David R Black – Interview Exclusive
Written by Rich Hobson
Sunday, 27 November 2011 05:00
Formed out of the ashes of various groups from in or around the Manchester area in 2003, David R Black have been plugging away at the UK rock market ever since making a name for themselves on the live circuit whilst amassing an extensive back catalogue culminating in their latest offering – ‘Secret City’, a dark and resonant piece which promises to keep you engrossed throughout.
Having caught the band live on their recent UK tour, I took the chance to meet up with them before their show at Birmingham’s Asylum and give them the third degree – Hobson style.
Hey guys thanks for taking the time to talk with me today, and let’s start at the beginning with how did you guys originally came together?
Sarit Black (Bassist); Well, we were all in different bands to start with. All the bands fell apart about the same time, I started jamming with Dave, I was on drums at the time and he was actually on bass, and we had a different guitar player. We actually had a tour booked, but with no name for the band, so we came up with David R Black, for obvious reasons. The guitar left and we had a line-up change and we got Pai in on drums.
What kinds of bands were you all in before joining together?
Sarit; We were all rock primarily.
David R Black (Vocalist/Guitar): Yeah, I’d done a few kinda thrash bands, glammy rock bands and all sorts, but mostly rock bands.
People seem to find it difficult to describe your sound – how would you describe it?
David; That’s a tricky one isn’t it? (laughing)
Sarit; Alt.Rock? It’s really hard to label yourself as something when other people also try and label you. A lot of people struggle to fit us into a specific genre, so I usually just say “rock” – generally people who like rock like us… Is that a big thing to say? But, rock can cover a lot of things can’t it?
David; Well yeah, we have an eclectic taste in music – I listen to the old bands and Sarit is into stuff like Nirvana, Chris Cornell and sort of stuff like that, and recently you like Alter Bridge don’t you?
Sarit; I’m into everything yeah – Them Crooked Vultures, Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, Green Day…
David R; I’m into more left field sort of stuff – Fugazi to The Pixies, Husker Du… Bands like that. Even sort of “gothier” bands, but its all guitar based stuff – it’s all rock.
Sarit; I think it all influences us to a degree. A lot of people say we have a similar sound to bands like Rush or something like that, and I don’t have anything against Rush but I wouldn’t say any of us are influenced by them.
You have been described as “art-rockers”, do you agree with the tag?
David R; It’s as good as any. As long as it isn’t completely wide of the mark…
Sarit; Depends on how you define “art rock” really.
David R; Yeah because we’re not afraid to explore and be a little different, and we’re totally involved in how we try to represent the band with cover artwork and the like, but it’s not a bad description.
Would you say your musical tastes have changed drastically since you began, and if so how?
Pai (Paul Williams Drums); I think writing and playing-wise it’s changed a lot over the years, as we’ve really kind of matured but the roots are all there.
Sarit; If you listen to all the albums, from earliest to latest, I think a lot of people would agree we’ve started to sound more mature and advanced as we’ve gone on.
David R; We’ve tried to keep it quite raw, really. When you start out you’re in smaller studios, with smaller budgets then as you get on a bigger label you have more time and money and better studios, and it can be easy to fall into the trap of overproducing it. I’d say there’s an element of “DIY” to what we do really. As long as we’re happy with what we’re doing, the music progresses as we go along, but we’ve always tried to keep that raw feel.
DIY is perhaps the best way to describe your band, a band who have shunned major labels in favour of controlling their own music and exposure, cutting your teeth playing real rock ‘n’ roll rather than chasing quick success thanks to a settee commercial. Was it a conscious decision to take all matters into your own hands, and if so why?
Sarit; Yeah, it was always the plan to keep things in our own hands. I’m a firm believer of “why wait for someone to do something for you when you can do it yourself”? We’re very pro-active; always have been and always will be if other people want to come in and take over for us we’d still be our own band.
Were there ever any offers from labels that made you question the choice?
David R; We’ve had a few meetings with some “big” labels who have approached, and I think it’s the artistic control that is a lot of it.
Sarit; We own all our own rights to everything we’ve ever done.
David R; It’s being free to judge the music that we make; we’re quite exact in what we do, and we have very high standards, and ultimately you can’t get onstage in front of however many people and make them believe in what you do if you aren’t 100% passionate, and we always have been.
Is there any advice that you would give to other bands that wish to take up the DIY approach to music?
David R; Be proactive.
Pai; Yeah, you’ve got to really wanna do it; it’s a lot of work and a lot of commitment and you have to really want to enjoy it.
