All The Damn Vampires – Interview Exclusive
Written by JJ Michaels
Tuesday, 08 June 2010 05:00
It’s around 4pm on a glorious Sunday afternoon. The sun seems more radiant than ever, not even a cloud in the sky! Anyone would forgive me for thinking I was in the Sunshine State known as Queensland! However I couldn’t be further from the truth. As I glance out of my car window I’m instantly hit with the concrete frenzy that is known as Cilfynydd Industrial Estate where Unit 40 recording studios are situated.
Cilfynydd is a village a mile or so from the South Wales valleys town of Pontypridd. Over the years Pontypridd has been the birth place of many a musical character including Lostprophets, members of Funeral For A Friend and even the mighty Phil Campbell of Motorhead!
The list of acts above show that there is a lot of talent waiting to be recognised in Wales, especially from the valleys. I’m not sure if it’s the fighting desire to get out, the genuine raw talent or the unique com
bination of both that makes the Welsh valleys such a breeding ground for exciting new rock acts, the degradation acting as the dirt where a mad-cap, rocked-out rose can grow.
Unit 40 Studios is the setting for my first interview and the band who are the victims of this are self proclaimed gutter punk outfit All The Damn Vampires, a newly formed 3 piece that hail from the teenage pregnancy capital of Europe known as Merthyr Tydfil.
With skull crippling riffs and a fuck-you attitude, you must say your Hail Marys to deter your ear drums from getting torn to shreds by their infectious tunes. These fresh rock minstrels are far from dull, in fact, they are hot on the heels of their counterparts…
The trio are focused on making a jurassic/formidable dent to the current climate of commercial rock and I can’t see anyone stopping them. To take a quote directly from their website… “Expect blood, sweat and beers!”
First up… How are you guys doing?
Matt: Very well at the moment, nice and busy. Everything is going good and the EP is out and doing well.
Stixx: Looking forward to the future.
Introduce yourselves… Who are you and what do you do?
Matt: Hi, I’m Matt. I play drums and sing.
Stixx: I’m Stixx, play bass and sing. Our missing member today is Gav, he plays guitar and also sings.
All the Damn Vampires is a very catchy, unique name and to me seems very “Lost Boys”. How did the name come about?
Matt: Well, we were knocking around having a few conversations about the band, names for the band and we just happened to get into a conversation about films and it turned out that all of our favourite film was indeed, The Lost Boys. Cut a long story short you are spot on… that’s exactly where it came from. If we are truly honest we were infact gutted that the best name from that film had already been taken by Death By Stereo, so we had to settle for second best, haha.
You’re one of the new names to the booming Welsh music scene, but to many your faces may look familiar from previous musical conquests. Tell us at Über Röck a bit more about your background…
Matt: Well myself and Gav were in a band called Midasuno. We were on the rock scene for
about 10 years before we epically imploded, haha.
Stixx: I was in a lesser known band, playing drums, called Flailing Wail.
Did you also epically implode?
Stixx: Ummm… No. It wasn’t so much of an epic implode for us… it was more like the end of the line. Again we had been doing it for about 7 or 8 years and we reached our maximum potential and it was time for us to go our separate ways.
Matt: Very diplomatic of you! Haha.
In reflection with your previous rock outfits have those past experiences in anyway altered how you go about things with ATDV?
Matt: We learned a lot of things from Midasuno. If anything we learned a lot of how “not” to do things. We had all the empty promises and shit from labels, bands, managers and stuff so we are kinda doing this with the perspective of not to expect too much really. We can hopefully learn from the mistakes of our previous bands and turn it into something positive instead of something negative.
Stixx: I can only agree with that. It was the same for myself with my old band, we had the same empty promises and people saying how good a band we were. We would then expect to turn up to shows with loads of people there to watch us but it would always be one man and his dog.
Matt: We know how hard both bands worked and never stopped. Neither of us just expected to go out there and something would happen, we know that you have to work like fuck! None of us have any pre-conceptions and we know exactly what we have to do to get anything from this.
Do you feel you have a lot to live up to with your previous bands or is that all in the past now?
Matt: This band is completely different to anything either bands ever did before. Personally this band is myself, Gav and Stixx. We play the music that we like playing and everything is written three ways. Everyone is part of the writing process so in terms of that it’s awesome to be able to do something that we are all ridiculously proud of. It’s awesome, the songs are like all our babies.
Stixx: In that sense as well I think we have surpassed what we had done in any of our other bands. Well for me personally anyway I think I’ve definitely bettered myself in this band.
Matt: Before this band I don’t think any of us had turned our hands to ever write a song before.
Stixx: Before this band I was a drummer, haha. So I’ve never EVER attempted to write a lyric….
Matt: I’ve always just been a drummer! I’m really proud that we have done this and done it ourselves, there has been no outside input or anything and we are really fucking proud of it!
Thinking about it you should have formed a band like Flint, Keith Flint of the Prodigy’s solo project with dual drummers!
Matt: Nah! Next thing you’ll be saying is we should have two bass players, haha.
How did ATDV form?
Matt: After our previous bands split up myself and Gav basically dug ourselves into a hole where we had a fuck full of music and didn’t really want to do anything. That wore off quickly! Chris Morgan who was in Midasuno was already working on his new project called Accident Music and Scott from Midasuno was doing his thing with Exit International. So Gav and myself started talking about doing something and decided to have a jam. To cut a long story short that’s where it kinda came from. We did have a fair few line-up changes before we got here mind… We were writing songs but it was never that kind of gel that you need to be in a band. As far as Gav and myself were concerned I never really saw this band as fully started untill Stixx joined. That’s when it all clicked and felt right.
