Set in Motion are one of the Nottingham music scene’s most promising bands. Noted for catchy indie hooks, powerful songs and incredible live performances, over the last two years they’ve made a name for themselves as a guitar music powerhouse act. We caught up with vocalist and guitarist Alfie Wallace, guitarist Dillan Telford, bassist Niall Hopkins and drummer Joe Carnell - outside the Fox and Grapes - to discuss their imminent Splendour Festival set, their future plans and what they’re listening to at the minute...
So, Splendour. It’s a big set for you, as a band, with you opening the Confetti Stage on the Sunday. How are you all feeling about it?
JOE: Yeah, we’re looking forward to it, should be a good day out.
ALFIE: We’re really looking forward to it, I think we’re excited to see lots of other bands there, too, to be fair, so we can take some inspiration from their stagecraft anyway, definitely. Mainly, we’re looking forward to watching the other bands, and get seeing some new faces out there, in the crowd.
NIALL: There’s plenty of new people, so its a big outreach.
ALFIE: Yeah, lots of people, local people, so that’d be good to try and gain a bit of a local following, hopefully.
Your EP came out earlier this year, could you tell us about what its about and what inspires it?
JOE: The title, Finding Something Doing Nothing, because we’re quite a new band, we found something when there’s nothing there.
ALFIE: Well, the idea of the title, was that we don’t really think too much into things, really, we kind of just let things roll as they go. We just wanted to draw a line under things, and those sort of songs, it was kind of a stylistic choice, really.
NIALL: Our style’s sort of changed a bit, so we wrote a bunch of like more indie things, and just said that we’re not writing any more indie things, put a line through it. This is the six ones we have, that fit into that category, so we put them out under this EP, and then go forward with the rest of it.
JOE: Its still got our sound, but a different style.
DILLAN: Finding Something Doing Nothing is a very indie EP, quite commercial, very radio friendly. The next one, we’ll be going for a more grungy, kind of alternative vibe, still, you know, commercially viable, just a bit rockier.
We thought, rather than writing Uni rubbish, we may as well try to form a band
You mention that you are a new band, when did you form and how did it come about?
DILLAN: Originally, we were all playing for Alfie, in his own solo project.
JOE: We all did bits. I was the drummer, and we had other members.
DILLAN: We kind of started writing more, and that's the band. I didn’t want to be Alfie Wallace.
ALFIE: We had to write a bit of a project, for our academic studies, at NTU. We thought, rather than writing Uni rubbish, we may as well try to form a band and use some of it towards Uni, and contributed towards that, and took it beyond that from there. We formed in December 2023, came together and started writing. Well, we started writing a couple of months before that but that's when we took some pictures and then got a band sorted.
DILLAN: It was good to actually start a real project instead of this kind of just being passed about.
JOE: We made it out the group chat...
ALFIE: Yeah, the band made it out the group chat!
Are there any future release plans?
JOE: Obviously, we had the recent EP that came out, which is under the umbrella of indie. But then, we’re writing some new songs that are a bit more heavy, exactly that Dillan said.
DILLAN: We’re just experimenting, and seeing where we fit within music.
NIALL: You know how there’s YNOT festival, which is very indie focused, and then there’s Download, which is metal and rock and everything over there, we want to sit a bit in the middle of it. We want to be able to be in a position where we’re invited to play both. So we don’t want to go too indie too far but we don’t want to go too far rock or metal.
ALFIE: We’ve got a few songs written in a plethora of genres, so we’ve got a few songs written and we’re gonna write towards some more alternative stuff, in our future writing. We’re going to get out some of the stuff. Past the Postbox doesn’t really fit into the alternative, so that's commercial, and that’s going to come out as a single, and then we’re going to work towards a fresh EP. We like doing EPs, that’s the thing actually, it’ll be the next EP. We’ve got probably three that’ll go towards that now.
What are you all listening to at the minute? Any inspirations?
JOE: So, currently I’m doing a Joe song of the day, which is where I listen to a song, put it on my story. First song was Don’t Let the Sun Go Down on Me by George Michael. The most recent one was Copacabana by Barry Manilow, a bit Spanish, a bit of Latin theme. We’re going through the eras, look out for tomorrow.
NIALL: I’ve been listening to recently a lot of Turnstile, but I like the new album its a nice sound. I don’t know what it is about it. I’ve heard a lot of their stuff, but the new album’s great, not just the old hardcore stuff but there’s loads of newer stuff. Other than that, I like that a lot of post hardcore stuff, as well. Don Broco, I like them and their whole sound.
DILLAN: I’m very much into grungy stuff, so like Basement. A lot of mid eighties, Brian Adams, all that lot. A lot of Toto, but yeah mainly a lot of grunge. Noisy guitars, sound like a wall, that kind of thing.
ALFIE: So, I’ve been listening to, because of these lot, they put me onto Sleep Token, like months ago, last year, Joe was saying they had a song out, and then I realised they had a whole album out, so I listen to a lot of Sleep Token, just to get into it, which I like, its nice.
Set In Motion will perform on the Confetti stage at Splendour Festival on Sunday 20th July 2025. Live photo (below): Nigel King.
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