Death to the Strange (Interview)

Death to the strange is group that delivers well balanced folk music, with a side of smooth percussion and a dash of electronic sounds and effect. We found time to catch up with John, Clarkey, Adam and Rob after their victory in the first Converse Music Fresh Meat battle of the bands to find out how the guys stack up.

The band (who began as a duo called Colonel Clank & the Clowns) claim that the name of the band derives from a mixture of references, be it a poem written by band member John, hours spent reading Hunter S. Thompson; it’s gonzo, or a lyric in a song by Rob and John from an older trip hop band.

John: “About six years ago I met Clarkey, we were in two separate bands, The Joint & the Moods respectively, who are good mates and often play together, we ended up being good friends. I met Jamie through mates in Salford at about the same time.”

Rob: “Me, John and Adam all met studying music at Salford University and kind of came together for the band, though me and John had played together before I joined Death to the Strange.”

Like many new artists on the Manchester Music scene, Death to the Strange were eager from the start to perform their diverse sound to the public.

Clarkey: “We have played all of the top venues in and around the Manchester area and other selected areas around the country but to be honest the greater gigs we enjoyed have been in Amsterdam and Strasbourg, where we found the crowd were more interested in the music, rather than in Manchester where the BEER culture seems to take over unsigned live gigs, although Night and Day and Dry bar in the northern quarter are always fun.”

Adam: “We’ve got a lot of material so we try to make each set list different. There isn’t really a consistent set closer but we have tunes that always go down well. “Drink and the Devil” is a great song to play live because it gets the crowd going, but we like to throw in some slow, reflective tunes like “Old Man” and “Fools Follow Rules.” I think it’s important to have a mix of dynamics and texture in a set list rather than knocking out half an hour of lively material. If some people at gigs find a few songs too melancholy, or down tempo then that doesn’t bother us. We don’t do requests.”

John: “Nah, fuck playing covers.”

It is important to perform live early on to get a feel for how your music is received. This also helps the creative process.

Clarkey: “Me and John are the main writers in the band at the moment, but we also know we have a band of writers that can also write songs which we will work on in the future. My songs are quite personal to me, as a lot of songwriters probably are but I tend to write about the struggles of life at the same time as writing about the best things in life. Some of my lyrics I suppose are quite depressing (some might say), but at the same time they have a great sense of positivity about them, I feel the music has to capture the feel and the concept of the lyrics as they are as important, although a lot of artists these days will disagree.”

It’s not all plain sailing when creating new music or performing the live circuit; surely there have been some difficulties?

Clarkey: “The band name! How hard is it to come up with a good band name? Death to the Strange works for me!”

John: “There is no challenge, we enjoy it.”

Rob: “That said, we had a few setbacks when some gear went missing from our practise room. We adapted and learned to get by without the stuff, but it’s been a pain trying to find another place to rehearse and store our equipment.”

Death to the Strange are eager to move forward get themselves known.

Jamie: “We are like any other band, we do it for the love, but I think I can speak safely for all when I say that we wouldn’t complain if it paid the bills. For me personally, what merits a successful band could be many things. I love it when people come up after a gig and say they really enjoyed the gig, but that isn’t paying my rent at the moment. I want the band to be respected above anything by people who are into good music. This means more than money, but with this hopefully we will be able to live comfortably from it.”

John: “We had a gig at a well known venue in Manchester. Me, Clarkey and Rob were there waiting for Adam to show up with Jamie in his car. The thing is that we all know that Adam won’t just park up and get to the gig, so he circled round town a few times until it was too late, and we had to go on stage. So me, Rob and Clarkey are all stood there looking like a complete bunch of twats ready to do this gig, with an audience that knows us so everybody is wondering where the fuck the band is. So we played some tunes and about half-way through the other two lads show up. Everyone in the audience starts going ‘WHAY!’ But what they don’t realise is that it will take two songs time before Adam can set up his pedals so we keep playing and then finally we’re all ready to play a couple of full tunes. Next thing the sound engineer comes over and tells us that our set is finished. So everyone in the room goes mad and Jamie started shouting ‘The guy’s a wanker’ over the booing. We tried to carry on the gig but he cut off the sound. Never mind. Best gig ever.”

Adam: “There are not enough parking spaces, and too many over-zealous wardens in the northern quarter.”

Rob: “My favourite one was when Clarkey ripped into this over-dressed moron of a heckler in St. Helen’s over the mic.”

Jamie: “Arguments with arsehole money grabbing tight promoters usually end up funny. Plus let’s not forget the harems of girls that are constantly badgering us at gigs. Or maybe I’m lying about that.”

If you get the opportunity don’t hesitate to see these guys live, we here at 4Q would like to thank them for making the first Converse Fresh Meat night a great success.

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