Behind The Artwork: Screech Bats - Wish You Were Her (2018)

Punk Rock Quartet Screech Bats are set to self- release their sophomore EP ‘Wish You Were Her’ on 30 th March 2018. As the follow-up to 2016’s self-titled extended play, vocalist Esme Baker explains it’s inspiration: “It’s about women who have, for entirely different reasons, had a profound impact on my life, but are no longer in it. Including a feminine face in the artwork to mirror the title but somehow censor the eyes, gives the character anonymity, making whoever we are talking about a total enigma.” Recording with James Routh of Sonic Boom Six, often until the early hours in a Blackpool rehearsal room, the band opted to strip back to a rawer form of their sound. The result is a heart-on- sleeve alternative rock with punk rock roots, topped off with distinctly British vocals à la Lower Than Atlantis; the influence of the likes of Against Me! and Jimmy Eat World is clear. Following the recent release of their lead single ‘Get Better’ here, Baker is here to tell us more about their creative output, specifically the EP artwork…

“As I am a tattoo artist, it made sense for me to do the artwork for both this and our previous EP, you know, because I am a super talented illustrator and this decision had nothing at all about keeping costs down... 

We wanted to include a feminine face to mirror the title ‘Wish You Were Her’ but somehow censor the eyes, giving the character anonymity, making whoever we are talking about a total enigma. Using flowers was a way of ‘censoring’ her face without it becoming aggressive or dehumanising. This idea worked really nicely a it is reminiscent of the artwork from our first EP (Screech Bats - Screech Bats) but the design is more refined, which suits the way our music has matured over the 2 years between the recordings. 

After we had the idea, I drew the design relatively quickly and we didn’t have an issue agreeing on the image, but we went through every colour scheme under the sun before settling on the black and mustard yellow. The decision finally came with the reasoning that although we are spooky little goths at heart, we also look very dashing in mustard. 

We are all totally stoked on the image we came up with and settled on, and just can’t wait for the release on March 30th, so we can finally be holding the printed version in our grubby mits.”