A digital marketer greeted a software engineer and a tailor on a Google Meet call one cold January Monday. They take off their masks and reveal themselves — I, editor of ATC Sound, sat across the screen from Paolo Siviero and George Seymour-Cole, co-producers in the two-piece psych rock band Elandra calling in from the vibrant coastal city of Brighton, England.
Thrilling recent singles such as “Ask Me Why” see Elandra growing in ambition as their musical influences come together in more original ways. The persistent yearning for release that drives their music becomes clearer and more intense with every new drop, a result of more intentional visual and sonic storytelling.
In a fluid conversation with ATC Sound, Paolo and George eagerly took the chance to voice their thoughts and feelings on topics such as independent music business and the highs and lows of composing new music. With their album Right Wrong slated for release May 1st, Elandra got the chance to start 2026 with new single “Juvenile” and a sprawling, colorful interview that captured the band’s spirit.
The interview below has been edited for brevity and clarity, organized by topic for ease of reading.
Facts From Our Conversation With Elandra
- Elandra was founded in 2020 as a five-piece band; Paolo and George are the remaining original members of Elandra
- Paolo and George met at the British and Irish Modern Music (BIMM) University
- Paolo is an Italian national who lived near Venice before arriving in Brighton, spending a couple of years before matriculating to BIMM
- Paolo developed his own customer relationship management (CRM) software to organize Elandra’s administrative tasks such as outreach to blogs and social media posts
- George’s top album of 2025 is Twenty-One Pilots’ Breach
On The Challenges of Independent Music Business
Z: So, like kudos, because just being indie is hard. I had a plan to structure this conversation, but since I’m already here, I guess, is being indie the goal is that kind of end game for Elandra, like, do you want to stay as independent as possible or…? How do you feel about that?
P: It’s quite a tough one, you know, because of course, I would like to have a team that can be like. Just put on by a record label, you know, like, perhaps, like what we are needing like, for example, right now is a booking agent and a marketer, particularly because digital advertising…it’s just like losing money. Okay, because sometimes the ads are working. Sometimes they’re not. And a booking agent, mostly because it doesn’t matter how much you reach out to venues and promoters. If you find somebody that’s got already, a connection with the owner, you know, with a venue, they’re going to take you in. Otherwise, it’s a little bit of a…
Z: A hail mary, a lob, yeah.
G: Yeah, it’s hard because I do feel like a lot of bands that say they’re like as indie as they can, they’ve still got so many people that either work with people that do stuff for them that might also be doing stuff for other people, like a booking agent that might be working with like 10 bands.
I feel like unless bands get to, like, a really, really high level, I still would say so many bands are indie while having their own team not so much like behind them, but people that they can then reach out to and go, “Yo, we’re looking for this. How can you help us? How can you help us?” It is just an industry of knowing people, knowing the right people having fingers in as many pies as you can. And I think as well, there’s always the balance of work, what else you’re doing outside of the band and to go at it purely on your own for forever it’s just not feasible, it don’t work like that. There’s bills to pay.
Z: Yeah, that’s real. What’s that look like for you right now? What’s the daily grind like?
P: Probably a hard one for me. Now we’ve been on the Christmas holiday, but basically to overcome most of the manual work that I had to do — I’m a software developer on the side. It’s like my main job, okay? — so I created an app basically that acts as a CRM that’s AI powered that helps me kind of like to reach out to as many people as I can. That’s the way that we are trying basically to build more and more connections around the world. Because in the local scene, I gotta say personally, I would like to go out more, but I’m a little bit of an introvert, or at least — it’s not that I’m an introvert. It’s just like the energy you know of working. Before I was working full time and now part-time and kind of like keeping away with the band and then the girlfriend and then holidays, you know, and trying to keep yourself sane.
Z: You just said you developed your own CRM?
P: Yeah. *laughter*
Z: Okay, that’s not normal. That’s not normal. Did you want to add to that George?
