Interview: Dimscûa
It took us four years to write the first album, but it wasn't because we were agonising over it. It's because we weren't prioritising it. We were not a real band. We would write half a song, not get back together for 6 months, and then write the other half.
It is very rare to have a reason to interview a band twice in less than a year, as generally there isn’t much new to chat about. However, the rise and rise of Dimscûa is not your average story. After being reviewed by Echoes and Dust in June 2025 their world turned upside down shortly after when championed on Two Promoters One Pod by host and Damnation Festival organiser Gavin McInally. Gary Davidson caught up with them shortly after, prior to their debut live show at Arctangent, to chat through the band’s explosion in popularity. Good things didn’t stop there though and Echoes And Dust has again caught up with Adam (guitar/mix/master), Sam (guitar), Alex (vocals), Lewis (drums) and Benio (bass). Here they summarise the last six months and plans for 2026 which featured a sold out vinyl release and new album through Big Scary Monsters, trips to Europe, beer, PR and booking agents and a look back at two incredible festival appearances.
E&D: We last talked at the end of June, has anything happened since then?
Adam: It has been incredible. As I said before, if we could have played the shittest slot, we’d have taken 11:00 on the smallest stage at Arctangent, on a Saturday when everyone’s hung over and on a comedown in 2027 and that would be a highlight. I could hang my guitar up and I never have to worry about music again. So to have our first show be Arctangent in the middle of the day on the Yohkai stage and have it unreasonably packed out was just ridiculously beyond what we could have ever expected. It’s just absolutely insane. And then for Damnation to be our third show, incredible.
We had tickets to go to the festivals as punters and then to suddenly be asked not just to take part, but on really good slots, like really above what we would have got offered if we weren’t the super subs coming off the bench at the 11th hour was just amazing. Then to see both of those rooms absolutely packed out in response to a band that, to be honest, didn’t really have any right to be there. It was just amazing. Just incredible.
Benio: I think in isolation playing the two shows would have blown our minds anyway but the fact that it happened and very close to each other within the same year I think we’re still probably reeling from it.
Lewis: I think it helped as well that both festivals treated us so well and the communities of both festivals treated us with the utmost respect and help. We’re novices to all this and they made everything possible for us and helped us out when we had questions and helped us with the backline and things. From the get go both festivals were so friendly and welcoming so there was just not that stress that you get with a day job. You just had to go there to play and have a good time and it was quite something.
Sam: Yeah. The stuff of dreams. The amount of stuff that had to fall into place for us to be in that position is crazy. If you hadn’t have picked it up, if you hadn’t have told Andy (Cattigan, musical influencer from Glasgow), if Andy hadn’t told Gav whilst he was tremendously disappointed by listening to the new Turnstyle album. Then if Anciients hadn’t pulled out of ATG and they had a really good slot, for us to have that slot is unreal. And then again for Damnation, if crippling alcoholism…
E&D: could use a calculator?
Sam: Honestly another super good slot. All the stuff that fell into place It’s mad. Truly.
Benio: We’ve been known to use calculators in this band.
Adam: Yeah. I’ve got quite a few Excel spreadsheets going.
E&D: I do think you managed to cheat the system a bit. Most entry level bands at Arctangent and Damnation don’t get paid as much as a refund for five tickets.
Sam: Yeah, I know. We kind of lucked out on that one.
Lewis: Yeah, we were just jazzed to see some good bands. That was the bottom line. We were just like, “Yeah, two great festivals. Why not?”
Sam: Exactly. And then with Damnation as well we can get off stage and then we can go watch this band, this band, this band, this band, this band. So yeah, it was mad and obviously we were clashing with Portrayal of Guilt. We wanted to go see them as well so we were kind of bummed that we were missing them. It was quite funny because we were sharing a dressing room with them as well. So before and after our sets, we were saying “we were going to come see you, but you know, we’re clashing.” They were really cool guys. So yeah, it was nice.
E&D: That was quite an annoying introduction of a clash that wasn’t there.
Sam: That’s the other bonkers thing, right? Is that when we got announced the amount of people being like, “Oh, for God’s sake, now I’ve got a clash.” Like what? Like it’s just mad to think that we created that problem for people. Little old us.
Alex: It was just a moment as well of thinking “sorry, you’re going to come and see us really? You could be seeing Portrayal of Guilt.” That reaction to us being announced for Damnation, it was insane by itself. I don’t think I got any work done that day.
E&D: Around the time of the Damnation announcement, I saw a wonderful post on the Damnation Facebook forum from someone that wasn’t too complimentary about your influences. People don’t like things that are popular, especially in music. Have you come across much other negativity?
Adam: Not loads. Obviously, the more we are out there in front of more people the more you see it. I think not only do people like to be contrarian in general, I think in this niche of music, people especially love to be contrarian. So, yeah, I think it kind of comes with the territory. It’s not something that we ever anticipated because we didn’t anticipate anybody to listen to it in the first place.
