Gently Tender: “This band is about figuring out who you are in the midst of chaos”

nme.com:

Gently Tender have spoken to NME about their long-awaited debut album, ‘Take Hold Of Your Promise!’, and how it tackles dealing with “anxieties and chaos”.The band formed out of the ashes of Palma Violets following their split in 2016, with former members Sam Fryer, Will Doyle and Peter Mayhew, joined by The Big Moon’s Celia Archer and guitarist Adam Brown“I’ve been very privileged to be in music for a very long time, because I got into it at a very young age,” Fryer told NME. “But that did take its toll mentally on me and I’ve been trying to deal with that and balance that with the old band, and then with this new band I’ve found that I now know how to control my emotions and, hopefully, can enjoy this moment more than I have in the past.”After Palma Violets broke up, the singer and guitarist turned to long walks and meditation to help process the whirlwind of the band and “what to do next”. “At the time, I was living next to Jad Jamyang Buddhist Centre in Elephant and Castle, which is what I think is the meditation centre in the whole of London,” he explained.

Three or four days a week, Fryer would visit the centre to reflect on things.He continued: “It was a challenge, but a real eye-opener.

I don’t know what I’d do without that place. I’d recommend it to anyone – you just need to quieten the inner chatter in your head, because that isn’t doing anybody any good.

If you keep your brain a little bit quieter then, actually, other things grow very quickly.”While Fryer was exploring meditation, he, Doyle and Mayhew continued to write together and eventually brought Brown and Archer into the mix.