G: What I think is so fucking handy about that is … it’s really tricky to like reach the city that you’re in without putting loads of money into being able to go up to different places in, like at least the country we’re in, for us to go up to Manchester to go up to Bristol, London, really. To be fairly easy, we can just hop on the train. But it’s so expensive to move around everyone else. The other guys that play with us in the band, our drummer and guitarist, both working themselves as well. So It’s tricky to be able to go out as much as we can and meet so many people. So to be able to do it all right, yeah, even just to go to gigs. It is tricky, like balancing it. So being able to reach out to people, it’s crucial. It’s not just handy, it’s really crucial to do. But as well at the same time the flip side of not losing the live thing. And that as well, you almost realize — you actually go to gigs and you’re like, “This is what it’s all about.” It’s just tricky to do that as much as you can and do the right gigs, if that makes sense.
Like, is this a reputable venue? Something that promoters are going to recognize, a venue that promoters are going to recognize. A venue that other people other bands go to quite a lot. Am I going to meet someone at this venue?
I feel like gone are the days where a band at our level can meet a band that’s a little bit of a higher level, you know, let’s say, like selling out 500 plus cap venues and just be like, “Yeah, you’re going to come along with us for the entire tour.” ‘Cause that band themselves are probably there going, “Oh my God, how are we gonna fund this? We’re just gonna try and do all of our all ourselves. It’s too much to try to think of another band.” You meet bands that are like 20, 30 years older than us, and they’re like, “Yeah, we were on the road all the time.” *laughter* Were you living on nothing?
P: I mean, it’s like, it’s like our parents saying like, “At your age, I already bought two houses.” It’s not the same times anymore.
On Elandra’s Creative Process
P: I really like, actually, to reduce the timing that it takes basically to do all the recording, mixing, and mastering and just the promotional bits and recordings. It’s just how you have to make things nowaday [sic]. With all the content, mix it properly and master it properly. Because if you do it by yourself, you just end up in the bottom end of the algorithm. You just get surpassed by AI. You need to be competitive sound wise, but also kind of like creative wise, and you can’t just like throw out something that you wrote one week ago, right. But that’s my opinion. That was because of being like a little bit of a perfectionist. I want something to sound good, and it has to be very intentional, because otherwise, what’s the point in it? And it’s like, there’s a story behind everything. And I like, if it doesn’t go through, I wanna look at myself back in 10 years time and be like, at least I give it all.
And it doesn’t matter, you know how, how much time it took, you know, and what I like, because I know that there are people like writing songs and releasing every two weeks? Yeah, but like? I’m like, you are literally just serving the algorithm there, although you could argue Mac DeMarco and Kevin Parker this year, for example. They did the complete opposite because those two albums from Mac DeMarco, for example, I mean the second to last one, it’s fucked up. There’s a 130 recordings of demos. But the last one, I think it was written in less than a year. It was recorded and mixed and mastered like in three weeks. Did ya know about that?
G: I feel like it’s crazy, because sometimes you look at those and you hear it and you’re like, “They just got into some Flow State and just…” I think a lot of it comes from experience as well. Being able to streamline a process to create a piece of art that is up to your own standards.
P: It’s more kind of like. The sense is not to make the best song, I suppose, it’s actually almost to protest it — about how the music industry is nowadays. I’ve read a few interviews like by Mac Demarco and Kevin Parker recently, and that’s what they both tried to do. They are both sick of how much work there has to be behind all the perfectionism, so they just tried to do something that just feels a little bit more natural, and it feels a little bit more authentic. It’s a good move at the same time, though I feel like, maybe that’s what we are shifting with the industry. Because I mean they we had to reach a point where the bubble would explode. Otherwise, there’s not gonna be any new musicians.
G: I feel like it’s a little bit of a pendulum where you’ve got one end of the pendulum starts with just like, super quick, raw authenticity. And yeah, we’re just banging this stuff out quick as we can yet we’re still super true to it. And then the pendulum, like in time, the music is influenced. It swings the other way, and then you get to like, kind of where we’ve been for the last few years.