Lewis: I think it’s been drowned out by the positive. That’s the big take home for us, we struggle to comprehend all the nice messages and positive feedback we get. What little we’ve seen on the other side is something that hasn’t really gotten to us at all yet.
Adam: It’s happened a handful of times and we send the message to each other in the WhatsApp chat and have a laugh about it.
Alex: And that doesn’t get more of a reaction from us than when a load of people have sent really heartfelt messages to us and we’ll send them round. The negative ones don’t impact and the positive ones really kind of hit home for us. Some of them are really deep and personal and they’re thanking us for writing these four songs and putting them out. I think the positivity absolutely overwhelms any negativity we get.
E&D: After self releasing and then selling 300 – 400 CDs (and an inordinate amount of t-shirts) you signed to Big Scary Monsters for a vinyl deal. Had many labels been interested prior to that?
Sam: We weren’t speaking to anyone before we put it out but after we got announced for Arctangent there were one or two labels who reached out to us and were interested but we kind of just wanted to wait it out a bit and see what happened. With BSM we’ve known Josie since we were probably 14 or so. We met Kev from Big Scary Monsters at Arctangent as well and we got chatting to him a little bit there. It was after Arctangent they wanted to jump on a call with us and have a serious conversation about putting it out on vinyl which blew our minds.
Benio: It’s a nice full circle moment because I’ve known Kev since I was about 17. Again it’s like all of these things with this band fall in line really nicely. Like these guys asked me to join then Big Scary Monsters dropped us a message and it feels really right at the moment.
Adam: I think it was one of the things that’s interesting, Big Scary Monsters obviously feels like a slightly odd label, but for a start, Josie would have never put any of our other bands on Big Scary Monsters. They weren’t good enough to get on the label. Kev and Josie do a lot of the merch for Arctangent, so they’ve seen the merch sales. They only became interested once they knew that it was going to be a viable operation but they’ve got to make some money at the end of the day, right? For us a lot of the bands that they’ve worked with over the years were the reason we started going to ATG. They’ve worked with Toe, Caspian, Delta Sleep loads of those bands that you maybe wouldn’t put us in the same category as but we’re massive fans of and obviously influence the way you put together music.As Benio said, it was a lovely full circle moment to go to ATG, have that amazing response in terms of the crowd response in terms of the merch sales and then be able to work with Big Scary Monsters to do something going forwards was an incredible moment.
E&D: When the signing was announced there was also confirmation that a new album would be out this year. The album is not yet written (at the time of interview in February), what prompted the declaration and how far into writing are you?
Lewis: We wanted to push ourselves. The first record took us four years. It was on and off, but four years nonetheless. It was just spurred on by all the positive feedback and all these people listening and checking us out and the fun we’ve had playing live in front of all these people. It just feels natural for us to go back and try and write the next thing and I don’t think it’ll come too difficult. The first release even though it took four years it was only a couple of months of time we actually spent on it. It’s just something that feels natural to do as the next step and try and do it whilst we’re all in a positive mind frame about it. Ultimately writing is the bit that I personally, and I’m sure the others feel, is the most fun natural thing to do in a band.
Sam: Yeah. Also, we needed some more material because we were getting slots which were longer than 30 minutes. So that’s why we’re writing. We just want to get back on it and write some more stuff and obviously the response was insane. We want to push ourselves to come up with some more material and hopefully that will live up to Dust Eater.
Adam: As Lewis said it took us four years to write the first album, but it wasn’t because we were agonising over it. It’s because we weren’t prioritising it. We were not a real band. We would write half a song, not get back together for 6 months, and then write the other half. We’ve had a very long list of all sorts of ideas, we’ve gotten down to a short list and we’re now developing some of that stuff out. I reckon there’s a really good album in that short list.
E&D: The We Lost The Sea tour was Gav’s (McInally Damnation/2 promoters one pod) drunken dream lineup idea. In the process you sort of got left off and then added on again when he got back involved. How was it finding out about the tour so close to it being announced?
Sam: Well, I don’t know how much we can say (laughing).
Adam: It was a stressful time. Is that a diplomatic answer?
Lewis: Yeah, that is very diplomatic. It was very on brand though because everything last year was very reactionary. Arctangent and Damnation were all gung-ho. You’ve got 5 seconds to respond. I think again another one of those things where the stars aligned and we just said we’ll make it work. This is a dream tour, our first tour, with incredible bands that we’ve seen, we saw both the bands at ATG and saw Overhead again at Damnation. One of those instances where we thought this would never happen. We weren’t even thinking of it. Then suddenly it’s in front of you and you could not say no.
Sam: Yeah, it’s going to be insane. It’s just the stuff of dreams to have the opportunity to go out with Overhead the Albatross and We Lost the Sea. Both bands are so good and we really like both bands. I’m going to be out in the crowd like every night just soaking it all up.
Lewis: Going to run out of tears by the end of it.
E&D: How long has it been since any of you have done a tour of this length?
Alex: I have never been on tour. So, this is a great one to start with.