Sarit; Yeah, you definitely have to enjoy doing it – there’s not exactly a lot of money in the music industry unless you’re selling hundreds and millions of records.
David R; I know lots of bands who sell lots and lots of records who don’t really see much money from it. It depends on how much the label signs you out and if you can keep hold of your rights for as long as you can. And don’t be afraid to get out live and promote. I think the X Factor culture has given so many people the wrong idea about it – people think now you can go on a programme like that and within 3 weeks you’re famous. You’ve got to really put in the effort, put the work in.
Sarit; There’s always going to be good and bad shows, but if you really want to do it, do it.
Pai; It’s a lot easier to strike out individually these days though, with the Internet and ITunes.
Sarit; A lot of access and coverage you can get for yourselves.
Artists like Ginger Wildheart have also opted to take up the DIY Route, using websites like PledgeMusic to fund albums, would you ever considering doing something similar?
Sarit; I don’t really know – I’m in two minds about it. If people come to the gigs and support you that way, buying the tickets and merchandise I think it’s a lot to ask them to put in towards CD’s as well. I know some are like “if you pledge so much you’ll get a signed T-shirt with it” but it still seems a bit too much to ask of these people who are already supporting you.
Pai; With larger bands it’s definitely a lot like that – fans are already spending a lot of money on you, but with smaller bands where you don’t really have a budget then they can do that and if they really believe in the band and they like it I suppose it’s a way to start.
David R; I think the jury’s out on that one Rich (laughing)
Sarit; At the end of the day any support anyone can give to the band is oh so welcome. To me, if it’s just turning up to the shows, spreading the word, promoting the shows or getting people to the shows, it’s really appreciated.
Pai; Yeah, it keeps us moving, keeps us going.
2011 has seen David R Black release ‘Secret City’, as well as seen you play various international dates in support of the record. So I guess the obvious question is how has 2011 been for you guys so far?
Sarit; It’s been all right; we went to Finland earlier in the year and did some good shows over there. We’ve been there before, but it was years ago, we’re hoping to go back and play some shows over there and in Europe next year.
David R; Most of it has been focusing on the record, I think. It’s a LITTLE bit of a departure this one – it took a long time to make… About 18 months to make it which an awfully long time. We could have so easily gone and remade that last album, ‘Hearts And Stars’ but we’re not that band, we’ve grown up from that so we’ve needed to give it a new album and put a new perspective on it. It’s a little bit of a chance really what we’ve done with the new album, growing up from what we had, but so far all the fans who’ve heard it have been in touch and loved it and saw it as a real album.
For ‘Secret City’ the press release states that you decided to “delve into some of life’s darker themes” – what was the prompt for this, and what were your influences when building up to the writing of the album?
David R; With ‘Hearts And Stars’ we toured for a really long period of time and in different countries, and you meet so many different kinds of people all over the world and it’s the duality I think – people’s feelings are universal wherever they come from, and everybody is dealing with the same issues – they’re in love, or they’re not in love, they’re happy, or they’re not happy and I think it’s all that kind of thing where we have our own issues which we share with everyone else. It’s all the complexities of life – not trying to make things simple, but trying to distil it and that’s what we tried to do for the album.
What are your favourite tracks on the album, and why?
Pai; I’m loving ‘Ezra’ at the moment – it really ties the entire story in. ‘Crawl’ I really like to play. Its satisfying, the big heavy chorus and all that.
Sarit; Like the Pixies – it’s good to play in the car, the tempo and the beat of it.
David R; ‘Secret City’ I still really like – it was difficult to put together. And ‘Ezra’, I get quite a kick out of it because it’s quite simple. ‘Another Day’ I really like as well, but we don’t really play that live…
Sarit; We play it at acoustic gigs.
David R; We don’t really do ballads, not ballad ballads we just never really do them, but I do like it – it’s got a certain wave to it.
How was working with Joe Gibb for the production of ‘Secret City’, and how did the arrangement come about
David R; We’ve known Joe for quite a while, he’s quite a maverick, he’s a crazy Welshman! He’s very talented, a very brilliant, brilliant producer. We’ve known him so long – he’s kind of like one of the band now. He gets really involved; we have rows amongst ourselves and with him, because he’s so involved and as passionate as we are, so it creates energy.
Pai; It’s a good vibe, always good to work with Joe.
How did the ‘Panic Room’ tour come about?
Sarit; We did a few shows with them before this year, and we just got friendly with them. They were planning a tour about the same time we were, so we decided to knock heads.
