5 Questions
with...
1. If I knew absolutely nothing about Victory Pill,
how would you describe the group’s music to me?
-- Its groove based electronic rock!! i think its
got quite a dark edge to
it, im a big fan of the later depeche mode albums which had that feel,
like 'Ultra.'
We tried to make the album diverse so it wasn't all 'balls out rockers'
like the intro tune 'Downfall' which is a great track to open the album,
it was important to have tracks like 'king and country' and 'salvo'
which show a different side, as well as a few instrumentals, as we are
all into our dance music and wanted to have a few tunes on the album
that represented that.
2. If I were to buy your new self-titled album,
what songs should I pay particular attention to and why?
-- i think my favorite 3 are 'King and country'
'Worst case scenario' and
'Another clone' they sum up the album and band well as each is quite
different musically and represents the albums depth musically.
'King
and country' is very electronic with very little guitar really for
me! quite anthemic, where as 'Worst case' is one of the most 'live'
sounding tracks on the album, it has live drums all the way though
and
is more punk sounding that other tunes on the album. 'Another clone'
also sums us up well, i love music with big groove based riffs and
'Another clone' is one of them for sure! It always goes down well
live,
a real headbanger!
probably the most personal song lyrically on the album. Below is
an
outline of the songs lyrically meanings.
King and Country:
ive always been fascinated by both world wars, in particular how
the men
didn't give a seconds thought to joining up to defend our country,
especially in world war 1, i think that sort of patrioticness is
almost
frowned upon these days, i cant see the youth of england putting
down
their ciggies and xbox's for any cause! its amazing to think how
young
the soldiers were as well. 'king and country came about after i found
out at a family get together that both my great grandads were gassed
at
the somme, both never recovered and suffered awful health for the
rest
of their shortened lifes, that really inspired me lyrically for the
song. i wanted to get across in lines like 'question not what your
told,
they know best,soon be home' the complete blind faith most of the
men
had in their incompetent generals, also 'forget your name, won't
be
missed' was meant to reflect the utter waste of life that occurred
especially at that battle. I think its seen as pretty uncool of our
generation to give a toss about what happened back then, but we should.
The chorus 'Give my liberty to fight your enemy, i'll follow you
to the
end..its all for king and country' - was meant to show the absolute
faith the men had in the cause and unfortunately their leaders.
Worst Case Scenario:
anyone who has been in the music business for a while has probably
had
alot of ups and downs to say the least! i got introduced to it very
young. The song is basically about getting to that point where you've
been let down and lied to so much that instead of thinking positively
about things you plan for the 'worst case scenario' so you dont end
up
disappointed i've been there and its not good, when you first get
in
a band you-re full of enthusiasm for music and forget about the dark
industry side of things!! ive been in bands that have been shafted
and
dropped and it made me quite twisted about the whole business..
BUT
i
have to say by doing this band and album im a changed man!! thats
why we
did it all d.i.y mostly, we wanted to have total control over it,
there
was no 'getting ready for the let down...no shock anymore' as we
were in
control, there was no need to have a plan c. the 3rd verse reflects
that
new hope and not letting the past taint the future "Don't care
enough
to dwell now, all good from now on" so although it may sound
a 'doom
and gloom' song its actually the opposite. musically im massive
fan of
The Jam, they never got much recognition outside of the u.k i dont
think, bands like the clash were massive in the u.s, i think the
jam
were far better both musically and lyrically, the chorus of 'W.C.S'
defiantly has a bit of weller about it!!
Another Clone:
this is about how so many bands now sound and look the same, there
was a
period 10 years back where rock and dance started merging for the
first
time that loads of amazing , fresh sounding new bands came out,
it was
an inspiring time, these days i look in the rock mags and ever
band sounds and looks the same, big emo fringe, iron maiden influenced
lead
harmonies and big 'melodic' choruses that come after the 'screamy
heavy
bit'!! im sure it wasn't always like this!! rock bands now seem
to
be
as much manufactured as pop.
