Tom: Very good.
Jamie: Good.
SS: You sound knackered!
T: Bit tired
J: Still energetic. We're restoring our energy for later tonight
SS: What is it? The tenth night of the tour tonight?
T: F**k I don't know
J: It's the last day of the second week. One more week to go.
SS: How's it been going? Any stand out gigs so far? Glasgow springs to mind.
T: Glasgow. Stoke. Stoke, they're bloody nuts. Yeah, Stoke's good. They've all been pretty good.
J: I think, yeah, Stoke was literally shocking. The dressing room's up on a balcony, we looked at the support band, looked at the audience and jaws just dropped. They were crazy,
SS: So five dates left culminating at the Islington Garage, home town gig. How excited are you for that?
T: Very excited. Got a brass section coming down. I say section it's two blokes. Is that classed as a section? They're coming down to do Shimmer Gold with us. Yeah it's just gonna be brilliant. It's gonna be great just to play back in London. See everyone again.
J: It's gonna be better than Koko I reckon. That so far has been my favourite gig but Garage is gonna be even better. Definite.
SS: NME tagged you when Recover first hit the scenes as 'brash guitar anthemia of the highest order'. They've added svelte to that since the album came out. The debut album is one of the best debuts I've ever heard.
T: Cheers.
SS: Did you always think that you had that album in you when you first started?
T: I always knew we could do a good album that we'd be proud of but I just think we're always evolving. How I feel is if we did it now, don't get me wrong I'm really happy it's out there, boom, that's us, but that's us then. The good thing about the band is that we just keep writing. Keep banging out the tunes.
J: I think since the summer, summer was when we kinda started changing a bit. Actually started developing.
SS: You hear Recover, Oceans and such like, I think a lot of people expected eleven indie rock anthems but the album's so diverse. We mentioned Shimmer Gold which is just a stunning song.
T: When we did Shimmer Gold, when we were mastering it there was me and the producer in the hallway and I just heard the door swing open, I can hear the feedback at the end, and the guy who mastered it, Jeremy, he walked out and he went 'Did you write that?' 'Yeah yeah.' He says 'I've gotta shake your hand.' And he mastered 21 Seconds by So Solid Crew, so. come on!
SS: Are you the main songwriter then Tom?
T: I am the main songwriter yeah mate. I kinda like write it and it'll be like in caveman form and then it evolves and they bring it up to the Tudors.
J: A lot of times though when we do a practice Tom will come in with a tune and play it on his acoustic. Most of the times to be honest with you I don't actually like it. The lyrics are f***ing brilliant but....
T: You know what you can go f*** yourself.
J: No the lyrics are awesome but I don't get the same feeling till we all put our work to it and just make it into the Dexters style.
T: Yeah but some of the newer ones I've been writing, a lot of the older ones tended to lend themselves to the acoustic guitar, but stuff like Cloudfest and Shimmer Gold...
J: That is true that.
SS: We're joined by a third member. Do you want to quickly introduce yourself?
Ben: I'm Ben and I'm the rubbish guitarist
SS: So has the reaction to the album surprised you? It's been getting glowing reviews in the national press as well, not just the music press.
T: I've loved it. I mean reviews are great and stuff but it's just opinions really. They're great to get but I also like when you just go online and someone I've never met before just tweeted me saying I love your album, it's amazing.
SS: I think I got a bit gushing on social network
T: Yeah but it's good that there is that there is that social media now. Someone can be like, 'Oi, You're great.' I can go 'Thanks man. I'll tell my mum.'
SS: For kinda like our generation Definitely Maybe set the standard for debut albums. I personally think you've surpassed that.
T: F*** off
B: Beep!
T: Sorry
SS: I think it's a stunning album
T: Ah mate, see that, that's just as good as any four or five stars you can get.
SS: It's just so diverse, so sublime. How you gonna follow it?
T: Plane crash. We'll all die.
B: That's the next step.
T: We're still writing. I think if we recorded our debut album tomorrow it'd be even better.
SS: Does the writing process just continue?
T: I don't write anything on the road. Some people say they write on the road a lot but I don't. And there's guitars everywhere but I just don't.
B: At some stage you have.
T: Have I?
B: Yeah The Hard Way was like that.
T: Yeah but that was in London. It's not the road. There's enough writing that I'm not worried about it. I've got 8 songs that I haven't even played to the band yet. Well I might have played a little bit but we haven't started working on them yet.
SS: Cos a lot of songwriters kinda lock themselves away for two weeks
T: I cant force it. It just comes. I'll be walking around doing my own thing and either a lyric or a melody will come and I just put it in my phone
B: Sometimes we revamp old songs as well
T: Yeah I'm good at recycling. You've gotta these days. Think of the environment.
SS: Speaking of that is that the shirt you nicked off Joel from Bang Bang Romeo?
T: It is yeah. He gave it me, I didn't steal it. I thought I'd wear it in honour of him tonight. He's up in London playing my club night.
SS: Well thanks for talking to us guys.
T: All good bruv
SS: It's been a pleasure as always. Too early for sambuca?
T: Nah.
Excellent album and if possible even better live, The amount of enegy that came of that stage was amazinggggggggggggggg
ReplyDeleteDexters live is a good time guaranteed you just can't help yourself they will knock you over :-D Love that I can hear there is more to come from them you can feel that they will get better and better, it's the craftsmanship in song writing (that can often be missing) and with all that energy and good time buzz. Winner.
ReplyDelete