The thing I love about At the Drive-In is that when they play live they are such a mess. They are the embodiment of 21st Century punk rock and yet most of their music came out at the tail end of the century before it. Cedric Bixlar-Zavala (vocals) and Omar Rodriguez-Lopez (guitar) were always about the spirit and energy of the music when playing live rather than capturing the technical proficiency of the music itself.
Whilst I appreciate their breakthrough album ‘Relationship of Command’ (2000, also re-released along with ‘Acrobatic Tenement’) I never fell in love with it. The music is great of course but it’s played so stiff and bright and clinically accurate that the very essence of the band seemed to have had dissipated since the record they released before it. So the mini-album ‘Vaya’ (1999) documents the moment where the band got it just right to my ears. The songs are just as well written but the production is looser, ramshackle in places. It is a brilliant record that had no chance of ever selling a million copies, but it doesn’t give a shit about that. It is the sound of a band that has ridden the wave to its very heights moments before the waters break and they come crashing down.
Which brings us to ‘Acrobatic Tenement’(1996), the group’s debut album; it was recorded for $600 and boy does it sound like it. At the time of recording the band hadn’t really played much outside of Texas and the song writing sure doesn’t appear to reflect a group of lads that would later dominate the underground music scene some 4 years later. It is rough but not too fuzzy to dissipate the hook fuelled choruses of ‘Initiation’ and ‘Blue Tag’, the former being a footnote in the second wave of emo which fortunately gained the band kudos from Sunny Day Real Estate and early Mineral fans.
I never heard this record the first time around and now that I have nothing has been added to the At the Drive-In canon of note, saying that it doesn’t take anything away from their legacy either. As an occasional fan I was hoping for something more, some insight maybe to the perfection of ‘Vaya’, but alas, songs such as ‘Ticklish’, ‘Star Slight’ and ‘Paid Vacation Time’ don’t live up to the rest of the band’s discography. Now the group is on the reunion train at least we may get to see them live again, and that is a place where the band are truly masters of their craft. Until then I’ll stick with ‘Vaya’.
Like fellow Holy Roar signings THROATS, MATHS are one of the leading lights in underground extreme music in the UK. I first looked them up when I heard they were doing a show in Canterbury. Their myspace tracks blew me away reminding me of early French emo/screamo band Peu Etre. I loved that band so dearly in the late 90’s/early 00’s and here, finally ten years down the line I came across a band who were worthy of being considered a successor to their crown.
When I saw them play they didn’t disappoint in anyway so I put together 10 quick fire questions that singer Zen scribbled back to me. Here are the results.
– How do you feel about the current UK hardcore scene as a whole and do you feel part of it?
My feelings on the current UK hardcore scene are pretty much non-existant. Maths aren’t really associated with any particular scene, and I think we like it that way.
– With regards to Norwich how have the local bands reacted to your getting a record out and having some success, are people happy for you or has jealousy set in like can often happen within small scenes?
I have absolutely no idea. None of us presently live in Norwich, and I have been the only one that’s lived there in the past couple of years. I doubt there is much jealously to be honest. It’s so easy to put out a record and go on tour now, you can set it all up without even having to leave your bedroom, so what we do isn’t inaccessible or unreachable. One thing I can say though, is that in April we played our first Norwich headline show and the turn out was really good. Lots of people were friendly and made conversation, so it really felt like we were part of a little community. Similar things have happened at other shows, but that’s the most recent one I can remember.
– How did the deal with Holy Roar come about?
In 2007 we played our first tour with Cutting Pink With Knives, the bassist of whom runs Holy Roar. Not long after the tour we recieved an offer to put out an EP in digital only format through Holy Roar. Months later that turned into the Maths/Throats split CD. We don’t have any written deal with Holy Roar, we just email each other ideas for releases and then agree the details of each release that way. It works for us.
– Descent sounds huge and very professional for a debut record. Where was it recorded and what was the process?
Thank you, I’m glad you think so. We did infact record it ourselves. It took many months and was very stressful, however I think it was all very much worth it in the end.
– Parts of And Left To Die have an almost trippy post rock vibe to them. Is this a direction you will be exploring further?
