Review Fix Exclusive: Next Stop Olympus’ Matt Gray Talks Origin and Goals

Review Fix chats with Next Stop Olympus’ Matt Gray, who discusses the band’s origin and goals for 2021.

Review Fix: How did the project start?


Matt Gray: We had spoken about being in a band for years and nothing really came from it but I met Josh through a friend and found out he played drums, they started talking about putting a band together then they found Skips on a musician website and ask Conor to come along and we starting working on songs from there, after trying out a couple of people for a second guitarist and them not working out I remembered Harry was back from University and that he sang and played guitar so asked him to come along and it all fell together from there.


Review Fix: What’s your creative process like?


Gray: Our creative process is always cool for us because we’re all involved with all the songs, someone will bring something to the table whether it be a riff, the skeleton of a song, lyrics or even just an idea for how the song could sound and then we all work on it together from there.


Review Fix: What’s your standout song? How was it written?


Gray: For us two it’s Don’t Let Go because it’s our personal favourite and different to anything we’ve ever done before. The writing process started with I trying to write a really heavy song which turned into our version of a ballad, he wrote a riff and spoke to the guys about it and Skips went away and change it to what is now the riff at the start of the song then I and Harry got together to work on the chorus whilst I and Conor were also in talks about the lyrics/ vibe of the song during the whole process and it all just came together from there.


Review Fix: What are your goals for 2021?


Gray: Play as many shows as we can now Covid restrictions are allowing them and get our new EP out there to as many people as possible.


Review Fix: How do you want your music to affect people?


Gray: We mainly just want the songs to be stuck in peoples heads, obviously if it has an affect on someone that can help them out in anyway they need it to then that’s great but we don’t write them in mind for other people, we write for our own catharsis.


Review Fix: What’s next?


Gray: We’ve just released our brand new EP ‘Heart, Mind & Hell’ on 9th April so we’ll be pushing that as much as possible for now while we start on what’s next.

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About Patrick Hickey Jr. 14230 Articles
Patrick Hickey Jr. is a full-time Assistant Professor of Communication & Performing Arts and Director of the Journalism program at Kingsborough Community College and is the chairman of the City University of New York Journalism Council. He is the Founder and Editor-In-Chief of ReviewFix.com. He's also a former News Editor at NBC Local Integrated Media and National Video Games Writer at Examiner.com where his work was mentioned in National Ad campaigns by Disney, Nintendo and EA Sports. Hickey was also the Editor-In-Chief of two College Newspapers before he received his BA in Journalism from Brooklyn College. Hickey's work has been published in The New York Daily News, The New York Times, Complex, The Hockey Writers, Yahoo!, Broadway World, Examiner, NYSportScene Magazine, ProHockeyNews.com, GothamBaseball.com, The Syracuse Post-Standard, Scout.com and the official sites of the Brooklyn Aces and New York Islanders. His first book, The Minds Behind the Games: Interviews With Cult And Classic Video Game Developers was released in April 2018 and is chock full of interviews with legendary developers. His second book in the series, The Minds Behind Adventures Games, was released in December 2019. His third book, The Minds Behind Sports Games, was released in September 2020. His fourth book, The Minds Behind Shooter Games, was released in March 2021. The Minds Behind Sega Genesis Games and The Minds Behind PlayStation Games were released in 2022 and The Minds Behind PlayStation 2 was published in January 2023. Hickey is also a contracted comic book writer, currently penning his original series, "Condrey," as well as "The Job," "Brooklyn Bleeds" "Dem Gulls" and "KROOM" for Legacy Comix, where he serves as founder, owner and Editor-in-Chief. Hickey Jr. is also a voice actor, having starred in the 2018 indie hit and 2019 Switch, PS4 and Xbox One release, The Padre (also serving as English language Story Editor), from Shotgun With Glitters. The sequel, The Padre: One Shell Straight to Hell was released in February 2021- Hickey also served as a Story Editor and Lead Voiceover performer. He has also done narration and trailers for several other titles including The Kaiju Offensive, Relentless Rex and Roniu’s Tale. Hickey is also the lead voiceover performer on Mega Cat Studios’ upcoming title WrestleQuest, responsible for nearly 90 characters in the game, as well as Skybound's Renfield: Bring Your Own Blood, where he voices both Dracula and Renfield, as well as several other characters. He also stars in Ziggurat Interactive’s World Championship Boxing Manager 2, where he performs the VO of nearly every male character in the game. He also worked on the Atari VCS’s BPM Boy.

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