“I got fed up of being drowned by milk cartons!”
With their UK tour and second album ‘Undertow’ being released, Drenge have a busy month ahead. Drummer, Rory took some time to have a chin wag with me.
You’ve got your UK tour coming up – excited?
I cant wait. I’m gagging to see the sight of a service station again! I haven’t been to Bristol or Norwich in a while, looking forward to going there.
You’ve got more people coming on the road with you this time, you going to drive eachother mad?
It’ll be good. Fingers crossed no pranks. Last year our merch guy poured Travelodge milk cartons all over me at 8 am, safe to say I am not a morning person.
You’ve chucked in some European dates whilst touring the UK, any particular reason or just to spice it up?
We just haven’t been to Europe recently and its nice to go around, plus we love Paris.
You’ve announced some festivals in the UK like Lattidude and British summertime supporting Blur, you excited to be part of Blur’s kind of ‘Comeback’?
Yeah I am looking forward to it, I mean Im not a massive Blur fan and I wouldn’t say we were similar music but I guess it makes it more of a show. We played before rolling stones before though which was amazing, then we had to do another festival and no one turned up, so we missed the stones and had a bag gig. Even my parents chose them!
Is there a festival you’d love to headline?
Primavera festival in Barcelona would be sick – they always have great music. Don’t keep ya fingers crossed though.
NME gave your upcoming album ‘Undertow’ a raving review of 9/10 and described your sound as ‘less of a progression but a rebirth’ do you think that’s fair to say?
Actually, yeah. I would have described it as a natural progression but its definitely a rebirth. Starting again, from the bottom and working out way back up.
You’ve gone from just the two of you now to having a bassist – what was the reason behind that?
Well I mean it was never supposed to be just us 2, it just kind of happened and no one wanted to join! Then we decided to add the bassist as being a duo gave us limitations and we didn’t want that. We’ve known him since school and we were like “Do you want to be in our band?” and he responded with “Yeah, if it pays well!”. It went from there.
How would you describe the evolution of your sound from the first album to this one?
Obviously, the addition of the bassist. Also we’re better at plugging instruments now, we’ve learnt how to actually write songs rather than instinct. Its more atmospheric – the production of it has just progressed.
Your Album is our on the 6th of April, are you excited to get it out there or is there always that fear of what the reception will be like?
I’m excited! I’m very proud of it and can’t wait to get it out there. We’ve played some of our new songs live for a while but I can’t wait to get it all out on the road.
See those service stations again! With all the time put into the album and now touring the next month, what the hell you going to do afterwards?!
Just keep writing, when I stop for a while its hard for me to get back into it. Keep on writing, keep them juices flowing.
HANNAH RYAN 