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We've said it before, but Hampshire six-piece New Desert Blues are a band to keep a close eye on. Their signature chilled, yet red-blooded mixture of folk-rock has seen them feature as Zane Lowe’s Next Hype alongside a flurry of impressive reviews, including a place on our Ones to Watch in 2015 feature.

With details of their debut album due very soon and new single "Swarm" available to stream below, DrunkenWerewolf catch up with the band below to discuss  sharing a stage with Editors and Cloud Control, the narrative themes of their work,

First things first, how did you guys meet?

We’ve all played in different bands together at different times across Portsmouth and Southampton and been friends for a long time. So eventually we would get together in this line up.

The band really started when Jimmy and Dan were living together. They wrote and recorded a few songs at home. They then asked Joshua and Ian (plus our old guitarist Billy) if we wanted to join the band so they could play the songs live. After a while Billy had to leave because he was moving to Cambridge. So we asked our friend Jim to join. After recording The Devil’s Rope EP, we got Dave to join us on keys. And its been that line up since.

You’re from the south coast of the UK. What was the music scene like growing up?

Unfortunately a lot of the smaller venues we played across Portsmouth and Southampton when we were growing up have shut down. Like The Registry and The Horseshoe in Portsmouth and Hamptons in Southampton. These smaller venues put on cheap local band gigs where we really learned to play live. Luckily we’ve still got The Joiners (Southampton) and The Wedgwood Rooms (Portsmouth) who have been very kind to us and many other local artists growing up in the area. Giving us the chance to play big and better venues. There are also some great bands coming out of Portsmouth and Southampton like Kassassin Street.

I read that you’ve described your sound as noir American. What draws you to that sound and who are your artistic influences? 

I think collectively we listen to a wide range of bands and artist: from The National to Johnny Cash, Neil Young, Arctic Monkeys. We also have a soft spot for pop music, which tends to come out through the van stereo on long drives. We describe our sound as ‘noir Americana’ because even though we're from England, we take influences from American bands (and also English), and on the EP from landscapes, but adding the pre-concept noir as we make dark, emotive music.


.

What inspires you to write?

It may start with a chord progression or an idea that popped into one of our heads or a guitar riff someone played at a practice. But we are constantly writing new music. Jimmy writes the core of the song, then normally send it to us before practice. Then once we get it to the practice room we all add our own parts and make the song us.

It’s really interesting that you name each song after the main character of the track, while writing do you try and visual the character and imagine their lifestyle?

For The Devil's Rope EP and songs before the EP, we did have a main character in the songs and the song was named after him. The songs we’re telling a story about the character, with the lyrics being the narrative. All our lyrics are narrative so when we first started out, naming the songs after the characters seem like a great concept. But for the album we’ve moved on and mixed it up a little from just names. As you’ll see/hear with the “Milk & Honey” demo and “Swarm” and a lot of the new tracks yet to be released.

Do you ever feel like you can relate to any of the characters?

Yes, the characters are going through every day struggles that most of us have had to deal with at one point in our life.

You’ve sung about males characters so far, do you think you’ll sing about women?

Lots of the songs are from the male perspective, but we would not rule it out.

You’ve shared stages with Editors and Cloud Control, who would be your dream artist to support and why?

Father John Misty, we’ve seen him live a few times now and he just gets better and better every time. It would be amazing to tour with him, hear his stories every night and get to see his performance on loop. But also we love to support all the bands we’re into, like The National, Bon Iver, Fleet Foxes etc. We been lucky enough to go on tour with a few bands now, watching great bands play every night really makes you want to put on the best show too.


Nummers
1
Milk & Honey
3:49
2
Head Down
3:21
3
Rag & Bone
3:02
4
By the Lakes
3:14
5
Swarm
3:08
6
Danger to You
3:09
7
Summer Skin
3:48
8
Sound of Guns
4:25
9
Dirt
4:38
10
Golden Coast
4:08
11
Heart Like a Stone
4:09
12
Thom
5:01
13
My Master
6:44


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