Z: Yeah. There’s something to that, like having to really feel the need to come ready made, you know, as opposed to like, “Look, we have potential and the concept is great for the song.” It’s like you have to be a fully-finished product by the time you’re releasing just to have a chance these days.
G: It’s that word “product.” It’s so supplemented into so many people’s minds, that music is a product, and it’s really difficult. Because at the core of it, it’s art. And it’s for people it’s art. For some people, it’s therapy, some people, it’s release. And I hate that it gets bubbled, all grouped into this bubble of product, because then what? You’re packaging it in the same fucking thing as a carton of milk. It’s thrown out there, and it’s like, buy it, purchase it, consume it, consume it.
P: In fact, I want to say that because now Suno has become such a like overused tool at the moment, and people can just create actually quite perfect tunes that are ready to release, you know? I feel like people are gonna re-evaluate what’s important in a song. Because now you argue that everything is AI-based, you know. Even the content that you’re watching or the music that you’re listening to. Now, whenever I’m listening to something, I’m like, “Is this real, or is this AI?” So it gives me a chance to actually get a little bit more introspective about what I’m looking forward to to listen to a song.
Initially like 10 years ago it was about mostly the production. I was like, really, into the arrangement and production wise? But now, it’s more like I wanna get that feeling of something that hits me and sometimes it’s just the song writing part, which is like the least — how do you say? — it’s the least measurable.
Z: Oh, there we go, like it’s intangible.
P: Yeah, yeah.
G: I think I had like one album in 2025 that when I listened to it, I was just like, “Oh, my God! This is fucking sick, and I’m gonna listen to it so fucking much,” but actually really hit me funnily enough.
Z: What was that album?
G: It was the new Twenty One Pilots album, actually of anything. I haven’t listened to Twenty One Pilots in, like seven years, and then my mate, knew him in another band, just hounded me like, “You have to listen to this album. You have to listen to this album.” And it became my top album. It came out in, like September, yeah, it became my top album. And there’s other albums I listened to and enjoyed, but not wanted, to go back to nothing that had, like, hit me. And I’m not too sure, what is, really, what is the cause of that. But I think there’s something there where you hear albums and they’re just churning out the perfect product. You can listen to something and you think, “Was there intention to this, and was the intention ‘sell the most of this’?” And you hear an album you’re like “That is someone’s soul that I’m listening to, you know?”
Z: Are there artists that that kind of compel you to create when you hear them? And you can think now, or maybe as you were forming the bin. Like, is there music where you’re just like, “This makes me want to write”?
P: My personal influences were, like all the playlist of 2010s, kind of like indie alternative psychedelic stuff. As I said already in Mac Demarco, Tame Impala, Melody’s Echo Chamber…Temples, a lot of Temples. I could keep on going on like, there’s so many names in it. At the time that was like, what made me feel kind of like the most creative. But then…whenever you get into the process of actually doing all the recording and mixing all that kind of stuff, you get so focused on the music that you’re doing that you struggle to see a little bit outside almost time because it’s been going on before so long, because what’s the EP that we released last year that we started working in 2021? And while we were releasing the EP, we started recording the album, which is coming out in on the 1st of May. But because there’s stuff that you want to do, kind of like all the gigs or all the content. All the videos that you wanna like create all the emailing, you know? It’s like so many things that that you eventually lose a little bit of compass, and like, for example, I’ve been struggling a little bit.
On The Brighton Music Scene
Z: What’s the scene like in Brighton, is it? Is it similar [to Minneapolis]? I feel like it’s a pretty liberal city.
G: Brighton’s always been a very famous Hub of music in the UK that have been a lot of like, quite big bands that have come from Brighton and Brighton’s always been seen as like a cultural melting pot of the UK, where all manner of different cultures come together from the arts, the creatives, the musicians. There’s loads of little independent venues dotted all over Brighton. The only issue there is in Brighton is, I would say, is oversaturation. You’ve got two major music universities in Brighton.