Who knows. Our sound is always slowly changing.. perhaps one day we will just completely shift direction and create something brand new..
– What came from the write up you had in NME if anything?
It’s very hard to gauge the effects of individual write ups, but any media attention like that will hopefully get our name out there some more. To be honest I would rather do interviews for fanzines than, hypothetically, be on the cover of Kerrang. This is simply because I believe that most people that listen to Maths are more than just casual music fans. How many people that read NME, for example, will go on to listen to our music and enjoy it? Very few I would assume. Compare that to the type of people that read the fanzines and the websites and the blogs, there is a much larger chance that those individuals will hear Maths as more than just another screamo band. This isn’t a knock on the mainstream music media, as we will always accomodate them and are always grateful for any coverage we get, it is just the view I have always maintained.
– How do you take a bad review, collective zine wrote a particularly harsh one if I remember correctly? I think they got you guys totally wrong by the way but do you take anything from critical responses at all?
It’s completely fine with us. I believe the Collective Zine community read an angry quote from someone else, or perhaps from Alex at Holy Roar, as something we had said, so it may have blown the whole thing up when it wasn’t even an issue with us to start with. Andy Malcolm, the guy that started Collective Zine, is actually a nice guy and has always been friendly enough to us even if he doesn’t like our music. Any reviews, good or bad, astound me in a way.. I am always shocked and grateful that someone took their time to write anything about Maths at all.
– Do you get annoyed with the constant use of the Screamo tag whenever you are talked about?
Never annoyed, although I don’t think I would listen to Maths and immedietly consider us a screamo band. Our influences are wide spread and certainly not contained within the boundaries of screamo. Tags and names for styles of music is fine though, it helps music fans easily identify new bands they might like.
– What are your future plans with the band?
We are currently recording for a 7″ record that will be released on Holy Roar. We also have tentative plans for a split 7″ with another band, although I can’t say who yet. Suffice to say it will be very, very interested and completely unexpected. In terms of shows, we will always play tours and weekends of shows here and there. Maths is going to be around for a long time to come, as we sincerely love being in this band and we love the satisfaction and chance as self-expression it brings us.
– I am currently writing a book of the greatest albums released the 80’s, of any genre. What do you consider is a highlight of the decade and why?
Kate Bush, Bad Religion and Pentagram, amongst many others, released some great albums in the 80s. Heaven and Hell by Black Sabbath is obviously a (currently topical) highlight too. Also, for my money, and this may seem like a completely generic answer but, My War by Black Flag is one of the greatest albums ever made.
From the bands Canterbury show I took some shots on my camera, here they are. You can go on their website here or their facebook here.
Hailing from Michigan, USA. La Dispute along with peers Touché Amore represent a new wave of 2nd wave emo coming out of the country right now, with their feet firmly planted in the DIY punk/hardcore scene rather than on a hunt for major label funding it was a refreshing discovery to find bands once more adopting a more grass roots approach to their art. On their recent European tour they played my local city and totally impressed. Big thanks goes to vocalist Jordan Dreyer for taking time out of the bands insane schedule and returning my questions. Here we go…
Lost In Rock: How did you discover hardcore, post hardcore etc. what was the route you took?
Jordan: My first experience with hardcore/punk/underground/whatever-you’d-like-to-call-it was probably around the age of 13 or 14. A good friend of mine had an older brother who was really into bands like Hot Water Music, Small Brown Bike, and other No Idea Records stuff, and that friend would burn records of from his brother’s collection (when CD burners were rare) and give them to us at school. The first record that really, really hit me was Forever and Counting by Hot Water Music, and it didn’t hit me at first. The first 2 or 3 listens didn’t connect, but for some reason I kept going back to it. Eventually, I couldn’t stop putting it back in. Something about the rawness musically, the intelligence, and the gargantuan emotional presence–it really altered my perspective on what music was capable of accomplishing. Anyways, we started going to our local record store and really exploring things, and I haven’t stopped still.
LIR. From the photo’s on your blog the European tour seemed incredible. How’s it been? And was it what you expected?
