Dutch Uncles made some serious inroads into the Irish market with a couple of well-received performances at the debut Camden Crawl last year. Now the Stockport band are back for their second assault when they take to the stage at the Longitude festival in just a few weeks.
John Balfe caught up with lead singer Duncan Wallis for a chat.
I read that before Cadenza was released, three of you were finishing up degrees. What are the chances of some of you completing a Master's before, what, album number five?
Well Album number 5 is light-years away so you can never say never to a Masters, but since degrees were completed last summer it has been the first time the band has been a full-time prospect for us so we'd like to keep it that way as long as possible, having to decline European tours because of exam dates doesn't get easier with time.
I've seen you described in the music press as 'indie-math', both of these being terms that I have a problem with. How do you react to being labelled and categorised in this way?
It can all get a little silly can’t it? Think the only way of labeling bands anymore is to add a humorous touch to the description, so if we had any reaction to that it would be that it's not very fun to say, calling it "math-soul", "ADD-Indie", “wonk-pronk” or “prog-pop” would be much more eye-catching.
What musical themes tend to unite all five of you?
The first part of our manifesto when we started was to select 5 band influences, not necessarily representing the 5 corners of the earth we have grown from but just for direction. At the time i believe they were: Talking Heads, Tears For Fears, King Crimson (Belew era), Field Music and Steve Reich. That was years ago though, and obviously you can't run away from Kate Bush forever. One thing that sticks though is to be intricate but to the point with choruses and the like, and to be as over-dramatic as is tastefully possible.
A lot of your music strikes me as quite intricate in nature. Do you think some of your songs have different identities in a live setting, when compared to their recorded counterparts?
Definitely, one thing we've never got away with is using lengthy samples in our live shows as people who know us expect the more organic energies which cant be achieved if you're replicating every sound on the album, i'm sure the voice provides a more 'interesting' approach to being 'in tune' as well.
What is on a Dutch Uncles rider? Are you low-key when it comes to that kind of thing, or do you go down the 'no brown M&M's' route?
It would be nice to get the full range of Nivea moisturisers at every gig, but there begins the madness of touring so just bring on the boiling hot bottles of Carlsberg every night please.
Dutch Uncles will play Longitude on Friday 19th July. Tickets are on sale now.