Conflare
Alt-rock, pop-punk, little-bit-of-everything, unsigned four-piece Conflare formed in high school and debuted with the eponymous Conflare EP in 2015. After a handful of shifts over the years, the lineup was solidified and complete in early 2020: Toby Hanmore on lead vocals and guitar, guitarist James Rowland, bassist Sam Wilkinson, and drummer Ethan Bradley.
With a collective 85,000 Spotify streams and after selling out The Wardrobe – one of the cities’ most renowned venues for breakthrough talent – before a deadly virus hindered their plans, Conflare were setting themselves up for one hell of a 2021.
In 2019 the band released their most open and raw track to date, ‘Tbh.’ It narrates a struggle with mental health and finding it hard to tell even the people you love the most about how you’re feeling. It allowed us to see a different side to the band, but it became something for people to resonate with. Conflare’s most-streamed track is ‘Lazy Bones,’ which was released in 2019 but has become applicable to the ‘sitting inside and not doing a right lot’ situation we found ourselves in last year. To cope with the pandemic and provide some sort of entertainment, Toby took to his conservatory and played a handful of ‘live’ sessions. 2021 is looking to be a year very much like the last, but Conflare are aiming to “make the best of a bad situation… and draw as much attention as we can to how friends and creatives are adapting and thriving through the pandemic.”