J: Europe was amazing. The shows, the people, the scenery–it was a really great experience for all of us. As a band, it was phenomenal to be so far away and be able to experience a music culture and community that is simultaneously so different and so similar to the one we have back home, and to be welcomed so graciously into it. And as people, it was just great to experience a different place; to absorb the scenery, the immense history, and be able interact with the culture. It was awesome, really. And for the most part, I think, pretty similar to what we expected, though I don’t think we had too many preconceived notions in mind before going over. The turn-outs in some places were a bit surprising, of course, but any time people come to see us a part of us is pretty surprised. Some places in particular were pretty unreal. It was fun.
LIR: How has England Compared to the rest of Europe? What did you think of Canterbury in particular?
J: England was great. Lots of people came out and sang along and what-not; it was cool. Compared to the rest of Europe I’d say it was pretty comparable, save for that communicating with people was generally a bit easier there, given that we speak the same primary language. For the most part, I think, everywhere was pretty similar to everywhere else. Where you’re at a show, the only noticeable difference is the language people speak, the rest is nearly identical. Which, to me, was the best part about experiencing shows in so many different countries in a short period of time. You really get to witness the strength of what art creates, that is, the community, and how it transcends all our differences. As for Canterbury, we had a blast. Of all the shows in Europe, I think Canterbury felt the most like a show back home. The venue was a rented hall, the promoter wasn’t really a “promoter,” and their wasn’t a stage or a green room or anything like that. It happened because someone who loves hardcore put the effort into making it happen. That felt like home.
LIR. Do you still consider yourself part of the Michigan scene?
J: Absolutely. We always will. Michigan is home, the people here are our family, and the experiences we’ve had as a band here have shaped who we are in a lot of ways. And it’s shaped funny. Kind of like a mitten. It’s interesting how proud Michiganders (yes, that’s what people here are called) are about being from here. I talked to a band from out of state not too long ago about their experience in Michigan and all they had to say was “people in Michigan love Michigan.” I don’t know what it is. The auto industry, maybe (just kidding).
LIR: Any recommendations for readers to check out?
J: Brad’s reading Arthur Rimbaud right now and he’s really enjoying it. Neil Gaiman’s Sandman series is unreal. He’s from England. I don’t know. There’s so much good literature in the world, I could go on for hours. Was this a literature question? I saw “readers” and assumed. Now I’m realizing “readers” probably refers to people reading this interview, in which I don’t know what I’m supposed to recommending. Michigan artists? Small Brown Bike, The Swellers, Bars of Gold, Damages, Dire Wolf, Al Green. Other artists? Joanna Newsom, The Mountain Goats, Touche Amore, Native, Make Do and Mend, Defeater, Pianos Become the Teeth. Books? anything by Vladimir Nabokov, Karyna McGlynn’s I Have to Go Back to 1994 and Kill a Girl, Philip Roth, Saul Bellow, etc.
There, some recommendations.
LIR: Jordan, Lyrically At The Bottom Of A River is a very personal album. Singing these lyrics night after night must drive you insane, how do you approach it , does it keep old wounds open.?
J: That’s a really good question. In some ways, yes, it does, and I’ve struggled with that on occasion. It’s healthy, of course, to exorcise issues by expressing them, but I’m not certain dwelling on those expressions allows the separation necessary to make the problem fade. And playing the same songs, rehashing the emotional damage in the process, can’t be the best way to forget something. On the other hand, I don’t know. Going back to things that you know, when you’re honest with yourself, won’t really ever leave you allows you to reconsider, to learn, and to pull new information and understanding from it. Sometimes it’s better not to forget, and to instead let settle and exist. Not as something that dominates you, but as something that is forever cemented in you, with all the other things that make you who you are. In that way, maybe it’s good to rip the scab off. A lot of the more personal songs we play have taken on a whole new meaning for me over time in that way.
Having said that, most times it’s pretty easy to separate the subject matter from the performance. Not in a way that cheapens it, of course, but in a way that reinvents it every night. Every performance is an emotional trip, even when the initial instance that inspired the song isn’t present. The emotional involvement gets reborn in the moment with all the people there feeling something different from me and all the other people there with them. You draw from that–that everyone is feeling something–it doesn’t really matter what exactly it is.
