Meet the new kids on the scene: Be Civil. Formed in late 2024, they don't come any fresher than this. We caught up with Stef Pesic from the band to discuss the bands formation, inspirations and the London music scene.
On the bands origins, Stef comments, “It’s came from the end of playing under my own name. Erin started playing with me initially at the beginning of last year, and then Alberto joined around October. We decided with how our music had been changing and how it was feeling, it just didn’t seem right to play under a solo name - so we were like look let’s just be a band! And then our final member Isaac, who’s our drummer, has been with us now since January.”
So what can we expect from the newly formed four-piece? "It's high octane alternative rock, lots of noise, but pop-y hooks in amongst the noise. It’s definitely a lot heavier and rockier than any of my solo stuff, it’s gonna be a lot heavier than that. We take our influences from very 90s grunge, alternative rock, noise rock, things like Breeders, Sonic Youth, Smashing Pumpkins, Pixies - those kind of influences definitely resonate with us."
Shifting focus from his solo work to work alongside a band, Stef notes that the creative process has become much more collaborative. "To be honest, I’m really excited about having our full lineup go and record because I sort of bring an idea or a loose structure but then when we build it up together and fill out all of the parts that need to be filled. It’s been really great, and with all of us it’s really good energy in the room. Also, so far Alberto and Erin have had a few songs here and there that they’ve started sharing with us, so I think if anything, you know, we’re never gonna struggle with songs that way, so yeah it’s been really collaborative and really great."
Having taken a pause with his solo work in order to form the band, Stef comments, "I made a post saying that I was stopping making music under my own name, but I think maybe there was potentially some mis-messaging and people thought I was just going to stop completely. For me, with where my music was going it just felt like the right thing to do. I also never really wanted to be a solo artist, I always wanted to be in a band. I feel like it’s a nice fresh start. It’s not like I’ll never make music solo anymore - I do have a folk EP that I actually started doing last year, but that’s kind of been put on the back burner. I’m excited - I’m really proud of what I did, but it just gives me more of a challenge to try and build up the band, but yeah, there’s lots of good experience from the solo stuff that I can bring to the band."
Having played amongst the London scene for many years, Stef remarks, "I think the London scene post covid is slowly thriving. There’s amazing venues like Sebright Arms, The George Tavern, The Windmill all having tonnes of gigs. But yeah there’s so many great venues, band and promoters, and there’s loads of people who are doing it fro the right reasons. I’ve been playing music since 2017 so there’s definitely been waves of bands and gigs but I think it’s in a good place. There’s always so many bands coming through so you’ll never not have a gig to go to, even mid-week or whatever. So yeah I think it’s all doing really well."
Hitting the ground running, the band already have big plans for the year ahead. "We have our first EP which was recoded last year when it was still supposed to come under my own name, and we’ve kind of already been writing new stuff we're hopefully going to record again in Spring/ Summer time. The first EP will be out later this year - I really want an EP launch show with some bands that I know. We wanna get more gigs booked and we’re already slowly applying for festivals. Slowly does it, but we're waiting for the year to fully start, get some gigs booked, and see what the summer brings."
You can catch Be Civil at our show in collaboration with The Season on 7th Feb
Grab your tickets now: https://dice.fm/event/7doxvb-the-season-x-sounds-sick-c-turtle-support-7th-feb-sebright-arms-london-tickets