IT WAS LIKE HOLDING ON TO A JET ENGINE TAKING OFF, BUT ULTIMATELY GOING AT THAT SPEED AND BEING UP THAT HIGH, YOU’RE GONNA GET COVERED IN ICE AND FALL OFF.
ourselves, that we really liked and not caring too much about what happens with it really. When you’re writing and you know it’s gonna be heard by lots of people, it really spurs you on and it’s a really, really good pressure, if you know what I mean. It’s still a creative time at the moment, you know, everything’s at stake and we’ve got one chance to get it right.
Now, talking of the album, I’ve heard new tracks ‘Cannonball’ and ‘Nothing’s Gonna Stop Us’ – they sound full of driving momentum… Tankyou very much, yeah, they’re quite rocking songs and I’m just quite excited for people to hear the whole album, but yeah we picked those songs as ones that had the most momentum and would do the job at festivals. Everything’s kind of on a cliff edge of power rock ballads and then some of the darkest stuff that I ever thought we would do. I don’t think Darkness fans are gonna be disappointed by this album and I genuinely think it’s probably our most heart-felt album that we’ve ever done. A lot of passion’s gone into it. We have a really great worldwide management team now though and they basically realise that we have to be left alone to do this and we weren’t even planning to do anything ‘til next year anyway; it was only the fact that Download came along that we thought, ‘well, this is a great opportunity to re- introduce the band’, and that had
the knock-on effect of us doing loads of European festivals. We kinda wanted to be left alone this year to do it, which we have, so the end result we’re just excited for people to hear.
Dan, you’ve retained a humility that has constantly delighted fans round here as you continue to play dates in our region’s venues. Do you think that humility comes from years of slogging it before the band made it? I’ve read interviews where you’ve said you came close to thinking ‘fuck this, this is taking too long!’ Haha, yeah, probably, yeah; I can empathise with bands and musicians who are trying to make it because I didn’t make it at the age of 19 and stuff, and at 27 I still hadn’t made a penny from music and at 27 years old, you’re balls deep aren’t you? It’s not like you can suddenly become an architect or anything. It’s either gonna happen for you, or you’ve wasted your life, but you know what, I didn’t give up and I’m glad I didn’t. I think there aren’t enough smaller live venues in these parts specifically now as it’s more expensive for venues to have licences and there are less people going to pubs because of various reasons – beer’s not as cheap and people can’t smoke. I just think I can still remember what it was like and it’ll always be a thrill to play the Waterfront and the UEA because they’re the places that I always aspired to be in. I always thought
that if I’d headlined the Waterfront, I would have made it, you know and I think that that’s no different to probably thousands of kids across East Anglia right now. Just to be back there brings back all those memories. I’d like to do more to support the local music scene if I can.
Well we’ve lost a couple of our feeder pubs like the Ferryboat and Te Marquee, but we still have some flying the flag like Te Brickmakers, which just won the music pub of the year nationally again. Did you ever play the Brickmakers? I didn’t play there no, but I’ve been many times. Tat was the great thing about Leeders Farm too, is that a lot of local bands had come through there. I think the Brickmakers is great. It’s just madness that we seem to be losing these places for young bands to play; there seems to be more and more kids going into these music academies and less and less places for them to play!
We’re thrilled you’re coming back to the UEA and you’re gonna bring an amazing show for us, aren’t you? Don’t you worry; I think this is one of our most creative live sets that we’ve ever done. It’s gonna be a real Vaudevillian, Victorian freak show! And that’s just the crowd, hahaha!
Emma Garwood
Te Darkness make a triumphant return to the UEA on November
24th. For details, go to
www.ueaticketbookings.co.uk. Read the uncut version of this interview at
Outlineonline.co.uk
14 /November 2011/
outlineonline.co.uk
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