Band of the month - February 2010

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Our band of the month is

Drive by Disco

Interview

Drive by Disco is

David Lewis (vocals/guitar)

Ben Langrick (bass, electronics and backing vocals)

Michael Pozerskis (drums and backing vocals)

Rob Willars (lead guitar)

The four guys started their band career as "For The Record" and started playing the stages of Leicester in 2007. Last year they revamped their set list and changed their name to Drive By Disco.

As Far the Record they played a sensational set, to a packed and frenetically excited room, at one of the successful Secret Skins Parties at Streetlife Club, revealing themselves to be capable of performing as top class act.

In November 2007, we wrote: "The Glastonbudget Festival's selection showcase night was the setting for the For The Record. They sang six songs, two of them from their new EP. David provided the lead vocals and can carry his voice over the backing instruments with ease, and is the song-writing powerhouse of the band. Poz, the drummer and Ben the bassist also provided vocal accompaniment in some of the songs.

"The band opened its set with "You Caught My Eye", a song with memorable lyrics and a strong melody. What marks this band out, is that they know to write songs that can remembered after the set. Catchy rhythms, strong tempos and thrusting beats ensure that most people are going to warm to this band.

"For The Record are part of a clutch of young bands who often play together and represent the cream of young indie talent in Leicester. Whilst some of the others tend to be pop-punk, these guys have more a feel of acoustic, classic rock.

"For a young band they played with remarkable confidence and polish. David, the lead vocalist plays most of the songs with an acoustic guitar accompaniment. They work well on the stage and they work their audience. This is a band that is growing stronger all the time. If they get signed within the next twelve months, no one will be surprised. "

"Their set ended with their hit song "High School Royalty", strong riffs, catchy lyrics and definitely a song which marks this band out from the rest.

"In April 2008, they were on the first heat of the OBS and played a strong set, including their hit song "High School Royalty". FTR also played a couple of their new songs. Some favourites were included in the set like "Desert Island" from their 2nd EP.

Last year we reviewed and said " Now with added synth samples, the band has completely revamped its sound and has come up with a very enjoyable set of dance songs. This was their first gig as the new band and I could see it going down really well when they eventually put their stuff in front of a large, happy crowd. It's got the vibes, it's got the energy, it's got the beat to move audiences. Strong sounds with compulsive rhythms and all the potential of great floor-fillers, I see the new set going down really well with the right crowd. Catchy beats and belting songs pumped by Dave's powerful vocals, backed by Poz from the drums, these are guys with their fingers on the pulse of contemporary dance music. I liked it a lot."

Armed with their new sound, heavier and rockier than before but still with the same distinctive sound, Drive by Disco are now making waves on the Leicester scene.

Artsin: How long has your band been playing?

Drive By Disco: As a band we have been together since 2007 with 'For The Record', but at the beginning of summer 2008 we decided to change our style, taking a year out to write new material and re-vamp some of our stronger songs that were in the writing process with 'For The Record'. This took a lot of time and effort - mainly due to the introduction of electronic samples - but we were finally ready for our first gig as 'Drive By Disco' in November 2009.

Our interview with Drive By Disco

Artsin: How did you meet? How did the band form?

Drive By Disco: We all met at school and Ben, Rob and Poz formed a band at a fairly young age. However after a year with that band they decided to invite Dave to join them as he could actually hold a tune, which was more than could be said for the rest of us!

Artsin: What was the first gig you played and how did it go?

Drive By Disco: The first gig we played as 'Drive By Disco' was at Sumo back in November 2009, and was comically bad! W knew we wouldn't have anyone coming to watch as we are all at uni in different towns, and our friends from Leicester were all over the country at their respective universities so we were relying on support for the other bands. However, when we turned up for sound check we were the only band there, and when the other band finally turned up 2 hours late, they decided they didn't want to play anymore as they'd run out of time to have a sound check, and ran away. Brilliant! As bad as it was though, it was still an amazing gig for us as after nearly 18 months without playing live we were just glad to be back on stage in Leicester and sharing our audio ecstacy with the world! (even though 'the world' at this particular gig was Trev and two men dancing about with toilet roll)

Artsin: I don't remember that, was I pissed by any chance?

Artsin: What style of music do you play?

Drive By Disco: Errrrr always struggle with this description, but we'd hope it comes across as upbeat, electro rock which makes you want to get up and dance and chant along. We mix rock with rave to try and give the feelings of both a rock concert and a night out at the same time.

Artsin: What are the main influences on your band? Which other bands do you like most?

Drive By Disco: We've always looked to Paul Chuckle for inspiration (but definitely not Barry!) as he is constantly overcoming the calamitous situations his brother is getting him into, and we like to draw from his inventive qualities in our times of need. Another influential factor with this band has come from gigging with our previous band for 18 months, and the amount of samey, dull bands we heard whilst waiting for our slot who all sounded like a bad attempt at the Arctic Monkeys. We didn't want to be another one of those bands so really try hard to stand out from the crowd with the energy of our set and the fact that our sound is unique. We take influence from our favourite bands which range in styles from Enter Shikari to James Blunt, and Ben takes influence for the synth samples from his random love of hardcore trance. Generally speaking we like the same music, with favourite bands including Enter Shikari, Biffy Clyro, Blink-182 and Lost Prophets.

