Premiere: Stay Safe Honour Friendship in Video for New Single “Winter Hill”

Friendship is the beacon of life, and Stay Safe are ensuring to remind us of that with their latest music video for “Winter Hill.” This is the first single to kick off a series of independent releases they have coming up in 2023, which will act as a follow-up of sorts to their 2022 debut EP Power Chords & Nursery Rhymes.

The Manchester, UK quintet were inspired to compose this song based on their closeness and lasting devotion to each other as both friends and bandmates. Growing up together, you form close bonds with the people around you, and even as you get older and circumstances change, those bonds you make as children remain sturdy and strong.

Elaborating on the importance of their friendship and the role it played in influencing this song, guitarist Chris Leyland says:

“This track was written about the friendships you make with the people you grow up with. (Vocalist) Joe (Whitford), (drummer) Lee (Clayton), and I all grew up in the same town and all went to the same school. We only really started playing music together again in 2021, about ten years later. We wrote this song about the feeling of how those bonds don’t change as you get older, knowing that those same people have your back all the same.

“It was awesome to actually shoot this video on Winter Hill, Bolton (well, kind of, it was windy as shit that day, we nearly lost a cymbal from trying to set up the drum kit on the top of the hill, so we shot a lot of it in the gardens around there… close enough!) We’re so stoked with how it came out though, shooting in that drained lake was crazy lucky, the team up there were setting up for a light festival that weekend and let us use the space whilst they were setting up.”

As Leyland indicated, despite their longstanding relationships, the quintet only began playing together a couple of years ago. They had a bit of a false start, releasing a four-track, self-produced EP that they ended up not being very pleased with, so they pulled it pretty quickly.

Conversely, the band is extremely pleased with the results of Power Chords & Nursery Rhymes, and as a result, they are planning a UK tour for this summer. Stay Safe is a passion project of sorts for these men, as they all maintain full-time jobs in addition to being in the band. Music is a pathway towards exercising their creativity, and they hope that this debut EP is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to what the future has in store for them.

Tour Dates:

03/03 – Nighttrain, Bradford, UK
04/27 – Gullivers, Manchester, UK

Artwork for the single “Winter Hill” by Stay Safe