LIR: Somewhere At The Bottom Of The River… reads to me like a concept LP. Was that the bands intention from the get go?
J: Not necessarily. I mean, we planned things out pretty deliberately musically, but the story is less a narrative than it is just a series of stories with comparable subject matter. There’s no running storyline, but there is a thematic consistency throughout.
LIR: How’s the new full length record coming along?
J: Good, thus far, though we’re only just now getting started. We have pieces and ideas and I’d imagine we’ll start piecing them together pretty soon. I’m excited.
LIR: You’re very DIY in approach, which usually goes hand in hand with a lack of funds. When the tour is over are you heading back to day jobs or are you now able to do this full time.?
J: Jobs and odd-jobs and outstanding bills for the most part, but that’s the name of the game. In point of fact, most bands a lot bigger than us still work jobs when they get home. It’s worth it.
LIR: When ever I interview a band I always ask about their favourite 80’s album of any genre. So if you had to pick just the one what would it be and why?
J: Rain Dogs by Tom Waits, then Remain in Light by Talking Heads. Why? Listen to them. You’ll understand.
For any one reading that wants to see the photographs from that awesome Canterbury show La Dispute played click here.
For a moment there I was thinking to myself this is what it must have been like to watch an emo show back in the day. You know the late 80’s when the hardcore influence was much more infused into the sound. Then I realised that there is no need to ponder on what once was because La Dispute are a band very much of today. This is happening right now and when the Canterbury kids get a show come through like this then damn do they make it count.
Unfortunately I missed the first of 5 bands tonight but I did catch WILSON FISK who came across as a far poppier version of HOT WATER MUSIC. In fact their devotion to the band was clear from their t-shirts worn. After their set came the band I was there to see, MATHS. There was no pretence from them, just heads to the floor chaotic hardcore. To watch their drummer Alfie is to watch a man possessed, he is an unbelievable young talent and pushes MATHS far above the other contenders weighing in for the Holy Roar crown. Although it was a busy show there was not a lot of movement in the crowd for the band. Having the band face the drum kit and not the audience didn’t help things but they left having truly battered my noggin. Holy Roar has yet another band that they can be proud of. Top Draw stuff.
La Pre Je Suis Mort have been the main support for La Dispute for their European tour but whilst the band was no doubt having a blast their 2nd wave emo/screamo dynamics failed to totally translate to the crowd. Last song ‘Silence’ (I think that’s what they called it) went on for 12 minutes or so which was so overlong it’s not true. On record the band are scarily good but here, tonight they band came across as filler which is a shame.
It’s been a while since I’ve been to a Canterbury hardcore show and although there were many new faces in the crowd the spirit remained the same. As soon as LA DISPUTE came on the crowd was singing along, full of spunk and vigor. As usual there was a bloody lip or two but it takes nothing away from a great night. LA DISPUTE are as emo (in the horrid sense of the word) as they come but they add so much DIY punk spirit and technical ability that it reminds you that before mass marketing and Kerrang magazine hijacked the word it was awesome to discover a band this good in the early 90’s when the European emo/screamo scene was raging hot. How well does the sound relate today? Well, a quick glance at the crowd and their ultra hip hardcore t-shirts and you realize that not only is there room for this sound once again but it’s loved and embraced by the throng. When a band comes along that is this good, it’s difficult not to leave inspired.
Apparently the majority of the group’s tour has been the same, if there is going to be a 9th, 10th wave of this music then hopefully LA DISPUTE will be that scenes METALLICA. They are a sincere, hook laden, punk fueled rock band at heart and if anybody deserves to be a winner. They do.
Canterbury are a band on the up. They have recently been getting positive press across the board with their poppy brand of post hardcore modern day emo style rock (a description I‘m sure they won‘t thank me for but it does ring true). I met up with the two front men an hour or so before they took the stage at their recent show at the Westcoast Bar in Margate.
PW: So can you introduce yourselves?
L: I’m Luke and I sing and play the keyboards in Canterbury
M: And I am Mike and I sing and I play the guitars in Canterbury, well, just one of the guitars. The other is played by James.