Sam: Lewis, Beno and me, in our previous band, we did two European tours and one UK tour. That first UK tour we took Adam out as a bassist. That was in 2017 so nine years ago. So nine years later we’re going back out on tour. Who would have thought?
E&D: You’re now signed up with atonal booking as well. Are they going to be helping getting you across to Europe in the future?
Benio: There’s been a couple of jaw hit the floor emails over the past month or so.
Sam: Yeah, John’s been great. John reached out to us. We jumped on a call with John and he’s been amazing since the get-go. We’re all pretty green to booking agents in our previous band, we did the tour planning DIY. To have an actual booking agent now and have John help us through it has been incredible. And some of the offers that have come through, some of the potential shows that have come through are just just mad. I think we’re definitely going to be in Europe over this year for a couple of one-off shows that haven’t been announced yet. (Edit They have been announced for Soulcrusher Festival in the Netherlands in October)
E&D: Within six or seven months you have gone from just releasing these songs with no real band promo photo to having a booking agent, record label, played the two best heavy festivals in the UK and you also have PR in the shape of Justine and Sammy at Since Always Press. How did that final step towards professionalism come about?
Lewis: When you list it like that it’s fucking insane, isn’t it?
Sam: It’s a little bit imposter imposter syndrome, we’ve just speed run how to be a band in six months. It’s pretty mad.
Benio: Still don’t know how to be a band really, do we? No, not really. We’re just winging it.
Sam: Justine and Sammy came to us through the recommendation of Kevin and Josie at Big Scary Monsters. They put us in touch with Sammy and Justine and they’ve been amazing getting us on plenty of interviews and getting us into bits and pieces. It’s been really cool because we haven’t done PR before. So getting to see how that side of things work as well is really interesting.
E&D: What kind of press opportunities has that opened up that you didn’t have before?
Lewis: It’s just another instance where we’ve gone from zero to 100, having no experience as Sam alluded to, to suddenly conversations with all these people around the world. I mean that in itself is quite rewarding. Every week it seems like we’ve got something on and people wanting to talk to us about the record and our experiences and how it came about and It’s just another thing to be grateful for at the end of the day, that people connect with it on such a level that they want to spend time like now with you Gary, just to talk about it, talk about what we’ve got going on. It never really gets old.
Adam: Yeah. I think for me personally, I’ve enjoyed talking to people like yourself where you’re genuine fans of the music. You’re not doing it because someone’s paid you and said, “Oh, we’ve had a press release come in. You got to write a feature about XY Z.” But you’re doing it because we’re spending a Monday night when you could be doing something else. Talking to us because you genuinely love the music, you love writing, all that kind of stuff. Speaking to people who share that passion in the same way that we do, have that passion for this music, for me those have been the most enjoyable experiences.
E&D: The other thing that you did in the last six months was a beer. Alex (Co-owner and brewer at Indie Rabble), was it a help or a hindrance to have the guys in the brewery with you?
Alex: It was definitely a help because I’d been in a car crash the Saturday at the start of that week and I couldn’t use my right shoulder. With brewing being a very physical job, I was pretty fucking useless. So, having four strapping lads to dig out the mash tun and lift all the grain and all of that stuff, that was good. Yeah, it was good fun. It was a good laugh. The beer’s sold out now, it’s the fastest selling dark lager I’ve ever made. So hopefully the band has had some influence on that, which is nice.
E&D: For Arctangent 2026 you’re featuring on the Wednesday. Do you have any plans for that show?
Lewis: More fog.
Alex: At least 20% more fog than last year.
Sam: If we can get someone crowd surfing like that guy did to Sunn Ov))) that’s all we want. Is that the goal for ATG then? Crowdsurfing. Crowdsurfing and circle pits or stage dives. Yeah. Someone stage dive to the slowest most melodic bit.
Alex: Just during a period of feedback. Yeah.
Benio: We’ve alluded to many times in the band group chat about us having crystal ball moments. I think that this moment in this interview is a crystal ball moment for us where you’re calling either a stage dive or a circle pit for Arctangent. So, we’re gonna hark back to this in August.
Sam: I think the main goal for Arctangent is to have a new song to play.
Benio: At least.
Sam: Primarily our goal is to have at least a new song to play for Arctangent.
Adam: You want it to be a fresh experience because we’re going back to Arctangent and I can’t imagine there’s going to be that many Wednesday attendees that haven’t seen us at some point. We want it to be a fresh and exciting experience for people. So, we’ve got to build our year around it.
You heard them, circle pits, crowd surfing and stage diving please. Such acts can be performed at the following upcoming Dimscûa shows:
Supporting We Lost The Sea and Overhead, The Albatross:
Friday 22nd May – Rescue Rooms, Nottingham
Saturday 23rd May – Electric Ballroom, London
Sunday 24th May – Academy 2, Manchester
Monday 25th May – Slay, GlasgowTuesday 26th May – Prospect Building, Bristol
Wednesday 19th August Arctangent Festival, Bristol
9/10 October – Soul Crusher Festival, Nijmegen The Netherlands