David R; It’s mostly because we’re friends – we got along very quickly and this tour was sort of a friends kind of tour. We wanted to get out to play some shows, and they were so we got together and put it all together. We’d taken quite a big gap out from touring, which is odd when you’re out on the road only taking gaps out for when you’re recording, for a long period of time which turns into 4 or 5 years, you kind of just ease back into it and it worked out really well.
How has the tour been for you so far?
Sarit; It’s been good, been cool. We’ve enjoyed it; I’ll be sad when it ends. We’ve got a few more dates left, and then some in November and December. It’s been fun, it’s been interesting and it’s been wild sometimes.
Pai; It helps we’ve had the friends vibe being out with people who are easy to get on with, and you all end up like a team.
David R; Yeah you all end up in that bubble of being on tour together. It’s been drunken in places, messy in places and I’ll in places.
Sarit; Everyone has had the tour flu.
Any highlights?
David R; The London gig was brilliant, the Borderline was brilliant and the Manchester gig was wild, out of the box. I was pretty tired at that one so I was pretty wild, but I think the gig itself was really quite good.
Pai; York I quite enjoyed.
Sarit; Leicester last night was quite good. Newcastle is always good – we’ve got quite a few friends in Newcastle.
Your website says you have played with bands like Living Colour, Three Colours Red etc. – who have been your favourite band to play with so far?
Pai; New Model Army I always thought was fantastic – I always really liked them. Living Colour, I’ve always been a huge, huge, fan so I was floating around for ages after that.
Given the opportunity, who would you play with and why?
Sarit; Currently? I really love Alter Bridge, or Them Crooked Vultures.
Pai; The Alter Bridge tour would be really good for us I reckon (laughing).
Having played Europe, UK and USA, are there any other places you would like to visit?
Pai; I’ve always fancied Japan.
Sarit; Yeah, Japan and Australia.
David R; It’d be a great culture shock.
Sarit; We could do that big festival – “Big Day Out”.
Where would you say had the best reception of your live shows, outside of the UK?
David R; We’re accepted all over Europe really, it’s actually the UK that’s the hardest.
Who would you say are your biggest influences in terms of performance style?
David R; I don’t really style myself on anybody really, I just do whatever feels right. Being a 3 piece, it’s limited in as much as you’re only a 3 piece band, but it frees up a lot of room. It bonds really well – that’s the really good thing about being in a 3 piece – if it works it works really well.
Since your first gig together as a band how would you say that your approach to live shows has changed?
David R; Nah, we’ve always pushed as hard as we can live, and we’ve toured with a lot of older, more iconic bands, from bands like Living Colour to The Mission. If you’re playing with multi-million selling bands, and you’re playing bigger arenas, obviously your show has to change with that – you have to try and reach all the people. You start out playing to 40 people, and in the UK we still do smaller gigs but as you get to Europe you start playing to 1,000, 2,000 people and you have to start trying to get right to the back of the room. You have to push out much more energy.
Pai; It’s still simplistic though.
Sarit; Yeah, we’re not about the gadgets.
We run a feature at Uber Rock called “Hell’s Gigs”, where artists basically talk about disastrous gigs that they’ve put up with in their time, be it due to their own issues like being drunk, or issues like crowd aggression, poor promotion etc. have you ever played something you would consider as a gig from hell?
Sarit; We’ve never really had problems with crowds but we have had amps explode, strings snapping, symbol stands falling off the drum riser and nearly hitting me on the head…
David R; Playing a festival with chronic alcohol poisoning! After a horrific bender in Holland the day before, our merch guy had just turned 21 so we thought it’d be a good idea to go out drinking for hours then play the festival. We tend not to do that because we don’t really think it’d be fair on the crowd, but it happens.
What are your plans for the future, in regards to touring and new material?
Sarit; As we say, we’ve got a few gigs left at the end of this year, and we’re going to put a tour together for Spring, and try to get some European shows, then start work on the next record. It’s all on the chalkboard at the moment – we don’t really know where we’re going to go with it till we get there.
Any departing words of wisdom?
David R; Support live music! If you’re in a band, rock hard!
Sarit; You should keep it live, and see any bands be they big or small. Smaller bands need the support more.
Pai; If you want to keep bands out there, they need the support, so do it!
And with those pearls of true musical wisdom still fresh in our minds it’s probably worth reminding you that David R Black are about to play their final gig for 2011 at Manchester’s Ruby Lounge on December 4th. Why not pop along and check them out and do just as the band ask you to “support live music!”