Fresh from supporting The Cribs through the UK back in December and supporting Frank Carter & The Rattlesnakes through Europe in March, Demob Happy are coming to The Louisiana in Bristol on the 15th April. This is in support of their second album, Holy Doom. They tell the Adver about touring, getting creative and the new album

1 - You’ve been supporting some great acts like The Cribs and Frank Carter & The Rattlesnakes recently, how does supporting compare to headlining?

It's different but it's great. There's no pressure on you personally to deliver, so you're free to enjoy yourselves fully. You have nothing to loose and everything to prove. You're the underdog and you're there to convert people to your cause, so they either get on board or you leave them behind. There's a dynamic there that leads to interesting interaction during the shows.

2 - The album title is split into two halves with the album reflecting both (‘Holy’ representing your potential for kindness, ‘Doom’ your capability for wickedness) - can you give us an example of where we can find this on the album and why you took the album this route?

We had a difficult time personally and as a band in the two years between the first album and now. A lot to overcome, and a lot of new realities to deal with. The album title just reflects this thing that became unintentionally apparent throughout all of the songs, that fighting the forces of good over bad inside ourselves, and in the world, is impossible, without accepting and welcoming your tendencies for evil. The bad is just as important as the good, if you want balance. There's also a tendency inside all of us to stay away from Taboo and things we'd otherwise enjoy, because of deep and outdated senses of religious and social dogma. There's a lot of beautiful things in the world that are subtly oppressed, and you've gotta ask yourself why. I think in looking at those things you are forced to confront what feels dark and taboo inside of you, but if you love it and it brings you pleasure then you should let it free. You'll be a lot more satisfied and rounded as a human if you can.

A lot of the hate in the world comes from fear of what you don't understand, and if you don't understand something it has a power over you, so really you respect its power. There's love there on a deeper level, and we need to bring that out!

3 - How did you approach the album recording being a member down, did the song writing dynamic change?

Only positively. Without talking ill of people, which is something we decided we wanted to avoid, it's important to us that people realise the main songwriters are still intact from the first album, otherwise it diminishes our efforts over the years, which have always been constant. Our sound has evolved naturally, because that's how we wanted to sound now. You should never stop moving as an artist. It's difficult for us being asked a question like that because we're respectful people, but the truth is the truth, and we have to respect our own efforts.

4 - Can you tell us of any experiences you've had in any of the towns you will be visiting on this tour 

On 15th April at The Louisiana in Bristoll will be the last show of the tour so we'll go nuts. It'll be the big blow out.

5 - Anything you must take on tour to survive?

It can become difficult to guarantee a bit of head space in close contact like that, so I always need an enormous hoody and a local cafe or something to sit in. Its something you learn over time though. On our first tours I'd begin to wonder why I was getting irritated and grumpy, then you realise you've been in an uncomfortable van with the same people for three weeks and this is no way reflects normal life. It's for everyone's benefit that you learn how to introduce that normality into your touring life, otherwise you look for sightly unhealthier ways of blowing off steam, which only makes it worse.

6 - You moved from the NE (Newcastle) to Brighton for creative reasons (apparently), have you found that creative stimulation since moving to the south coast?

It was more to do with growing ourselves. We've always been ambitious, but were completely DIY for the first five years, so we had to learn everything through trial and error, and learn the way things work ourselves. No guiding hands. Brighton just seemed like a place where we could see that ladder a little more clearly.

7 - How vital do you feel home town scenes in general are in helping bands develop? can you name check any bands and give examples?

Very important. when you're first starting out as a band you need to be able to look at the other bands around you, who might be slightly bigger on the scene and see what they are doing and how they're doing it, and figure out what you can do to reach that level. I think comparing yourself to a huge band, who you might respect and want to achieve the same things as, is pointless really in those early days because they're so far ahead that your world's are fundamentally different, so having local bands and local promoters and local venues around you gives you that sense of progression, and those visible Stepping Stones towards what you want to achieve.

8- How does it feel to be 10 years into Demob Happy, are you where you want to be as a band? Have you targets, plans, hopes for album no. 3?

I guess 10 years feels like a long time but we were young lads when we started the band with no idea at all of what to do and how to work in an industry that seems completely impenetrable at the bottom. We just had our dreams and big chips on our shoulders. We knew how good we were and we wanted to prove that to everyone. The only thing that's changed two albums in, is the size of the audience. we've gone from trying to convince our mates in the pub of our quality, to trying to convince 800 people at support shows that we're worth something. Comparatively what we are doing now probably felt like going to the moon when we first started, but everytime you achieve one of those smaller steps that light at the end of the tunnel gets a little brighter, and your sense of what's possible shifts.

Everytime we record something new we feel Like We're breaking ground on what we think is possible in terms of songwriting and production of our stuff. We have a very clear vision of what we want to sound like but a more vague sense of how to achieve it, so as we co-produce everything, we're basically learning on the job.

As for concrete ideas on what we want album 3 to be, it all just depends on how the songs start to come together and sound while we write them. Let's see.

9 - After the April tour, what is going to be next for the band?

Were Constantly writing so there's loads of great ideas coming for the next album. It's more a case of when really. we don't want to leave it as long as we were forced to between dream soda and holy doom. I want to be getting something out within the next year and we're more than capable of doing so. If we can keep writing good stuff and hopefully people keep enjoying it then happy days, we'll release an album every 6 months if we can. we always look at The Beatles and what they achieved in seven years, doing 13 albums, and that feels like a baseline to judge what we do from, even if it is kind of ambitious! Shoot for the stars and all that fridge magnet kind of thing.

  • Demob Happy are: Matthew Marcantonio - vocals / bass, Adam Godfrey - guitar / vocals & Thomas Armstrong - drums / vocals.