You’ve got BIMM where Paulo and myself went to where, we met each other, and then you’ve got WaterBear. Big uni, very reputable. So you’ve got thousands and thousands of bands. Yeah.
P: I would have added to that today is that you tend to notice basically that some bands at some point like, I wouldn’t say that it’s kind of cliquey, and you can probably say that about every every city whenever you aren’t able to get included into the particular kind of like the cool people basically. I’ve noticed that there’s a few people that I have kind of like a strong connections, because a few bands that are started like, for example, five to ten years ago that, for example, I don’t know if you’re familiar with Lime Garden. Have you ever heard of them?
Z: No.
P: They are from Brighton, they got. They got pretty famous, and they toured America, I think, once or twice. Yeah, like, there’s an entire kind of like a group of people. From there, there is like they all tight with their managers, and therefore they are able to get the the main venue that it’s here and then it becomes a little bit closed in the sense that they decide who is gonna play at that main venue. So we are kind of like, because we are kind of a little bit outside, and we tend to go and maybe to promoters or booking agents, you know, kind of like our own thing outside. But I guess, like, that’s a thing that is everywhere, you know. Initially I thought it was actually cliquey, and then I thought, I’m just not a part of their group of friends. So it kind of makes sense to be fair
G: I think one of the best things about Brighton, though, is, 1. you get to meet a lot of fans. And it’s just so easy to get to London.
Z: Yeah, okay, just the tram, right?
G: Yeah, it’s a direct train, and it’s, it’s basically on our doorstep. Like one thing that we’ve been doing quite a I’d say quite a bit lately since, like September, we’ve started to try and push out more into London. And we’ve been meeting bands in London trying to find gigs trying to find promoters and do stuff there because you’re just exposing yourself to new people. And it’s really fun. Yeah, it’s really beautiful. It’s the same. It’s not playing the same venues, seeing the scene, seeing the same faces in crowds and having to deal with the same. Yeah, promoters.
P: We’ve been doing that, like, kind of like for five years, because, uh yeah, we started years five years ago in Brighton. And so, yeah, I think we are a little bit late to that boat to start going around about better late than never.
Do you know, by any chance, Nature TV?
Z: That sounds familiar. I don’t know why.
P: No, it’s another band actually that’s gotten quite famous. They they toured America twice. The guitarist and the drummer are my flatmates, actually.
Z: Really! No way.
G. Yeah, the drummer used to drum with us for a good two years and a half-ish and then joined Nature TV fully because they were like multiple tours a year kind of thing.
And you notice when, like in Brighton, when bands get to a certain stage, they just stop playing gigs in Brighton. Nature TV — they might play a couple of like the festivals in Brighton. You notice it, there’s a point where bands just stop playing the local gigs around and they’re playing everywhere else. And then they come back.
P: I guess it’s normal for any band because otherwise you end up doing 20 gigs a year, always in the same place. Yeah, it’s like, limited.
G: It’s not holding us back, we’re just trying to figure out how to do that now…If we can hop across the pond and come to America. If we can get across to Europe, figure out all of the the kind of rigamarole that comes with that, and all the money then next up.
Z: So, yeah, I guess, for one, it’s pretty cool to hear the proportion of activity given that Brighton is not huge. Like, it’s a decent sized town.
G: It is pretty small. You can walk every single — every like big venue in Brighton, you can get from one end, like one of the biggest venues in Brighton to the other side of Brighton in a 20-minute walk. It’s tiny. It’s like 1/10 of the size of London if that, but there’s so many people, right? So many bands and so many venues everywhere is just everyone’s on top of everyone.
Listen To “Juvenile” by Elandra — Right Wrong Drops May 1
No better way to continue learning about Elandra than listening to their latest single “Juvenile.” Visit their website for more information on how to contact, support, and enjoy the band’s work.
