Friday 27 July 2012

The Do's Interview

We speak to Elliot of up and coming Wakefield band The Do’s about the recording of their first EP, set to be released on Philophobia Music in the Autumn.


After releasing a demo, and then appearing on the excellent PHOP split, what are your hopes for your first proper solo release?

If the EP sells anywhere near as well as the Spectemur Agendo EP that we were featured on we will be chuffed to bits. Rather than sitting back and leaving it all up to Rob Dee (Philophobia Music) we're going to promote it as much as possible ourselves by taking it to gigs and that. I don’t think there is anything wrong with a bit of self promotion so long as you’re not shoving it down peoples throats.

You are recording at Greenmount Studios - known for a pretty stripped back but upfront sound. What are your hopes for the sound of the EP? Will it be a live sounding beast or will you be experimenting?

I think me and Matty would pay to go to Greenmount just to watch the vintage tape machines go round and round. Its a great place to record especially as Lee, Rob and Jamie get what we're about, The first thing Jamie ever said to me when he first did the sound for us at The Hop was "Do you want it sounding massive?" and i just thought "I like him already." We're kinda keeping the sound the same as our other releases but we have been experimenting with song structures. We had some constructive criticism about the length of some of the songs and I think we had the new band thing where we were slightly too in love with our own riffs but we've been concentrating on that and now we think if the song don't need it then leave it out. No middle eights for the sake of it.

What format will the record be released in, how many tracks are we talking?

It's going to be on CD and download and available through Philophobia Music. I think we're aiming for four tracks

You have a pretty big sound for a two piece, have the reactions to your live show being positive?

Yeah we've had some great feedback. I kind of think it's funny that some people might look at the two of us on stage before we play and think the bass player hasn't turned up. I think the best show we've had so far and the most fun was at Long Division, We had a really good crowd and really enjoyed it. It's always nice when someone comes up to you after the gig and says that they enjoyed it too.

How have the songs come together for the EP? How is the songwriting / arranging split between the two of you?

I usually bring a riff or song idea to rehearsal but they're never really finished. I’ll show it to Matty and we just work on it and try to give it a structure. Matty is good at that side of things, he comes up with good ideas for structures. I'm enjoying been in this band more than any other that I’ve been in before because of him. He's not just the drummer in our band, he's my best mate.

Words: Dean Freeman
Photo: John Jowett


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