LIR: Fist off and a most obvious question really. Why name yourselves Canterbury? Have you links to the City?
L: We knew we would be asked this question here of all places being so close to Canterbury. We haven’t ever played in Canterbury and this is the closest we’ve come.
M: We are saving playing in Canterbury for a better time I think.
L: We’re going to say for now that the reason is that we checked an online census and the City in England with the most Luke’s, Mike’s, James’, Scott’s and Bens is Canterbury. That’s the one we are going to give to Margate today.
LIR: That’s the thing before I heard your music with a name such as yours I imagines either a progggy 70’s influenced sound or a straight up hardcore din? I didn’t expect at all what came out of the speakers. Canterbury is an odd choice of moniker don’t you think?
M: It’s largely to do with being just a pleasing word, when it’s written down, when it’s spoken.
LIR: What about on a Google search, that’s got to be a tricky one?
M: We’ve only just got on there, if you type Canterbury now I think our YouTube video for Set You Right or our MySpace is the fourth entry that comes up now. We’ve beaten the City… almost (Laughs).
L: It’s working towards a sponsorship deal with Cathedral City Cheese
M: And the rugby team deal.
L: They can make us a nice kit. An away kit sponsored by Canterbury.
LIR: You’ve been together since school and being so young in age have you found it difficult being taken seriously and because you are still a tight unit a few years down the line do you see peoples perceived opinions about you have changed?
L: I think that depends on the way you act. We’ve now had four years experience and we do get taken a bit more seriously than we used to and of course it depends on how the music comes across as well for instance when you show up to a gig and people are like ‘Who are these little kids?’ but whoever your playing in front of are the important ones. I think now that we have been around for a while and people know of us now I’d hate to think that we are not taken seriously. You can always trump a sound guy by beating them to questions before they ask you and you have a little fun with it that way. We have accepted that sometimes we do get treated like morons but then there are as many times when we get treated seriously as well.
LIR: Some of this may stem from the press that you have received in the past. A lot of articles pick up on the fact that when you started out you were not allowed to play live because of school. What is the truth behind that?
L: Well, four of us were in boarding school in Hampshire. It wasn’t that we weren’t allowed to play live but it got in the way, a lot.
M: We had school on Saturday afternoons.
L: Playing gig’s were not the easiest things to do. When you’re boarding you can’t say like, ‘Can I Go and play a show tonight?’ Playing a gig on a Wednesday night and having school at 8.30 in the morning…
LIR: Could you still pull it together at all for weekend shows?
M: Every now and then we would play a weekend show and in the holidays we would try and play as much as possible but we never played that much.
L: Instead we just wrote an album, we felt we had one year left of school so we took it semi-seriously and got ourselves a bit of education. We sat back and wrote an album so at least when it was time to play loads of shows we didn’t have just the three songs.
M: We really did just focus on the writing because it wasn’t really an option to be on the live scene at that stage.
LIR: So you wrote this album during down time at school and after all the work you guys had put into the process you decided to record it in someone’s living room. It seems an odd and risky choice, how did that come about?
M: Yeah, Scott’s living room. We had the album planned out and we practiced the album and only that, rather than have 20 songs and picking 11 or whatever we had what we knew would work. There were a couple that did get taken out and replaced but we always had that (core). We had to record on a budget and we found this Pete Miles guy who at the time who was freelance. He was mobile and had a van full of gear and can literally make you sound so good.
L: Wherever you are.
LIR: That is a good point. From the first listen the album sounds like money as if a huge budget has been blown on the thing.
L: It took 3 weeks and £3,000. There are some records that I wont in any way mention but you hear how much money they spend and how shit it sounds as compared not in such to our record but the quality of the production of our record. Cheekily we did it. Why would anyone want to fly to America to record an album? I just don’t know. It’s not a scrappy album and I don’t think we expected it to come out as it did If I am being honest because all we had were these songs that we had been practicing in a village hall before we ever played live and then all of a sudden when we come to record them they sound way more in time than we do, not that we synthesized any of it artificially but because Pete Miles was so on the ball and he knew exactly how to capture everything we wanted to do. It just came out sounding better than we were. So for the next 6 months we basically had to learn our own record. And live we are sort of developing the songs our selves. Now we are 2 ½ years down the line and that’s where we are at now.
