Interview Welcome to rock school, with Demob Happy!

When the band sat down at their Eastbourne studio to turn the ingredients of 'Holy Doom' into one gargantuan rock monster, they found themselves with an overwhelming amount of material on their hands. So what did they do? Make a venn diagram, of course! “There was '70s, Zeppelin-influenced stuff, tracks with a more modern Queens-y vibe, '60s stuff and then outliers. And in the middle there was the mission statement with a big crucifix, which is what we set out to do with the record,” Tom explains of their typically intricate approach. “We can tear it apart because we are nerds and we're very self aware,” Matt explains. “But at the core, we're just songwriters. If we wanted to, we could be in an EDM band and we'd still write good songs.” Thankfully, they haven't tested that theory out yet...

“If anything, [first album 'Dream Soda'] was a little jarring. One song had five tempo changes in it and this time we were a bit more aware of maybe just having three?” Matt laughs. “It had so many ideas and was trying to be in your face and quite heavy, [so we learned] that it's better to give the things that you do say space to be heard and to breathe. Give someone a second to compute it,” agrees Tom. If this all hints at a pared-back Demob mk II however, then fear not: there are still more ideas in 'Holy Doom''s little finger than most bands' entire back catalogue. “There's a lot for people to chow down on even if we do slim it down,” assures Matt.

Bury down deep into Demob's core and you'll find a strange yin-yang of light and shade. From sweet and sour sonics to playfully dark imagery, there's a sense of these opposing forces meeting in a bittersweet harmony throughout. “I've always had this Catholic guilt about not upsetting people, I was always trying to find the light [side of myself], but I learnt that the two sides only co-exist because there can't be one without the other,” the singer explains. “Everything on the album is an exploration of that. I've always hidden behind two or three different layers of meaning like a defence mechanism, but I'm letting people in just a little bit now.”

The common preconception of 'rock' might have changed from the saucy days of Zeppelin and co. to the current devil-fingered Download stereotype, but 'Holy Doom' finds the trio throwing things back to the days when riffs were deliciously feral and rock got you hot under the collar. “There's a pressure to take all of the human element out of the drums and keep it perfectly in time, but that's not fucking cool,” grimaces Matt. “A lot of what is considered rock now is completely sanitised; to breach the mainstream you have to pop it up. And we're not going down that path, which might be to our detriment in the short term game, but we don't really care.”

By rights, 'Holy Doom' should find Demob Happy opening those doors without making any concessions. Full of intelligent idiosyncrasies but delivered with sweaty gusto, it's a record that draws all of their disparate parts together into one exhilarating whole. Bet that music teacher's kicking himself now.

'Holy Doom' is out March 23rd via SO Recordings.

Taken from the March 2018 issue of DIY. Read online or subscribe below.

Photos: Jenn Five / DIY

Tags: Demob Happy, From The Magazine, Features, Interviews