Interview – Your Demise
Tonight Your Demise are headlining Birmingham Academy 2 but before the inevitable carnage begins I sat down with Oz for a quick chat about the latest album The Golden Age, touring and their new ep Cold Chillin’.
You’re a week into your headline tour, how have the shows been going so far?
They’ve been going really well, we’ve have had some cracking shows especially last night in Cardiff which was insane, the kids were crazy. Every night the kids are just getting better and better and better. Normally Birmingham is really good as well so I’m hoping Birmingham steps it up for us.
So a particular highlight was Cardiff, any other dates you’re particularly looking forward to?
All the dates really, like London, Manchester, Leeds, Glasgow, pretty much all the shows we look forward to but its mainly Leeds, Manchester and London I’m looking forward to the most.
It’s Valentines day today, you got anything special planned?
Nope! My girlfriend is anti-valentines day which is good for me so I don’t have to do anything like that. Tailby our drummer is my Valentine today, he even took a picture and put me in a heart saying ‘My Valentines’ on Instagram.
Have there been any funny stories from this tour?
Nothing too crazy so far on this tour. Nothing as of yet. Someone did crash into our bus today, it was parked and someone reversed into it. That’s probably the craziest thing that’s happened so far to be honest.
Your latest album The Golden Age has been out for nearly a year, have the reactions from the fans changed since its initial release, have they let it sink in a bit now?
A lot of people didn’t like it straight up but I think for some other people it was a bit of a grower and everyone always focused on the poppier songs. There are more heavy songs that poppy songs but people for some reason focused on the pop songs saying we’d sold out, pop-punk and all that but we didn’t, we just did something we wanted to do. The songs we play from The Golden Age go down really well every night, especially These Lights which we did get a bit of stick for, that’s one of the best songs in the set to play. The kids go wild for it which is awesome.
You got any other favourites off the record that you like to play?
Oh yeah, I love playing the title track The Golden Age, that song is one of the most fun songs to play.
That record sees a lot of guest vocals, if it ever happened you were playing the same shows as said band or vocalist would you grab them on stage?
Oh yeah, definitely! We have done before and if anyone’s available they’ll definitely jump on if we’re playing the songs. There’s a song we did on The Kids We Used To Be called Life of Luxury which Mike Duce sang on, whenever he’s at shows sometimes he sings that. A couple of years ago we were on tour with Letlive and Jason from Letlive actually sung on that song. If other singers want to join in come on over and give it a go.
Your sound has definitely progressed over the last couple of records, was that a conscious decision or natural progression?
Its natural progression, you don’t want to get stuck doing the same things and as a musician you want to push yourself, you want to become a better guitarist, drummer but you also want to write better songs. Instead of just standard verse, chorus, verse you want to do something a bit different, add key changes, put more guitar parts in and chord progressions. Its a natural progression really.
What are your influences then?
There are so many things, we are influenced by so many different genres of music like Hip Hop, Pop-Punk, just Pop music in general. There are so many bands we all like, we just use all that together and that’s what makes Your Demise Your Demise.
So you work with Impericon?
Yeah, they released our last record and we do all their merch for them and their really good dudes and a great company.
Do you think moving away from the traditional record label is something that’s helped your band?
I reckon in some ways because you’re not limited to what you can do and when you can do it. Say if we want to write an album and we want to record it in a couple of weeks time we can just do it, we’re not actually restricted. We can literally do what we want.
Do you think that’s a good thing for up and coming bands?
Yeah, there’s not much money made out of music sales, Even give away music for free, sometimes I actively tell people to download it because at the end of the day the kids who download it are getting into your band and then they’re coming to your shows.
You have a new EP out called Cold Chillin’, what’s been the reaction to that?
So far so good, the 2 songs we play live have been going down very well, Karma the first single went down very well as well which we’ve actually got a video out for which is a bit tongue in cheek like a b-movie. Its gone down very well so far and hopefully when kids have heard the whole of it…it actually did leak, which for me is quite cool because they can hear the whole thing. Oh its only going to be one track that’s heavy or its going to sound like this, its nice that they’ve heard it now and can make their own decisions about it.
You released it as a 7”, is the physical product something that is important to you guys as we moving into an increasingly digital age?
It’s more of a collectable really, even if you don’t play it its nice to have vinyl. I’ve started collecting vinyl, not hardcore records but vinyl from old band we I used to listen which is cool like Fleetwood Mac, Duran Duran and stuff like that. Its cool, its more of collectable thing, its nice though to have vinyl.
What are the plans for the rest of 2013?
We’ve got a bunch of stuff to do, touring, touring and probably writing a new full length at the end of the year. Just keep doing what we’re doing really just keep an eye on Facebook and you’ll see it on there.
Any albums that came out last year that stood out for you?
A band which really impressed me recently is a band called Marmozets and also Young Gun’s Bones was up there as well.
I guess with your changing sound you get the chance to tour with different bands?
The thing is no matter what sound like and what we do its nice to able to play with different bands, just to do something different, bring what you do to a different ground.
Leading from that what would be your ideal festival headliners?
The thing is there have been a few of them that’s actually happened, I would love to see the big four and soundwave was pretty awesome.
Thanks to Oz for taking the time to speak to Birmingham Live.