Eoin Loveless, the 21-year-old singer, guitarist and writer for Drenge talks to John Goodridge about their newly released album, growing up in Sheffield and the upcoming visit to Australia for the Laneway Festival.
Hi Eoin. Thanks for taking the time to speak to the AU Review today. I was just thinking about the Peak District where you’re from and wondering how you think your music fits in with the people that live in the area?
Probably not very well. There’s a lot of old people that live in the area and I don’t think they’d like our band very much. It’s kind of an urban sound and it’s influenced by the guitar music of Sheffield and like Nirvana and the White Stripes. I don’t think that there are many Eighties Matchbox or Pulled Apart fans living in the valley that we live in.
I remember going there years ago and I walked along the peak and there were people out there in their walking clothes. And I know there’s a problem with unemployment in the area. It seems like such a contrast between the “All Creatures Great and Small” countryside and the people that live there.
Yeah, definitely. It’s kind of a hidden underbelly of what it’s like to live in a really beautiful place because it’s easy to imagine everyone has a really great life and has a great job and goes walking on the weekends but the truth is so different. Yeah it’s a wild thing to think that people have a fairy tale perception of what the countryside’s like.
Yeah I think that’s what really stuck me about the music that it’s a really grungy, solid type of music and to overlay that on the countryside is quite funny.
Yeah.
Your band name, ‘Drenge’ is the Danish word for boys and the story is you had some Danish boys come to your school? How do you get on with the Danes?
We played in Denmark at the Roskilde Festival earlier this year and people were really inquisitive about our band name and asked us if we had any Danish heritage and when we told them that we didn’t have any Danish grandparents or forebears or anything they looked really confused. I don’t think they got it at all which is really funny.
I was looking at your tour schedule and you’ve done a lot of tours – locally and Europe and the States?
We haven’t played the States yet, just played in Europe, but yeah quite extensively.
Are there any highlights? Who was your favorite band to play with?
The Reading Festival was really great to play and we played the Leeds Festival and that really something else. It’s mad when you get to tour Europe and put on some shows. It’s really weird when people have heard of us from outside of our country.
So would you say you prefer the smaller intimate club gigs or the big festival shows?
The smaller gigs are where we feel most comfortable but sometimes it’s really nice to do something grand. There’s something really fun about that. There is something there. At the moment we still feel really uncomfortable in a concert environment and much rather play in a basement or someone’s living room and kinda the smaller the better.
So it’s just the two of you – you and your brother Rory. How do you get the sound? I mean it’s a really solid sound. How do mange that with just the two of you?
When we started recording we just worked with made up amps and it was a lot wider and more dynamic than it was and we’ve basically spent the last two years trying to make our live shows more dynamic. About a year ago, I started working with two amplifiers and then about a month ago I started working with three amplifiers and that kinda makes your sound much wider and more brutal. Rory, the drummer has got more technically accomplished and is just stronger as a drummer now. He gets through sticks and drum skins and kick pedals so quick. It’s kinda like a financial burden on our band, but it’s a really essential thing to our sound, but that’s the reason why we sound like we do.
And I was reading that the recording sessions themselves were pretty intense.
Yeah, we went through a lot of takes. I’m not sure that that was a good thing to do but it taught us a lot about our band. You’d do sixty takes and of those sixty takes only the first five are what he song would be based around.
That’s pretty crazy. I always wonder after the sixtieth take, do you get better or just think f* this?
Yeah you just get worse and worse and then you get tired and you get more frustrated and I dunno you get a really negative attitude.
So do you think the producer was aiming to get that feeling out of you or is that just his way of working?
I’m not sure if it was intentional, but I think it really helped because it just made us think about more what we were doing. The one thing that really frustrated me is that we’d be on take 59 and you’d go on take 60 and think, “Why are we still doing this?” We were only doing it because we totally believed in the songs and the work that we were doing, we really weren’t doing it to impress anyone we were just into the music and it was the first time felt actually proud of what we were producing.
So are you happy with how the live sets match up with the recorded music?
Yeah I’m happy with the match because I think there’s two things going on. The recorded version is more like a Nevermind and the live version is more like a Bleach, I guess. There are two very different sides to the live and recorded versions of our band.
So you’re coming to Australia next year for the Laneway Festival. Have you got any pre-conceived ideas about what Australia’s like?
Just loads of kangaroos and a big rock. Haha. Our tour manager has spent a lot of time in Australia in his twenties and thirties and he’s got so many stories about Australia and really loves it so we just always wanted to go there because of what he’s told us. And yeah, we’re really looking forward to it.
Will you have much time between shows to get to see the countryside?
I’m not sure that we will, but we’re gonna make everything count and explore the other side of the world as best we can.
I know a lot of people when they come to Australia don’t realize how huge it is. I know it can be a day trip from Leeds to London, but it can be a day trip between cities in Australia and there’s just nothing in between.
Yeah.
So what can the Laneway audiences expect from the show? What are they in for?
Two very tired, jetlagged, sweaty boys, trying to be real.
Is that something that you struggle with? The constant pressure and tiredness.
I mean if you’re in a touring band and you’re in your early twenties you’ve got nothing to complain about. You should just shut up, because you get to play live music for a living and there’s so many people that would give to do that and I find it really weird when bands complain about how tired they are and it’s kinda, I dunno, a bit soul destroying. But the heat is a definite killer in our band. We’ve played some very hot gigs in the UK and that’s not even Australian heat.
I know you’ll be here summer time and I’ve seen some bands play the heat it’s just ridiculous, but at the same time if it’s a nice day it’s just awesome.
Yeah.
So do you have any particular musical influences?
Far, far too many to list. It ranges all the way from bands I grew up with when I was small like the White Stripes, Nirvana and ranging through to the latest Stray Cats. Not that varied, but varied enough.
Tom Watson, the MP mentioned you in his exit speech from parliament. What are your thoughts on that?
I dunno. It was half a year ago and I just don’t really care anymore. It bought our band a lot of attention, which we probably needed to be fair. Just that spotlight was really helpful, but on the other hand, getting recommended by an MP isn’t exactly the coolest thing. But it gives us a really bizarre story behind why a lot of people have heard about our band rather than something really bland and boring. It’s really funny actually. I not sure there are too many other bands that have broken though that political world I guess.
The music itself came out of a gap year and your rage against the world at the time. Do you think the next album will still have that same feeling of rage and energy or do you think you’ve expelled that now and you’ll be a bit mellower next album?
I think there’s still a lot to be aggressive and angry about and it’s strange because I see other bands that kinda refrain from writing like that because it doesn’t affect them or it’s not their job to make angry music and they to make just escapist sort of stuff. I think I’d feel like half a band. I feel like I’m always gonna feel angry but I don’t feel it’s my sole job in music to write angry songs. I wanna write nice songs. I like nice songs but our first record is not that record.
It starts off with People in Love make me Feel Yuck and I think that sets the tone of the record.
It’s more emotional than it is aggressive. It’s more cathartic. It’s not really looking for a fight, it’s more like an outlet of opinion.
Yeah like we started off talking about the issues facing the youth in the area around Sheffield and to me the album is sort of a symbol of that.
Yeah I think where we’ve grown up has affected our music.
So thanks once again for the chat and look forward to catching you at the Laneway Festival in February.
No worries. Bye.
