Neu Cymbals

What’s the best way of finding out lots and lots about a new artist in quite a short period of time? Just ask them lots of questions really quickly (or fairly quickly, in this case).

We put our quickfire Q&A to Dan, keyboardist in London trio Cymbals, whose debut album ‘Unlearn’ will be released through Tough Love Records on 9th May.

Why did you, personally, join the band?
I really liked Jack’s solo songs - he’s a great songwriter; we had a few conversations about music and were into a lot of the same stuff, like Talking Heads and Pavement. I was interested in his ideas about trying to play dance music with live instruments.

Where did you all meet?
I met Jack through his brother-in-law, who’s a friend from university. Jack and Sean met at uni, and then bumped into each other at Field Day, not knowing that they had both moved to London. I first met Sean when we all had our first practice together. We got drunk, jammed some post-rock, then decided never to play post-rock again.

When you first started to get into music, who was your favourite musician?
I have two brothers who are quite a bit older, so I pillaged their cassette collections a lot when I was a kid. I don’t remember ever having just one favourite, but the Jean-Michel Jarre, Dire Straits and Queen tapes all got pretty worn out. When I started developing my own tastes independently, I got into Nirvana and Blur. I still have every album made by the Cardigans, the Divine Comedy and Moloko too. All in all, I was pretty, pretty cool.

Name one album that would appear in your Top Five of all time so far.
‘Hounds Of Love’ by Kate Bush. I love how she lures you in with three cast-iron bangers, then somehow gets away with an experimental song cycle that includes some genuinely terrifying moments, some very hammy voice acting, and an Irish jig. I often have arguments with our manager Stephen, as he likes to claim that Never For Ever is better - it has some incredible moments, but there are also some right clunkers on it, like Violin and Egypt.

Where’s your favourite place to record?
Probably our regular practice space in Netil House in Hackney. It’s pretty much a shoebox, but it’s our shoebox.

If you had to learn a new instrument, what would it be?
I should probably learn to play my synth properly at some point.

What’s the best track you’ve ever written?
I think ‘Jane’ might be our best track. We write all our songs together, but Sean wrote the bulk of this one. It’s quite simple but very moving. I hope it might become a fans’ singalong anthem, like ‘Live Forever’.

How would you like people to listen to your music?
While dancing.

What has been your favourite moment in the band?
Probably one of the moments when we’re working on a new song and it starts coming together. We’re all in sync and realise we’ve written something pretty good, almost accidentally.

What’s your favourite ‘being in a band’ perk?
We probably don’t exploit it as much as we could, but it’s nice to see lots of great bands for free and get free beer.

What would your superpower be?
It would be nice to have a super memory. Jack and Sean find it hilarious that I have to write down all my synth parts so I don’t forget them.

What’s the worst job you’ve ever had?
Probably being a chugger, knocking on doors trying to get people to sign up to charity direct-debits. I got a lot of doors slammed in my face, and got very cold and wet in winter. One of my workmates was a compulsive liar who claimed to have a six-octave vocal range (Mariah Carey has four and a bit), be a semi-professional rugby player and to have spent 10,000 hours writing a book in the style of Andy McNab.

Are there any parts of being in a band you’d leave out if you could?
Probably the admin-y bits, like arranging kit-share, transport etc. We’ve been amazingly lucky with how many people have helped us out with that stuff though, so we’ve been able to focus on writing, playing and recording.

Where would you most like to be right now?
Watching a Prince gig in his hey-day.

What’s your most unappealing habit?
I have too many unappealing habits to pick just one.

Would you ever go solo?
No, I don’t think the world needs to hear that.

What was the last magazine you picked up?
I’d like to be able to claim it was some cool music magazine, but the truthful answer is the Guardian Weekend- my housemates and I religiously do the quiz in the back every Saturday.

Recommend us a new band.
PAN are a great band who are playing our album launch on 16th April. They write ridiculously catchy hooks and clever vocal harmonies, and have really funny lyrics.

Where would you like to be this time next year?
Playing on a revived Top Of The Pops with some great pop acts like Janelle Monae or Katy B. Or Barbados.

What’s next on the cards for CYMBALS?
We’re going to be recording on a boat on the Thames in May, which is really exciting. We’ve got something like ten part-written songs, and just need to find the time to finish them and get them recorded. We’ll be releasing a music video soon which was made by our friend Dan Brereton. He’s a brilliantly talented film-maker, and has really captured our sense of humour. We’re hoping to do more stuff with him soon.

Cymbals’ debut album ‘Unlearn’ will be released on 9th May via Tough Love Records.

Single Printed Name by CYMBALS