STATIC SATELLITES are preparing to unleash their impressive debut EP next month.

A series of singles from the band throughout 2020 underlined their credentials as ones to watch on the Scottish Music Scene.

Three of their releases will make up the As the Dark Unfolds EP, along with the unreleased By the Way.

The band's singer Ross Whelan gives The Weekender an insight into the themes behind the EP, released on Friday, May 14.

He says: "The title is actually a lyric taken from the final song on the EP: By the Way – I'd probably say it's a grittier-sounding song than the other three. The song itself is more based on this idea that as you get older, life starts to lose its innocence.

"In a roundabout way, I suppose it fits the order of the record as well because the EP opens with Fortify, which for me was a song written about trying to be hopeful, and then it ends on this song which is more about a struggling to retain that hopefulness.

"So, in a literal and probably pretentious-sounding sense, as the EP unfolds, the dark unfolds in the themes around it."

"The reaction and support we've had so far is really amazing," the singer adds. "The people that have taken an interest in us are the reason we can continue to be creative.

"It's crazy the amount of people we can see our music reaches on a daily basis and from so many different backgrounds and it's really intriguing to hear all the comparisons and parallels drawn between our music and other bodies of work.

"It's great to feel people get behind us and there are times when it's enough just to have people comment on what we're doing. Ultimately, it makes us want to get back out there and playing gigs even more."

Static Satellites have come a long way in their short existence, with the EP marking a period of refinement and maturity.

The band's earlier work was much different to the consistent tone of As the Dark Unfolds. They had been only beginning to find their feet as a group with the likes of Waster of Spin.

But there was a moment of realisation, when the band really became Static Satellites, as they wrote the track Fortify – a tune which was nominated for The Weekender's Song of the Year Award in 2020.

Whelan reflects: "I definitely think at first it was difficult for us to find our sound as a band. For our first few gigs, nearly every song in our set was a different genre or tone because we were borrowing from so many influences.

"For me, Fortify was a massive turning point for us in terms of our writing process and finding our own sort of sound and space. Before writing that, I'd say I used to come into practices with the skeletons of the songs with a lot of the structure in place and then it was just a case of the guys filling in their individual parts. We would then remould the structure, drop a verse here or a chorus there until we felt like it flowed.

"With Fortify, we wrote that together completely in the studio and it was actually Sam who came in with the original chord movements which became the verse and the pre chorus. I then added in a chorus, the bridge and the outro chords. Ally came up with these melodies that formed the basis of the chorus vocals. Ciaran kept the track coming and going dynamically.

"For me, from an individual perspective, that was a massive moment because I was able to just break out from these habits of structuring tunes that I had fallen into as an acoustic bedroom musician.

"I think sometimes if I'm sitting at home with an acoustic guitar, I can kind of get a sense of where a song is going to end up and it can get quite monotonous, and I end up singing the same melodies I've been singing for years.

"But to have a full song pretty much laid out in front of us after half an hour of jamming and free reign over this space of new music to reign over, it really felt like a blank canvas to start on. I think that was the first time we made a dent in what we could sound like as a collective."

With the live music sector preparing to recover from the pandemic, it is unlikely Static Satellites will be able to play a launch gig any time soon.

But they are not focusing too much on what has been lost; instead, they are making tentative plans to get back on stage at the earliest opportunity.

Whelan says: "We're keeping an eye out for opportunities to get back out there again but the space the music business was left in was quite a difficult one to operate in.

"Especially for a lot of venues: It's hard to tell where will be open and what bands will be around to play alongside us.

"We're hoping we'll have a clearer picture soon of what's going to be available for us to do in the second half of the year and I'm sure Ciaran will let everyone know on the socials about what our plans are as soon as we know."

He continues: "We are itching to put the last year behind us, get the EP out and get working on whatever project comes up next.

"We've always been quite lucky that we've been able to write as many songs as we have. It's a bit of a blessing and a curse, I suppose, because as new as this EP will be to everyone else, it feels like we've had it in our hands ready to go for a lifetime.

"There's always an air of nervousness to releasing things like this, but I think we're just buzzing to hear what people think of it and we hope we'll be able to play it for them live before we start and finish whatever comes after it."