Latitude 2015 Drenge talk surfing, Thom Yorke being a “punk”, everything else at Latitude 2015

Following their 6 Music set, the brothers Loveless give a bonkers chat backstage.

Words: Jamie Milton
18th July 2015

Drenge are never shy of quote gold, but backstage following their Latitude 2015 set, they cover everything, from comparing playing live to “surfing” and why they can’t play with Wolf Alice every night.

Following an early-afternoon set on the BBC Radio 6 Music stage, the brothers Loveless went into very detailed specifics about what it’s like to play live when everything’s almost going wrong. They compared it to Kelly Slater’s Pro Surfer games.

They also had plenty to say about tonight’s special guest, Thom Yorke, and where they rank in the “punk” stakes at this year’s festival.

Catch up with our report from Drenge’s BBC Radio 6 Music stage set here, and check out the full post-set Q&A below.

First question - are you the most punk band playing this festival?

Both: Didn’t Ed Sheeran play last night? Bang! You’re not gonna get a straight answer, bro.
Eoin: Let’s look at the fucking line-up.
Rory: Is Bob Geldof playing? Really? I’ve never really delved into Bob’s discography.
Eoin: Ok, so here we are. We’re here with the Latitude line-up. Are we more punk than Alt-J? Yeah. Wild Beasts? Yeah. Caribou? Yeah. Santigold? Yeah. Summer Camp? No. Portishead? Yeah. James Blake? Yeah. Laura Marling? Yeah. Lianne La Havas? Yeah. Jose Gonzales? Yeah. Punk rock - it’s a funny one. Savages and Bad Breeding are definitely more punk rock. King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard. Are they more punk or are they just better? Nadine Shah, she’s quite punk.

What about Thom Yorke?

Eoin: He’s not punk rock, though. I know he releases stuff on BitTorrent. He’s changing the rules of music.
Rory: Who the hell does he think he is?
Eoin: He’s post-capitalism. BitTorrent suggests towards a more post-capitalist interpretation of the music industry, which is a capitalist shithole. Apple Music, Beats Radio, the music release day moving to the Friday - it’s a redevelopment on what we know about music.

Right. So how was your set?

Eoin: It was the closest I’ve come to surfing. There was a level of danger. I could have fallen off the board at any time. My voice was going, the guitar was going. But there was just a bit where I could get through it. You know when you’re in the wave. You’re in the barrel. Have you played Kelly Slater Pro Surfer? When you’re in the barrel, you’re pretty much fucked unless you press triangle loads.
Rory: But when you’re in the barrel, if you get a couple of combos right, it works.

When did the combos hit for your set?

Eoin: Rob brought a lot of the combo game. Bass throw, bass catch. He was bassing it.

Eoin, are you going to become a permanent fixture of Wolf Alice’s set, with these cameos?

Eoin: I think it’s a special treat. As in, it’s not going to happen today. The fiddly bit in ‘Moaning Lisa Smile’. It’s too much. I’ve gotta do that. We did Benicassim festival last year, and we flew with RyanAir. The Courteeners were nobheads to us on the flight over. And RyanAir left all our shit back in Manchester. So we got there, and our tour manager suggested we used Kodaline’s gear.
Rory: Kodaline’s gear sucks, basically.
Eoin: What happened is we actually used Wolf Alice’s gear. And I had all of Joff’s pedals. It wasn’t going to be a good show to begin with. So to make it better, I’d just stamp on random pedals where I didn’t know what they would do. The volume would suddenly go up, and then there’d be wobbing noises.
Rory: It was a bit like playing Kelly Surfer’s Pro Surfer, on Xbox. You get an extra analog stick, but they’ve taken the d-pad away.

Tags: Drenge, Latitude, Festivals, Features, Interviews