Most
groups brought together for a university project work tenuously at best.
There’s the bossy one, the quiet Powerpoint whiz, the stoned guy
who does nothing all semester yet gets the best mark – usually
with shambolic results eked out last minute in the Student Union pub.
Not so for Drive By Argument. Formed as part of their music course in
October 2004 without knowing each other previously, the disparate five-piece
straight away found the right mix of backgrounds, influences and styles,
and realised they should chase something bigger than merely a passing
grade.
RYAN
(Drever, bass & ‘mad-libs’):
We’re still actually getting to know each other as well…
LEWIS (Gardiner,
drums): I don’t want to know any of ye cunts!
RYAN: … with equal
parts of amazing and disastrous results. We’re all totally different
– Lewis wasn’t into half the shit he’s into now, and
he’s gone all electro-vampire on us; Stu was a total blues player;
I was more into my punker stuff and I don’t know what the fuck
Stoke was into – Elton John? But I think that’s the ironic
genius of it all, that it’s all managed to work.
STOKE (Vocals,
synth & keys): It really shouldn’t have worked
but it did. It’s kind of like cooking with a blindfold.
Currently
touring in support of new single Sex Lines Are Expensive Comedy, a song
brimming with an ethos as exciting and unpredictable as Stoke’s
words suggest - and possibly just as dangerous – DBA are the very
zeitgeist in these musically eclectic times. They have the angst-filled
lyrics of an emo soul ripped apart (complete with Fall Out Boy-esque
obscure song titles); the dancefloor-friendly beats, beeps and whistles
of the post-new-wave (complete with Killers-esque natty dress sense);
delivered with the full-frontal vitality to compete with their contemporaries
(completely without – thank God – an Automatic-esque ADHD
Banshee-child). Such genre-straddling, however, does bring the unwelcome
advances of avant-garde musos keen to coin the latest pigeon-hole, having
already been described as ‘emo-tronica’ and the woeful ‘dance-tastica’.
STU
(Ken, guitar): That’s
a problem because all the bands we go to support are like “What?
What’s this?”
LEWIS: Aye, because we
don’t fall into anything – too heavy for the indie guys,
too indie for the emo guys, too techno for everybody…
STU: We’ve been
described as ‘danger rock’ on the internet – what
the fuck is ‘danger rock’?
LEWIS: How sycophantic
is that?
COLIN (Keenan, guitar & synth):
What is it though?!
LEWIS: We don’t
know what it is!
STU: It’s like,
“You’re emo!” No no, we’re ‘danger rock’!
“Alright, that makes sense.” That really confused people
in Glasgow.
One thing
they certainly are is ambitious in their scope, creating multi-layered,
epic electro-dance-rock with a wealth of equipment including multiple
synths, guitars and an electric drum-kit.
RYAN:
When I say ‘wealth’ I don’t mean literal wealth. I
just mean the amount of shit we’ve got, it’s insane. We’ve
had loads of really awkward exchanges with sound guys.
STOKE: A lot of them are
just so used to having just three pieces – vocals, guitar, bass,
drums – you pull it in, set it up and leave them to it. But with
us we need five DIs, three vocal mics, we’ve got synths all over
the bleeding place, and they’re just like “… Oh my
god.”
RYAN: I didn’t even
know what a DI was before uni. I’d never really been in a band
that needed good sound. It was like, an amp. If you were lucky it was
miked up.
STOKE: It’s funny
because we’ve started experimenting on some songs for the next
album as well, and I think we’re going to have obscene amounts
of gear – because for us this is quite minimalist. So next time
it’ll just be…
STU: Absolute carnage!
STOKE: So eventually we’re
only going to be able to play arenas because we’re going to have
so much gear, that’s the plan.
RYAN: And a star-shaped
tambourine. It has to be star-shaped. Either that or one like our logo,
in the shape of my head.
The boys’
aspirations may have their limiting factors, though. As any fan or they
themselves can tell you, their live shows are as renowned for their
frenetic energy (which can involve Lewis getting rather overzealous,
post-gig – “That’s what I do. I throw other people
through their own gear. I have broken many, many, many things.”)
– as they are for their persistent technical failures.
STOKE:
I think we’re just all a bit too adventurous for our own good.
We’re just like “Aw yeah, we’ll get this synth in!
We’ll get some V drums! We’ll do all this crap!” But
it’s just like, no. Everything breaks. The more stuff you have,
the more stuff breaks. That’s just how it works.
RYAN: You could make some
money tonight if you took bets with the crowd on which bit of equipment
breaks. An inside scoop: go for the bass. I wouldn’t be surprised
if there were sparks!
LEWIS: It doesn’t
matter what it is – making the music, writing the music, playing
the music, releasing the music, doesn’t matter – it always
goes wrong. We’re being tested!
COLIN: We must have the
best willpower in the world.
STU: I think someone up
there’s having a laugh with the luck they’re dealing to
us.
COLIN: Aye, “Have
a dead member!” Please strike me down! Just kidding! Well, maybe
Stoke…
STU: We’ll get in
NME then, as one of the obituaries.
COLIN: Just an obituary…
LEWIS: It’s The
Claw. (SILENCE) The Claw. Him from Inspector Gadget. Just sitting there…
STU: The Claw? The Claw
runs NME? That’s probably true.
LEWIS: The Claw is God.
Malevolent
deities and obscure cartoon villains notwithstanding, it shouldn’t
be too much longer before Fate’s fickle finger points them towards
the status they truly deserve. Amidst a deluge of genre-splicing acts
and asinine tags it is no bad thing that they can not be easily defined.
They are Drive By Argument. And like the best kind of arguments they
should be heeded well.
Sex Lines
Are Expensive Comedy is released June 25.
by Phil
Dixon
