Having learned to trust their instincts since they founded their four-piece indie rock/art-rock collective eight years ago, Bedford Falls embraces change while celebrating the natural evolution we all experience. Born and raised in Tbilisi (Georgia), Dato, Mikho, Migro and Sandro compare their professional careers to a roller coaster, having experienced countless ups and downs and anecdotes. Now they present KINO, the first music video from their upcoming studio album. The audiovisual piece directed by Giorgi Meshveliani invites us to be part of a film in a four and a half minute journey with some sense of communication with the highest vibrations.
“It came from a place where dreams come from. Out of nowhere. Those ones are very dear to me,” says Dato about this new release that they are presenting today. Starting from a feeling in which life seems to be a play where fiction and reality intermingle and blur in what the artists interpret as “a lovely and at the same time a very sad sentiment,” Bedford Falls is now preparing to release their next album in the fall of 2022 under Interlock Records. “Keep your eyes on us, we just might be worth your time,” they state.
First of all, how are you and where do you answer us from?
We’re in Tbilisi; born and raised and thriving.
Could you introduce yourself individually to those who may don't know you yet?
We call ourselves Bedford Falls. There’s Dato in the front, singing and prancing, there’s Mikho on guitar, Migro on bass and Sandro on drums and backing vocals. There’s also all that synthetic noise coming from our laptops, also an essential part of us.
Since forming your four-piece indie rock/art-rock collective in 2014, you have continued to establish yourself as one of the most prominent figures in modern Georgian music. What would you highlight about this process? What have been the most important lessons you have learned?
Throughout these years we’ve learned to trust our instincts. “If it works for us, it’ll work for the audience” – that’s the kind of attitude we have. Practice gives you confidence and it certainly gives you the freedom to express yourself in ways you’ve never thought possible just a year prior. We’ve learned that change is natural and exciting, and we’ve gone to embrace it.
The beginnings of an artist's career are not usually easy. From where to start to how to define a distinctive personal sound, many challenges arise when a creative decides to embark on this adventure. How did you gain a foothold in the music scene?
It’s really tough to start off. We’ve gone through so many low attended, barely organised and dim-lit gigs, but come to think of it, that never really bothered us. We just did it for the heck of it. It was exciting. There’s some excitement in failure as well. You learn to do it better. Plus, we’ve had one thing going for us, our audience was growing. The tracks we’ve been recording at home and simply uploading on Youtube started gaining tremendous numbers and at that point, it didn’t matter if we had any confidence in ourselves or not, we had confidence in our music and nothing could break that trust.
And do you maintain the same illusion as at the beginning? Have you had many emotional ups and downs in these last eight years?
Many of us dream of making it big since childhood. You wanna be an actor, a musician, a director… There’s some kind of calling, a murmur from the inside, saying: “You guys are going places, keep it up.” It’s been one hell of a rollercoaster ride and it’s barely started. It took a long time and a lot of effort to come to this spot. When you know people are waiting for your next song, next concert, waiting to see what you’re gonna do next. That seemed unreal just a few years ago. Back then there were many moments when we questioned ourselves and our potential but eventually grew out of it through the affection we got from the public.
You are now releasing KINO, the first music video from your upcoming studio album. “It’s one of those tracks our fans will instantly fall in love with it,” you, David, commented about this new song. What makes it so special and why is it so important to you?
There’s some sense of wonder to it. A little spark of magic. “Some songs take time to write and some just give life to themselves in an instance,” says Dato, the one who wrote it.
He also states: “It came from a place where dreams come from. Out of nowhere. Those ones are very dear to me. There’s some sense of communication with the highest vibrations and I hope that comes through the song. There’s also the sentiment which we’ve shared between ourselves many times, - this is a movie, it all seems like a movie. It's lovely and at the same time a very sad sentiment. In these times we’re so detached from our own existence that it takes a different form – a dream, a play, a movie. That’s where the track came from.”
He also states: “It came from a place where dreams come from. Out of nowhere. Those ones are very dear to me. There’s some sense of communication with the highest vibrations and I hope that comes through the song. There’s also the sentiment which we’ve shared between ourselves many times, - this is a movie, it all seems like a movie. It's lovely and at the same time a very sad sentiment. In these times we’re so detached from our own existence that it takes a different form – a dream, a play, a movie. That’s where the track came from.”
With four self-produced albums and various singles under your portfolio, your upcoming studio album is set to be released in the fall of 2022 under Interlock Records. What can we expect from this new work? Would you say it is a turning point in your career?
There’s a lot of good music there. You see, we’ve matured enough to reach new grounds but also to keep the original flame that got us rolling in the first place. Sonically it’s vibrant, thematically it’s rich and we can barely wait to see what the audience will think of it.
At METAL we have talked a lot about the Georgian fashion scene, one of the most interesting in the current panorama. But I would like to know more about the country's music scene. How would you define it? Are there many young talents?
Well, firstly there’s the club scene providing amazing events almost every day of the week. There’s an ocean of amazing artists in the electronic music scene. We’re also delighted that there are multitudes of new artists popping up in every genre, be that hip-hop, post-punk and even the ones that are not contained by any one genre or form. It’s a cascade of music coming from all kinds of directions. And not just music, but art in general. It’s truly a sight to witness and it’s an honour to be a part of it.
Now that it seems that the health situation is improving and concerts are a reality again, will we see you playing live soon?
Oh, yes. That’s the stuff we’ve missed the most, but now we’re back and as excited as ever to play live. Especially to play the new tracks and experience them on a whole other level.
And what can you tell us about your next projects beyond the release of your fifth album? Any dream to fulfill?
Well, we do hope we’ll get to play outside Georgia as well. Maybe we’ll get more listeners outside our borders. Who knows? There’s this natural urge to grow and stretch beyond our own limits. I mean, we haven’t even finished our new album yet, so, we’ve got a lot of stuff to work on and even more stuff to share. Keep your eyes on us, we just might be worth your time.
Bedford Falls will be playing at KHID (Tbilisi) on May 19th.