. We want to share that experience with as many people as we can, so just have fun listening to Toshín! We’re really lucky and grateful for the fact that we get to live and breathe music, and we hope that we can show people a little bit of the magic listening to the music that we feel when we make it!
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