worriedaboutsatan have returned after a four year silence to release the two track EP - I'm Not / The Next Round. A twenty minute expansive excursion in hypnotic beats and lush atmospherics, its a welcome reminder of how great the duo are. Excited to see them back, I caught up with Gavin and Tom to discuss their past, future and present.
(((O))): Hi thanks for taking time to talk to us. For the uninitiated how did worriedaboutsatan start out?
Gavin: It was basically a little side project I started to keep me busy whilst another band Tom and I were both in at the time was sorting itself out. It never really recovered in the end, so when Tom left, I approached him with the first worriedaboutsatan material and wondered if he'd consider making the project into a duo that played gigs, rather than just me doing a solo bedroom recording project thing. The rest, as they say, is history
(((O))): The name comes from being a self- described deus fanboy. Has it ever caused confusion though. Being booked on a metal bill or as some freaked out Christian group?
Tom: haha, yup. certainly has. it's been fun though, being 'accepted' by a lot of different genres (intended or not) because of the name. we've had some pretty interesting conversations with people about how we're inviting the Devil into our lives and so on. One guy took us aside and looked very deeply into our eyes and said we're inviting evil on a daily basis to cause havoc!
(((O))): Four years between releases is quite long. Has it been circumstances or just focusing on other projects like Ghosting Season?
Gavin: Yeah, we decided to do the Ghosting Season thing completely separately from the satan thing, as we didn't feel comfortable just changing names and alienating a whole branch of our fanbase, so we decided to keep worriedaboutsatan open, but just sleeping. I guess it took so long to come back to 'satan, as we'd been doing the GS stuff for a while, and as we're both quite restless people, it just felt right to breathe a bit of life back into worriedaboustatan and explore that side of things again. Especially after we kickstarted our own label to put our solo recordings out, it felt like the natural thing to do!
(((O))): I'm not/ The Next Round is well worth the wait however. Have the tracks been around long or totally newly written?
Tom: they've been around for a few years, just kind of sitting on the computer as demos. Back then we didn't really have much music equipment, so they sounded very different. we have a lot of analogue equipment now, so it was nice to run them through some gear to really beef them up and mess around with them.
(((O))): Early on, worriedaboutsatan were described as being electronic post-rock. While people are keen to put a label on music do you feel it was limiting at all?
Gavin: No, not really. I guess we were always outsiders I suppose, as we've always ended up doing things ourselves about 99% of the time, so we just kinda got on with it! Post rock has become almost a dirty word over the last few years, but I don't mind it. There's definitely a post rock element to our music, as when we started, we were both listening to loads of that kinda stuff, but over time we did get a little restless and explored other things, like ambient and techno, so we were always looking for new avenues to explore to keep things fresh. Plus, I suppose we've always been known as 'knob twiddlers' instead of a 'band' in the traditional sense, so there's always been more leeway for us to experiment and not piss anyone off!
(((O))): Apart from deus, who or what else influenced you to start creating music?
Tom: Just the usual - girls, getting to go to gigs for free… just joking. Sometimes I don't think you 'want' to make music, you just start doing it, and then you find out you've spent all of your money and time on it. There wasn't really anything else to do either, in a sense that there isn't anything else out there other than music!
(((O))): In the past worriedaboutsatan toured with the likes of Maybeshewill and Her Name is Calla. Have you any personal highlights from tours or shows?
Gavin: haha, oh my - far too many to mention here! We're massively thankful that those two bands saw what we were doing and decided to take us with them. We played some pretty crazy gigs on both those tours - places with no roof, bullet casings in the car park and rider-eating dogs (that was all at the same gig, incidentally) but they were amazing fun.
(((O))): How do you begin the writing process, is there an element of experimenting or do you start with a specific idea or sound?
Tom: We do tons of jamming around, and we don't really have any plan. Sometimes we'll start with an idea and it ends up going on a massive tangent and the results aren't anything like we thought they'd go. These jams happen at really random times too. we have our favourite sounds and bits of kit, but that's the only boundary.
(((O))): The first EP has been made available again via Bandcamp. Do you feel it's still a good representation of worriedaboutsatan and what memories do you have of creating it?
Gavin: I think it's a good representation of one side of us, but maybe not the whole, just because so much has happened to us since. It's one of those things though - like a little time capsule, or the foundations, so I think it's important to revisit it and have a look at how far we've come, as both songwriters and producers.
EP1 was mainly made by me, with very shoddy equipment, so now in 2014, hearing some of the drum tracks, I did cringe a little and wonder what the hell I was thinking! Still, I have very fond memories of making it - it was really exciting to work on something that felt quite new. Not a lot of people were doing that kinda thing back then, and certainly the thought of touring with a computer was quite alien to a lot of people. Now you see it quite often, but back then there was quite a lot of resistance to doing things electronically, especially live.
(((O))): Even when artists make releases available very cheap ( sometimes free ) they still seem to end up on illegal download sites. How frustrating is it?
Tom: VERY!! I really don't get why people feel the need to obsessively collect music and make it available for other people behind the artist's back. there's a lot of politics around this subject, it's a real minefield. on one hand, you have so many people who love music and are passionate about sharing their tastes with other people, which is brilliant! but in the long term, the way they're doing this has a huge negative effect on the music industry. and when i say 'music industry' that encompasses Sony, EMI etc AND the smallest of DIY bands who've just decided on their band name. the reality is that these days bands don't benefit from any of this 'distribution'.
(((O))): I'm sure I'm not the only one in wanting to know if there will be a new album coming soon?
Gavin: Well never say never! haha. We are working on some more new material, but we don't know what form it will take just yet
(((O))): Arrivals was released through Gizeh records. Will you be looking to continue to self-release now or are you open to working with a label?
Tom: anything's possible. it's very important to work with people who love the music just as much as we do!
(((O))): With the new release and worriedaboutsatan active again, have you any plans to play live or tour?
Gavin: Yeah, we've talked about it, and we thought it'd be a cool idea to do something. Maybe if there's enough interest in the thing, we'll take it to a stage!
I'm Not / The Next Round is available along with the remastered EP01 through Bandcamp now. As well as Ghosting Season, Tom releases music as Winter Son and Gavin as Gavin Miller.