Stixx: It was all very instant as well. From the moment I was invited to be in the band I felt like a band member. I didn’t feel like I had to come in and earn my position, I was instantly given free rights to input any ideas I had not only creative rights but also managerial rights. Everything in this band is done by ourselves from booking, promotion, artwork and we all have our equal share.
What are each member of the band’s main musical influences?
Stixx: Well, we all pretty much share musical influences…
Matt: I think we all listen to a lot of different stuff but as for writing for the band there are a select few bands that we are all on exactly the same page as… such as The Wildhearts, The Bronx, Cancer Bats, Gallows, Every Time I Die and, to be fair, we do wear our influences on our sleeves but I don’t personally see that as a bad thing. We don’t claim to change you life musically, we just enjoy playing the music we like and want to make you dance!
You’ve recently released an EP on Unit 40 Records entitled ‘Live From The Gutter’ – Tell us a little about this release and what inspired the title?
Matt: The release came about through the band using Unit 40 rehearsal rooms to practice. At the time Stixx wasn’t a member of the band but he was one of the owners of the rehearsal rooms and studio. The other owner was Mike, he mentioned they were thinking of starting a label. We decided to badger them for a few months and it all kind of went from there. Title-wise we made a real conscious effort to make it as live and raw sounding as possible. If you 
listen to it, you can hear that it was recorded over four days. It’s practically as live as a recording could possibly be. There’s no auto-tune, no heavy editing, no effects or shit like that. Not even a guitar overdub! It’s exactly as you would see us live. There are places where a guitar slips out of tune and vocals are slightly out and that’s exactly how it’s intended to be. We had zero budget so we pulled all our pennies together to make this EP. Even the artwork was done by ourselves. So the ‘Live From The Gutter’ title basically sums up that whole recording process of having no money and trying to make it sound as real as possible.
If you could turn ‘Live From The Gutter’ into a feature length film to help the readers at Über Röck get a taste of the EP what would be the synopsis and who would play the lead characters?
Matt: It would basically be ‘Twilight’ but without all the poxy teenage drama nonsense… loads of fucking! Loads of fighting! And not to mention partying! I would have myself as the lead character, played by Forest Whitaker… or possibly John Candy but he’s dead. Gav would have to be played by Will Ferrell and Stixx by that guy who plays McLovin from ‘Superbad’, haha!
Stixx: I’d love that ! Haha in all honesty that guy is fucking hilarious!
Over recent years rock music has become ever more popular and increasingly radio friendly. Has this commercialism in any way compromised your ‘sound’?
Matt: No. We never set out to be commercially successful or commercially viable. It’s not a conscious effort. We just want to play music that we enjoy playing and we hope there are enough people left out there who appreciate music in its rawest form and don’t just look for haircuts, clothes and pretty fucking faces. To be honest you are going to get the exact opposite from us.
Stixx: None of us go out of our way to write songs for other people. We write for ourselves and for me if people like the songs that’s an added bonus.
Matt: As long as it has a riff and a big chorus we are happy!
With 2010 almost half over, what’s next for the band, short and long term?
Matt: At the moment we are promoting the EP as much as we can. We are trying to work on a local level and build an awesome local fan base which seems to be working. A little further down the line we want to take it on tour around the UK but at the same time we are trying to write our album which we are hoping to start recording towards the end of the year, possibly the start of next year.
Stixx: We are taking things one step at a time, we aren’t trying to force this album out and I’m sure it will come together as it comes. As Matt said we want to start recording it by the end of the year but if we feel we ain’t ready to record then we have time and there is no rush. For us the EP is strong enough to stand on its own at the moment.
Matt: There are a lot of people who haven’t heard the EP yet and I want to change that before we record the album. I want everyone who can possibly hear it to hear it before we think of going back into the studio.
As the bunch of nosey buggers we are at ÜR we want some dirt or at least some news that we could call an exclusive. With that in mind, give us one thing that no one in the world knows about your band right now?
Matt: Stixx and myself are in a gay relationship, haha.
Stixx: This is true… there is a very strong homosexual bond between me and Matt.
I can feel the sexual tension in the room!
Stixx: Gav’s definitely not going to like it when we are on the road! Especially when he finds us necking in the back of the van, haha.
Finally…. Everyone seems to be obsessed with labelling bands into genres and placing acts in pigeon holes, so… instead of telling us what you actually sound like, for a laugh let the readers know what don’t you sound like?
Matt: We don’t sound like 99% of the stuff you are going to hear on SCUZZ or Kerrang! TV.
Stixx: In fact any of the bands you see In the magazines these days…
Matt: That’s not intentional either, we are just trying to do our own thing. It also helps that we are not really into what’s hip and cool at the moment. Can I add we definitely don’t sound like Rammstein! Haha.
To keep with an Über Röck tradition, we would love it if you could list the first five shuffled tunes that appear on your mp3 player!
‘Dog House Boogie’ – Seasick Steve
‘Waken The Fallen’ – Avenged Sevenfold
‘I Got To Pee’ – NOFX
‘Breed’ – Nirvana
‘She’s Here In Voices’ – BlocParty
Cheers guys, thanks for talking with us at Über Röck, we wish you all the best with the EP ‘Live From The Gutter’. You can buy the EP now from;
www.allthedamnvampires.bigcartel.com
Label: Unit 40
www.myspace.com/allthedamnvampiresband
