Forget Grafted, It's All About Citrus

A band we know and love well here at YouthPleasure have made a few changes since we last spoke to them so we thought we'd fill you in on what's been going on with Basingstoke quartet. Formerly known as Grafted, they have re-vamped their style and have introduced us with their new name of Citrus and even introduced a new band member. Having managed to catch them in their last performance under their previous name at Are You Listening? Festival, where they blessed us with energy and youthfulness on the stage, we caught up with them after to chat about all these changes and their debut single that is coming out very soon.

You’ve just changed your name to citrus, why did you want to have this refresh?

Daisy: We never felt that our old name reflected our music as well as it could do, and it just seemed like the right time to do it, with Callum joining the band, and some of the changes we’ve had to our song writing.

Callum: I think we all just wanted a fresh start, so it just made sense to us to change.

What was the inspiration behind your debut single takeout? (Coming on the 11th May)

Luke: It was mostly inspired by one of those one sided relationships you see, where one person just isn’t interested and the other person is very much, so I thought when writing the lyrics it’d be cool the look at that from the 3rd person, from the outside looking in.

Why did you think this was the best track to release under this new name?

Alex: I think this track is just the most representative of us and the music we’re going to release, and we just feel it goes really well with the name, it quite fun and fast paced, and that’s what we feel citrus as a name reflects!

Who did you most enjoy seeing at are you listening? festival?

Luke: Probably gonna have to say Her’s, the energy they bring to the stage is absolutely incredible, and their tunes are just so sick, they also told everyone to come watch us later on, so they get brownie points for that.

Callum: Yeah Her’s were great, really enjoyed watching Valeras, it always great to see other female fronted bands smashing it.

How did you feel about headlining rising sun?

Daisy: It was a really nice feeling, rising sun is almost like a rite of passage when it comes to Reading venues, and seeing as this was our first time playing there it was really nice to close the show.

Callum: We were just really excited to play at are you listening in general to be honest, the town is literally buzzing for the day, and we were really happy to be a part of it, and help towards such a good cause.

How has it been adjusting to a new band member coming in?

Alex: It was alright, he’s not as ugly as the last one.

Luke: Yeah it was fine, Wellsy our old bassist showed him all the songs and we all get on really well so it didn’t take long at all for him to settle in.

Out of all the songs you’ve released or are releasing soon, which is your favourite?

Daisy: Mine is probably the latest one we’ve written which hasn’t got a name yet, but I’m really really liking it.

Alex: It’s probably the same for me as well.

Luke: I’d say an unreleased song called Thursday is my favourite, It’s the one I can relate to the most cause it’s about being bored and drunk in Basingstoke.

Callum: Mine is probably Thursday too, because the bassline is well fun, but takeout is definitely a close second for me.

What have you got coming up this year that we should know about?

Daisy: Now we’ve changed our name and re branded we’re just gonna keep the work rate up, we’ll be releasing a lot of new music this year, so we’re going to be in your faces constantly, we’ll that’s the plan anyway.

Luke: We’re planning to put on our own headline show in reading later on in the summer, and we’re also playing at this years B love festival on the main stage which were very excited for.