Artsin: Who in the band writes the songs? How do you do it?

Drive By Disco: Generally speaking Dave will come up with an idea for a song on his acoustic, play it to us at a practice and from there we'll start to work on it as band project. Generally we get to know the structure of the song before elaborating with our parts and adding synth lines, but we are constantly chopping and changing samples, song structure and strumming patterns to find the best mix. Some songs, such as 'Because I Care' on our latest E.P 'One Foot In The Rave', were written purely as synth samples and we then added the other instruments after.
Sometimes, if we are getting nowhere with the songs we are working on, we'll spend a day just jamming together and write a song from scratch, which was the case with 'Tonight', and we can then go on to tweak it in the next few weeks. We write our songs with subtle subliminal messages as we plan to be the next Pied Piper, stealing all of Leicester's music fans as they follow us to our secret underground writing studio which the God of Music built for us after he heard we had found 'The Funk', before we bugger off, get on a plane and conquer America next month.

Artsin: Which comes first the lyrics or the melodies?

Drive By Disco: It is completely random as to which comes first. Sometimes Dave will have a subject matter which he wants to write about and will then write lyrics and a melody. Ben and Poz will then tell him that the lyrics are like something from High School Musical, laugh at him for a bit then send him away to write new ones, and he always comes back with something good!
Other times one of us will come up with a melody, sing it badly into our phones so we don't forget it and then go on to write lyrics from there. Some of these melody recordings are pretty hilarious as we're trying to sing them in a way which means people around us won't hear that we're singing into a phone.

Artsin: What do you think of the live music scene in Leicester?

Drive By Disco: Amazing because we heard that an amazing electro/rock band called 'Drive By Record' or something like that come from there. For small bands Leicester has some really great venues like 'The Shed', 'The Charlotte' and 'Sumo', but there is a lack of large venue for seeing the more successful bands. We would absolutely love to see a venue like Rock city or an O2 Academy in Leicester as then our thousands of fans which we ordered the other day would all be able to come and see us, and there would be more chance of local bands getting support slots at big gigs.

Artsin: Which is your favorite venue?

Drive By Disco: The Shed probably but when we sold out Wembley it was pretty awesome!

Artsin: Do you mean the Wembly Arms, the one down the road from the Cock and Wallet in Walthamstow?

Artsin: Do you ever perform covers?

Drive By Disco: We do a pretty amazing cover of what we feel is one of the greatest songs ever written: Five - Keep on Movin
We play at parties sometimes and if we are we'll spend a few weeks learning some of the more popular songs such as 'Mr Brightside' and 'I Kissed a Girl' to cover as people always love it.

Artsin: What plans has the band got for the year ahead?

Drive By Disco: We're playing the last gig at The Charlotte which should be a mental night, will have been signed by Universal Records by early May and will release our debut platinum album, before playing a sold out UK Arena Tour over summer. To get away from Autumn which we find as miserable as a grieving cod, we'll have a crack at America and Asia, and plan to play a gig broadcast live from Space on New Years Eve. If things don't go to plan we'll switch to plan B; playing gigs around Leicester, Oxford and Nottingham - but that seems unlikely.

Artsin: Bit of a come down from the Wembley Arms then. So, which other bands have you supported?

Drive By Disco: We had a gig at the Athena supporting 'The Futureheads' and 'Pendulum', but it was called off for security reasons which was a tad annoying.

Artsin: Yes I heard that rumour too. Couldn't have been anything to do with the promoter by any chance? Have you been on radio, either having tracks played, or done an interview?

Drive By Disco: Not yet with 'Drive By Disco', but give it a month and you won't be able to switch on the radio without hearing us.

Artsin: What do you think of Kasabian?

Drive By Disco: Well you'll have to excuse me as my Arabic is not as good as it used to be, but I'm fairly sure Kasabian is a common Armenian surname, originated from an Arabic word, Qassab, meaning a Butcher or Slaughterer. If I'm correct then yeah I love Butchers. I'd rank sausages in my top three cylindrical meaty snacks.

Artsin: Just as well you didn't tell us what the other two were.

Previous Bands of the Month

The Manhattan Project, Backline, Messini Assault, Beat Club, The Utopians, Breek, Subdude, Full Circle, Forty More Autumns, Razmataz, Smoking the Profit, The Heroes, The Truth, The Chairmen (Oct 08), Kids in Cars (Nov 08), Formal Warning (Dec 08), The Steptoos (January 09), The Pennyhangers (February 09), Project Notion (March 09). Skam# (April 09), Shortwave Fade (May 09), The Waits (June 09), Kill The Batman (July 09), The Fazed (August 09), Autohype (Sept 09), Weekend Schemers (Oct 09), AstroManiacs (Nov 09), Azidify (Dec 09), Kicking Habits (Jan 10).