ALTERNATIVE rockers from the North-East are busying themselves away in the studio as they plan to hit back in style.

With a slight change to their original line-up, five-piece Weakdaze are back in action and are in the process of writing material for their third EP.

Featuring Matty Wallace, of Prudhoe, the group of friends are working hard to build on the good reputation they have gained from their opening two offerings.

Weakdaze caused quite a stir when they hit the scene in 2014 on the back of debut EP Winter, which was followed up with the five-track I Wish You the Best.

After a break for work and college commitments, the band have recruited drummer Jeff Baker to join Matty, Scott Davison, Connor Seymor and Aaron Robinson, and the quintet are preparing to come back harder than ever before.

Aaron said: “I would say our second EP was strung together a bit. We had three really good songs and just added the others as we wanted to release something and let people know we were still a band and still out there.

“We don’t regret it because it was still a good EP, but we are developing our songs and sound. We are coming up to our next one with a completely different approach, and trying out new tones and new ways to make music.

“We released the last EP and did some gigs, but we had a difficulty in finding drummers for our show after ours left.

“Then we found Jeff, who used to play for a band called Picture Frames which had split up, and now we’re all throwing our musical instruments into the pot and we’re taking our time with the new EP.”

The band was formed around three years ago when they all met at various gigs across the North-East.

At that time, their music was heavily influenced by emo music and it went down a storm with local music lovers.

While it only contained two tracks, Winter was very warmly received.

Aaron said: “It was really surprising when we first released the EP, and we didn’t expect the response we got at the shows.

“But when we were getting people singing along and having a nice time, it provided motivation to start taking the band more seriously.”

Weakdaze built on the success by releasing I Wish You the Best, but they are now developing things at a more steady pace.

The latest EP is very much a work in progress, but the creativity has developed to the point where all five members are involved in the song writing process.

Aaron said: “I think we are taking it much more seriously and we have grown up a lot since the other two EP releases.

“Now we want to make something that has a nice tone, and we are mixing our sound with everybody’s influence.

“This time around, we are writing music properly!

“We used to find something good on the guitar and work around that, but this time we want to make songs that have different structures.

“It’s something more complex and more diverse, and we are really focusing on guitar tones and something not in the same vein of other bands.”

While work is ongoing to construct the EP, gigging isn’t high on the agenda. However, they will feature in the pre-show for the Hit the North Festival.

Aaron said: “I’m really happy with the band, and I hope big things can come from this EP.

“We all love the band and are all motivated to make a success of it, and when we release the EP, hopefully a few people will get behind it.

“The aim would be to tour it, because we enjoying making music and getting it out there.”