LIR: So it’s been an age since you completed the recording then? Do you get bored of playing these songs now?
L: I wouldn’t say bored of the songs. We started writing the record between the ages of 16 to 18 and we waited until we were 20 and 21 to release it. Opinions do change but we didn’t grow out of it but we almost forgot it was our record and did other things.
M: we’ve only been playing maybe 5 of these tracks since we’ve been playing around and it does get a little degrading. On the flip side as soon as it was released and you see people knowing the songs that only you used to know.
L: It completely re sparked our love for it.
M: It gives the whole thing a new lease of life and there is not a song on that album now that I don’t enjoy playing live.
LIR: I imagine you are tired of talking about it by now but the whole free download thing in hindsight for a new band is such a masterstroke.
M: For the first 2 years after we finished it we did knuckle down and try and get it released and then we thought about paying for a 1000 copies and just giving it out to people in our local scene because that’s how new bands do it. Then our manager found us and luckily we got a booking agent as well and it was they who convinced us to keep it under wraps to see what our options were.
L: A lot of people were thinking where has this band come from? They have this album that sonically sounds like a second or a third album but we basically could not play live.
M: We couldn’t play the record as people knew it; we scared quite a lot of people off.
L: Because we hadn’t been on the live circuit we had no one to release it to. I mean locally we were known and people from our school knew us but we had to wait for a platform in order for us to release it. We didn’t want 20 fans around the country and the record drips on for a few years and you get a miniscule fanbase so we toured for 2 years, built a fanbase of thousands rather than tens and then we released something to them that they could all get at the same time. Our manager was quite reluctant at first about the free download.
M: We didn’t have enough fans to physically release an album to.
L: For me it should be the done thing with a new band, how else can you get as many fans as possible? We can’t charge £10 for a CD when nobody knows who the band is. You can’t expect them to buy it. Saying that we now have released that album for free and we don’t know whether we are expected to release free records for the rest of our lives. There are so many people out there that want an actual CD though, to be able to read the lyrics. I would not want to ever do a release without having a physical copy as well.
M: Films, fair enough. People can pay £500,000,000 for a film to be made. We paid £3,000 to make our record. We paid for it and I would like that money back but we are alright without it. We have an amazing album that we are so proud of out of it.
LIR: (As the doors open and a huge throng of people pile into the venue). Well I can tell you that in Margate you would not have a crowd of this size unless you had done the free download.
M: If we had have charged we would have sold maybe 1000 copies by now. That’s great, we would have grossed a bit of income to put towards a new van or fixing the van or fucking petrol. Doing it this way we had 10,000 downloads in two months, released it in the end of October and by Christmas had 10,000 copies out there. Of course if we had sold 10,000 units labels would be snapping us up. I’m not sure of the final figure but it is somewhere between 15 and 20,000 thousand now (05/03/10). We have had this donation scheme as well and people have been coming back and giving a bit of money, £3 here and £4 there. Some have just given a tenner and said fuck it it’s a good album or whatever.
L: The day we put it up we were in Birmingham on the Billy Talent tour and my phone was going crazy with all the people commenting on twitter and facebook. It was so exciting after waiting 2 years for people to have it.
LIR: And why the title Thank You?
L: It was always the title; it was the title before we had the songs. I’m not really sure why. I think it was a case of ‘that would be a cool name for an album’.
LIR: So what’s with the medical theme, Diver, Accident, Ambulance, Hospital all appear to follow a narrative path?
M: We don’t like to go too far into it because we don’t want to come across and this profound or annoyingly arrogant band but we did write a little story.
L: It was meant to be more fun than say an album that is just a collection of songs. We had those three songs Accident, Ambulance and Hospital which followed the narrative of a person in these situations. So we had these words as titles and when it came to writing the songs we fit the words to each song which is why it flows like it does. It’s there as a clue but fit’s as to what they are about. We came out with this because you asked about it. We haven’t gone around saying ‘We have this debut concept album’
LIR: But it is always mentioned in reviews.
