Bands tend not to like being pigeonholed, but HAVR, cunningly, make that an impossible task anyway. The Scottish trio do (a lot of the time) make noisy rock music; sometimes political, usually emotive, and pretty much always anthemic – not a description they’re going to be offended by, we suspect.

But perhaps best we let them do the talking…

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Who?

HAVR are Carrie Marshall (vocals, guitar), Kenny Martin (bass), David Marshall (guitar) and a laptop.

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Where?

Glasgow and Kilmarnock.

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When?

Carrie: Kenny and I were brought together by our friend and producer Billy Samson, formerly of Electroluvs. We started as a heads-down buzzsaw rock trio called Stadium, but Billy’s death last year forced us to reevaluate the band, the music and pretty much everything else. We asked David to join us on guitar and effects, decided to go without a drummer, wrote more songs and called ourselves HAVR. ‘Messengers‘ is our fourth release.

Like everyone else lockdown has meant a lot of cancelled gigs but we played at the virtual Modern Rock Wellbeing Festival this month and will shortly appear on the Ice Box “Noisebox” stream.

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How?

CM: With Billy gone we decided we didn’t want to try and recreate what we’d already done, so we decided to be less garage rock and more GarageBand. We write the songs and collaborate remotely, record everything digitally, release them independently and then wonder how the hell we’re going to do them live.

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What?

CM: Sex and hugs and rock and roll. We know we’re always going to attract the word “anthemic”, and we’re proud of that: we make big music about big emotions.

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Why?

CM: Because music can change lives. Before I came out – I’m trans – music gave me a safe space and told me I wasn’t alone, and performing live has been a genuine life-saver for me. Now I’m the sassiest six-footer in the people’s republic of Partick I want to return the favour and make music that really means something to people.

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HAVR’s ‘Messengers’ EP is out now: see www.havrmusic.com.

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