Ooberfuse play Bexhill as new single takes on anti-Putin resonance

The song sees the band speak out against totalitarian regimes. The track is inspired by a friend of the band’s harrowing experience of one such regime. As songwriter and vocalist Cherrie Anderson explains: “Vanish The Night asks sabre-rattling authoritarian global leaders to stop using their power and influence to intimidate and belittle people.”

The new single forms part of the band’s repertoire in their UK tour supporting M-People’s Heather Small with dates including the De La Warr Pavilion in Bexhill-on-Sea on Friday, March 18.

“We originally wrote the song inspired by a friend from North Korea who escaped from one of the death camps. He escaped, I would say, four years ago. He was here in London just to try to share his story and we got out there and also visited him in South Korea when we did some festivals there.”

The idea behind the title is that there aren’t, on the map, so many lights in North Korea. Hence the idea to Vanish The Night. On the track, the duo asks: “What do we see when the lights go out? The stars? The strobes of a club? Or the pitch darkness of an oppressed people? We want to see what happens when the light comes back on...when the darkness disperses and the night vanishes.”

“We just had the idea for this song and really it’s for any sort of day-to-day harsh experience. That’s how the germ of the idea started. It’s for anyone who’s had any sort of horrific experience, whether it is bullying or whatever. And then when we heard what was going on with Putin, it was essentially the same idea. We thought that this was what we would tell Putin. We wanted to stop this, to turn his tanks back and just to pursue peace. We want everybody to speak up against it. People think that they can’t really do anything when it’s just them but when so many people speak up, that can make a change and we just thought that it was the best we could just to try to make the change and to contribute.”

From showcasing at The Great Escape to opening for Rudimental in Beijing, Ooberfuse have built an east-to-west reputation for their live performances, with tours to Japan, China, Korea, India, Philippines, Italy, Spain and Portugal. UK radio support has been received from BBC Radio 1’s Huw Stephens, Janice Long, Tom Robinson and BBC Radio London’s Sunny and Shay.

“There are the two of us who are the songwriters but for our live shows we are joined by a drummer Greg and bassist Jack. We’ve been going for some years, about five years, but Jack and Greg have recently joined us, just in the last year.

“We met Greg when we played the Cavern for International Beatles Week last year and we met Jack just this January and then we played Dublin Castle and it went so well that that’s now our live line-up.

“We are touring with Heather. We are hoping it will take us to the next level. When we submitted the songs to her, she really liked what we did and she chose us. We made it to the shortlist and then it was up to Heather and we were thinking that that would be that but we are so pleased that Heather liked what we did.”

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