L: A lot of people have picked it up. And we wanted to create that (buzz) as well. I can’t ever imagine releasing music that is simply a collection of songs. It means a lot more this way for us playing it and a lot more for listeners working it out. The best albums always have some journey through them.
LIR: So now you have reached the next level from local band to getting write ups in the national press and playing on big tours, how has playing with the likes of Cancer Bats, Hundred Reasons and Billy Talent in the larger venues affected your attitudes.
M: We had a period during the summer before the Billy talent tour where we did absolutely nothing and we were feeling like we may never play to anyone new ever again. Then in quick succession we had the Billy talent tour, then the Hundred Reasons tour and then we went out on our own. Our first ever headline tour and I was blown away everyday by the turnouts. Even in a place like Stoke, 100 people showed up and there were people singing along to every song. It was what we had been waiting for all that time.
L: It was an amazing step down though; we had just come from being first on a proper big tour, these little boys in these huge rooms. It was a steep learning curve. Those huge shows were really pressurised. If you fucked up, you fucked up in front of thousands rather than dozens. It was an interesting time last year getting a sneak peek of every aspect of success for a touring band.
LIR: Stepping out in front of a huge audience for the first time must have been nerve wracking?
L: We’d played with Enter Shikari and You Me At Six a couple of times so we sort of had been there before.
M: Yet at Brixton Academy when we walked into the backstage area we turned into tourists. Everybody had their phones out. The balconies that never have anyone in them, I’d never seen them from that side of the venue.
L: And there is an evil security woman that’s always there and you could just flash her a pass and you were inside a room where only rock stars go. It sounds really corny but it was an absolute dream come true.
M: It was weird to go to the merch stand and see your t-shirts for sale, 100% dream come true. A massive live box was ticked. At the same time though it kinda feels like we earned it. It felt like we had been working towards that and we weren’t thrown in at the deep end. And of course playing venues that size you can grab yourself an instant fan base. And it was the middle of that tour that the record went active online.
LIR: So what about the future, has a label picked you up or do you want to continue down the online route?
M: It’s only our friend really who put out the physical copy. He does work on an A&R desk at Atlantic records but he runs the Friends Vs Records label. It does have Universals distribution so we kind of have a foot in the door but it was nothing like ’Here is a load of money guys, I’ll put this out”. He is a really cool and hard working guy but it’s not like it’s label backing really.
LIR: So you really are in the same sort of boat as you were previously in the fact that you don’t know how the next record is going to come out?
L: Definitely, yeah. We have this single, Gloria coming out on April 5th which is going to be a free download as well. We have been plugging this away to get on music TV and it’s on a couple of channels already. This should take us up to the summer time. I would like to be able to do a DVD of our story, it’s a fun tale.
M: As for being picked up, there are certain things a label can do for you. One of which is to be played everywhere which is the side of a record label that we really want. But they will pay for billboards and advertising in return for people paying full price for your album but what we could really do with is money to keep us afloat.
L: If I didn’t have to work a job I would be able to focus 100% on the band. After every tour I have to walk back into Tesco’s and it is the most depressing 9 hours of anyone’s life. So for that reason and I will completely unashamedly say it. I would love to get signed.
After the interview the band proceeded to rock the house. Mark in particular was completely chuffed with the turnout and reaction of the Margate crowd proclaiming the gig as his favourite ever show to the young sweaty throngs piled in front of him. I personally was on the fence with them, they are great at what they do but what they do isn’t really what I like. Saying that though, the guys managed to win me over. The song Eleven Twelve in particular is still stuck in my head today. What was most surprising was to find after an absence of Margate gigs for 4 years now there is still a crowd out there, hungry for live music. The future looks very, very bright indeed.
The thing I love about At the Drive-In is that when they play live they are such a mess. They are the embodiment of 21st Century punk rock and yet most of their music came out at the tail end of the century before it. Cedric Bixlar-Zavala (vocals) and Omar Rodriguez-Lopez (guitar) were always about the spirit and energy of the music when playing live rather than capturing the technical proficiency of the music itself.
lostinrock 