Thats were the whole 'bring out another
clone' line comes from, its as if theres a factory somewhere
churning out band after band that have the sound that 'hot right now' ive
always
just written the type of music i like and am best at, i dont
give
a fuck
what big at the moment, im sure i good knock up an emo style
album in a
few days but i wouldn't ever want to play it!! i have to write
music i
believe in and want to hear. the line 'keep moving with the trends,
your
gonna have your time...(out)' is just a little dig at the longevity
of
those sort of bands, yeah feel free to follow the trend but i
bet my
house you dont get to album number 3!!!!
3. When and where did the band form, and where did the
name come from? -- The band formed
in 2003, i basically started writing alot of
instrumental music which i eventually played to our bands bass player
Kieron Pepper who was blown away and insisted we form a band and get the
music out! That was obviously my plan but having no singer was a
problem, we auditioned a few but none fitted so me and Kieron decided to
do it ourselves. Id never done vocals or written lyrics before so i
found i had loads of ideas and a voice! i like the fact that i dont
sound like what is 'hot right now' my voice is very rough and ready and
english sounding i think which was important to me, it had to sound real.
We the hooked up with a local producer called Pete Crossamn who
produced a few tracks for us after which we realized he was exactly on
our wave length so we asked him to join the band! He takes care of the
synths and laptops live.
Ive always wanted to do my own album as i felt i'd done alot for
'other peoples' bands in the past so its been a big ambition for-filled.
The name 'Victory pill' came about in quite an odd way, i had 2 main
ideas for the band name, 1 was 'red pill' and the other 'v for victory'
but neither were strong enough and had been done before by many other
bands,but by merging the 2 together we got 'Victory pill' which i loved,
it fitted perfectly the whole atmosphere around the band that i was
trying to create through the artwork. Im a big fan of the soviet second
world war propaganda and also the 1984, big brother, owellian theme. So
the name really matched that vision, the idea of
a pill that guarantees victory being taken by an army or worker! i
could imagine something like that in the novel 1984 or in the russian
propaganda posters, hence the album front cover.
4.
What was your worst on stage experience? What was your
best?
-- I always have dreams about my equipment not
working but to be honest i haven't yet had a bad experience with this
band! With Pitchshifter we
all sorts of things happen, JS the singer was knockout cold by a stage
invader who didn't like what he was saying about the state of our
country and in America we've had 'gut tooting nazi's' waiting for us
after gigs, again because of the anti-facist/racist stance of alot of
Pitchshifters music. So compared to that Victory pill gigs have been
quite uneventful! The best ones would have to be the ones we have been
doing recently in England now the album is out as now people know the
tunes and are really getting into it more live and singing along, which
is great as we played so many gigs where no-body knew the music earlier
in the year.
5. Do you think that the Internet (whether it be Internet
radio, legal downloading, MySpace, streaming audio, etc.) is a good tool
for musicians or is it a bad thing because it hinders profits?
-- its both good and bad, myspace in my opinion has
been revolutionary,
before that bands had to build up fan-bases by collecting email
addresses at gigs or having mailing lists, with myspace all that is
taken care of. You reach so many more people worldwide, obviously you
can have your tracks up there to download but its up to you at the end
of the day. Illegal downloading can hurt bands for sure but when i was a
kid most of my music collection was made up of taped tapes from friends,
it didn't stop us going out and buying our favorite bands albums when
they came out though, even if we already had taped it, it was a real
buzz going into a record shop and looking for that new album, even the
smell of the inlay card!!
I think real music fans realize the damage
illegal downloading does and may use that to check out the odd tune on
an album before deciding to buy it which i think is fair enough, but
for
small more independent band its a problem as you rely on the sales to
keep the band on tour and recording. Whether we like it or not the
internet is going to be the future of music sales so record companies
will have to get with the program of become debunked. It may actually
make things better for young bands who can actually realize their music
without getting tied into a contract and never seeing any money!
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