Music > Interviews

Don Broco

27/07/16

Don Broco, formed from out of a Bedford high school are a curious and fascinating beast of a band. Starting off with a punk rock sound, their new album Automatic has shifted to a dancey, summery 80’s vibe – I defy you not to cut a rug to it. They’re touring the UK in a very novel way this time around..but I’ll let Rob tell you about that special treat. Suffice to say their fans will be chuffed to pieces with this genius idea.

 

You’re coming up to Norwich to do two dates at Open on subsequent days. What’s that all about?

 

It’s an idea we had about a year ago. We were always disappointing people who wanted to hear album tracks that they loved when we played live, so we said that if one day we had the opportunity to do both our albums on the same tour we would. Now everyone knows the new album, we haven’t played the songs from the first album for a while, so we thought we would do a two album tour where the first night we play the first album priority in its entirety and then the second night we play the second album in its entirety. It enables everyone to hear the songs they want to hear.

 

I’ve never heard of a band doing that before. I’ve heard of people doing anniversary shows, playing their best selling album in full, but this is a new concept for me. It’s great that you’re doing this now and not waiting for 20 years to do it!

 

Yeah totally. I mean we’ve seen bands do that where they haven’t played an album live in like 20 years but we thought we can’t be bothered to do that. We don’t want to wait 10 years to do that so let’s just do it now!

 

It’s such a treat for your fans isn’t it?

 

Totally. I think it’s really important to listen to your fans. We are one of those bands who do like to listen to their fans, you know, we read all the tweets. We always ask what they want to hear and when you’ve only got 45 minutes to an hour then you don’t have time to play all the songs the fans want to hear so people are always going to get disappointed. So it’s nice to know that no one at all is going to be disappointed this time!

 

Which is the song you most look forward to playing live?

 

This is tough, but I think for me its a song we still haven’t actually played live called Tough On You which is bit more of a slow burner. It never felt right within the set planning over the last year since we’ve been touring Automatic, so I’m stoked to finally get to grips with that, learn that and finally get to play it.

 

 

 

Will having two days in each city mean you’ll be able to have a look around a bit more than you usually have time for?

 

Yeah it means it will be a little bit more relaxing in the sense that you get to the show on the first day and you set up and get ready and once we’ve done that we can just leave all our gear at the venue and it will be ready for the next night. It means that we can just chill out and look around at the cities that we are going to be playing in, get some drinks, and it’s a little more chilled than having to pack up really quickly and running off the next day.

 

You’ve been together for eight years now, but you’ve all known each other since high school. What did you sound like as a band when you first started out playing together?

 

When we first got together we didn’t have a clue, which has kind of been the vibe since we’ve gone along really! Every time we write an album we mix up our sound and try to evolve into something different. I remember the first time we played I think we were doing our GCSE’s and playing at a Sixth Form charity night. I think we played one original song and five covers. We did covers of Bloodhound Gang, Deftones, Incubus and Busted!

 

So you were already aiming high already at that point?

 

We just wanted to be like all our favourite bands, and I think that’s how most bands start - you just play what you’re listening to. We started playing our own music but every song probably sounded like a rip off another band’s song. Then we slowly found your feet and tried to find something new from that, take in what we learnt and what we listened to and tried to build something original from that.

 

One of the first band names you came up with was Club Sex which is genius. Do you think you could set up a side project called that, and what sort of music would you make?

 

We did release two songs under the name Club Sex. We remixed our own songs but didn’t know what to call it. It wasn’t electronic, it was chilled but it didn’t really sound like a dance remix so we named it Club Sex Mix. A lot of people thought that there was this other group remixing our songs for us!

 

 

Kind of like Enter Shikari’s Shikari Sound System?

 

Yeah it’s kind of like that because they can sort of fit what they want to do electronically under that name. It all fits under that bracket. It’s a way of us doing anything we want as long as it has a different vibe to it.

 

You’ve released two albums now, Priorities and Automatic. I wondered what the titles you gave those albums meant to you when you chose them?

 

Priorities felt right once we’d written the title track. It felt straight away like it was going to be the name of the album and the first song on the album and it was the first single from the album. Looking through the album as well there was a quite a lot of deliberating between the topics, prioritising yourself over other people or prioritising one thing over another -  it just felt right because it just summed up the album. Once we’d made that it was quite obvious that should be the album title and it automatically felt like a more positive album and it felt like a lot of the songs without meaning to were about that mantra of just living your life and taking those opportunities when they come. the lyrically was also very straight to the point and was obvious what it meant and again just felt right

 

Your latest album Automatic has quite a different vibe to it, less rock and more indie, with even a bit of an 80’s feel to it, I’d say, and the album cover suggests that as well. Does this herald a change in direction for the band?

 

I think it was definitely a big change for us. We wanted to make a mark with every one of our albums, to distinguish the album from the last one. For Automatic we brought in more of an 80’s style, and also the vibe of the bands we’d listened to growing up. It felt like a very summery party album which really works for us. It’s something we’ll take forward to our future. We’re a band that definitely want to make each album different to the last one and be constantly changing it and challenging ourselves musically. I think when we get to grips with the next album it’s going to be a completely different beat to the last one.

 

That’s really exciting for your fans, to not quite know what to expect.

 

Totally. I think that’s what all my own favourite bands did. We just started on our new album and we’re going to be playing a few songs from that on our tour.

 

So what would you say has been your career highlight so far?

 

That’s a tough one. I think probably getting to play some of the festivals over the years, you know playing the ones that you grew up with as a kid. Reading, Leeds and Download were really cool and getting to cap off the tour at Brixton Academy which is the venue that I went to the most growing up as a kid you know. I’d go down on the train from Thetford every couple months when one my favourite bands would come through so that would definitely be up there with one of the best ones.

 

I know you have just been signed by Sharptone in America and I was wondering if you were hoping to get an American tour set up soon?

 

America is somewhere we’ve been thinking about for a while now but is a really tough cookie to crack and somewhere you have to do right. A lot of bands go out there and don’t do very well..you know, it’s big and tough. I think we’ve found the right label as well, they are so positive and excited and for a brand new label we couldn’t have hoped for anything better. They’re a great bunch of guys who love us as a band and love Automatic so hopefully we’ll be getting out there later this year and start touring America.

 

Your lyrics appear to be very personal. Do you write all of them yourself, and is it sometimes hard to sing those songs if they are about difficult times for yourself?

 

Yeah I write them but I sometimes some of the other lads will have an idea, we can all jump in. Obviously our lyrics are all very personal about something one of us or one of my friends has been through that we’ve talked about and I can relate to. I think whenever you talk about something personal or something you have more of an insight with you’re going to be able to talk about it with more conviction. There’s a little bit of space to weave a little fiction in and flexibility within that but I think if you know what you’re talking about from the start then it’s a bit more real and more relatable. Yeah, that’s the way we do things.

 

Don Broco play two shows at Open on 13th and 14th of August – both shows are now sold out.