High Fade released their debut album Life’s Too Fast in November 2024. The Scottish trio began busking on the streets of Edinburgh which set them on a path which led to touring the States. Read on to learn just how they got from A to B.
Welcome High Fade. Please can you introduce the band members and share a little about how High Fade began?
Hi! It’s Harry Valentino (guitar/vocals) Oli Sentance (bass) and Calvin (drums/backing vocals) I (Harry) started High Fade in 2018 – it kind of started out busking on the street, did that for a couple of years and then from there started posting more and more on social media. Oli joined a couple years in and then Calvin joined two years ago, so Oli’s been in for five years and Calvin’s been in for two and a half years now. I started writing music for High Fade when I was 18 and since then me Oli and Calvin have always been writing together; we write pretty much everything together and the lineup has been just the three of us for the last 2.5 years.
Please describe your music in five words.
Fast, funky, loud, technical, unpredictable.
I understand your formative years of gigging were spent busking in Edinburgh. Is that correct? And what did that experience teach you?
Busking brought us a lot of experience, everything goes wrong ! A battery dies, a string snaps, your hands are cold and your face is even colder, a cable becomes unplugged… It really trains you for the big bad world of playing festivals, clubs and venues, and almost gives you this confidence that you can fix any problem on the stage; really helps you keep calm in moments where things do go wrong. It’s also helped us with being able to mix our sound on stage and giving engineers something relatively easy to work with.
You self-released your debut album Life’s Too Fast in November. How did it feel to have created this body of work?
Life’s Too Fast means a lot to us; the last two years of touring have been absolutely insane and I don’t think any of us can quite believe how much has happened in that time. We released it on our own label RPN Records and it feels amazing to have recorded, written, mixed and mastered everything with our small team of people we work with. Completely independently also. It really is a big milestone for us and we’re excited to make album no.2 already! We’ve been working on even more new songs and we didn’t even use half of what we recorded at RAK, who knows what we might put out next.
‘Gossip’ is a highlight from the album. How can you play guitar so fast! Please can you share how this track came to be?
It’s a funny story behind this track as it floated around for almost four years in the band; then one day, Oli and our old drummer went to the shop – I was sitting around watching some country players shredding on a tele and I started messing around with the intro riff, within about 10 minutes I finally had “it” then it quickly became a fan favourite and a busking favourite…
The drum solo came about because more than once I’d snap a string or the battery would die on our speaker around that point in the song… It’s like it was always meant to have a drum solo!
How important has social media been to the growth of support for High Fade?
Social media has been life changing for us! It feels pretty ridiculous to know that our videos have got over 100,000,000 views collectively, I can’t bear to think about that many grains of rice to be honest… But it’s definitely helped us get to where we are and it’s also helped us to do a lot of good with it!
I believe you have played a phenomenal 140 shows this year, including sold out gigs in the States as well across the UK and Ireland. You already have live dates booked for early next year, including around 25 dates in the States. What does it mean to you to play live?
Playing live is what’s most important for us, I think. Gigs are the life and soul of High Fade and there’s nothing more special to us than playing a packed out sweaty room; we’ll play anywhere, anytime, anyhow – as long as it’s a “good gig” which doesn’t equate to thousands of people, it’s more just about the vibe in the room and also the sound onstage for us. I’d say they are our two main factors for a good gig – we’ve played big festivals and tiny clubs, and we’re still gonna give the people the show they came for!
If I looked in your fridge right now what would I find?
Absolutely nothing (apart from the carton of milk I should have chucked out before I left!) we’ve only just got home from tour so I imagine a food shop is in order!
High Fade Life’s Too Fast UK & IE Tour
January 2025
15 – TBA, Edinburgh
16 – TBA, Edinburgh
17 – TBA, Edinburgh
18 – Classic, Grand, Glasgow
19 – Hoochie Coochie, Newcastle
21 – TBA
22 – District, Liverpool
23 – Castle & Falcon, Birmingham
24 – Old Market Assembly, Bristol
25 – Jazz Café, London
26 – Deaf Institute, Manchester
High Fade Life’s Too Fast USA Tour
February 2025
5 – Oklahoma City, Oklahoma
6 – Dallas, Texas
7 – Austin, Texas
8 – Houston, Texas
11 – New Orleans, Louisiana
12 – Atlanta, Georgia
13 – Birmingham, Alabama
14 – Spartanburg, South Carolina
15 – Chattanooga, Tennessee
16 – Nashville, Tennessee
18 – Raleigh, North Carolina
19 – Richmond, Virginia
20 – Asbury Park, New Jersey
21 – Washington, D.C
22 – Brooklyn, New York
23 – Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
26 – Portland, Maine
27 – Pembroke, Massachusetts
28 – Burlington, Vermont
March 2025
1 – Bridgeport, Connecticut
4 – Detroit, Michigan
5 – Columbus, Ohio
6 – Indianapolis, Indiana
7 – Milwaukee, Wisconsin
8 – Chicago, Illinois
9 – St Louis, Missouri
For more information on High Fade please check their facebook and instagram.