Let’s Talk Daggers are currently getting ready for their show in London next week – see the bottom of the interview for more details. We caught up with Jamie for a chat ahead of the gig.
Can you introduce yourself and tell me a bit about the band?
Hello, I’m Jamie, I play bass and vocals for Let’s Talk Daggers. The band formed in late 2009, we had all been in a band previously and had known each other from school. We never set out to create the music we did, a fusion of all our ideas and varied musical influences has made us who we are today. We have a just finished recording our debut album which is huge step forward from our debut EP in terms of songwriting and substance.
In about a week’s time you’ll be playing at the Hope And Anchor in London – what can fans expect about the upcoming show?
Our usual energy fueled live show, playing mainly songs off our album.
Have you got any interesting stories from tours gone by?
Errr… Of course, It’s hard to reminisce on the spot but what springs to mind but Will nearly getting in a fight while he was naked and covered in oil, seeing a member of band we were on tour with electrocuted, playing a three song set in a grimey pool hall, and partying in a ridiculous mansion while on tour with Darkshaft.
If you could tour with any band, who would you choose?
It would have to be a band we have already played with and admire, touring with a huge commercially successful band would obviously by an incredible experience but I think a smaller band that have generated a current buzz would be more beneficial – allusondrugs, Bad For Lazarus, Palm Reader, Baby Godzilla, Exit_International, they are all wonderful people too. If non of those, The Darkness.
On another subject, you’re finishing work on your upcoming album – can you tell me about the writing and recording process?
Well like I mentioned earlier the writing process is a collection of all our ideas neatly/erratically integrated together. We don’t sit at practice and say to each other ‘let’s make a song like this’. The songs sort of write themselves. We take a lot of care into each part we write to make it the best we can. I rarely feel inclined to write a piece of music for a specific audience, just something I feel has a great feel, energy, substance or melody. Steve (drummer) takes a large part in the lyric writing process too, so we all have input into each and every song we write.
The recording process was an incredible experience all down to our friend & engineer Martin Ruffin (In Lieu of a Studio) Martin is incredibly talented not only as a musician, but in innovating sounds and techniques, becoming a fourth member of the band to push ourselves to our limits. We spent two weeks at our practice space in Battle (a barn on a farm) We kept things as organic as we could, which shines through nicely on the record. Expect to hear things we have never done before.
Which song on there are you most proud of?
A hard question to answer, I’m extremely proud of all the songs we have written, I don’t think I could pick one in particular. Each song we write is so different from one and other, each has it’s own stories and reasons for why I could pick it as ‘most proud’. The songs off our debut I am most proud of I guess, they show more maturity in sound, exploring structures, styles and feel our EP didn’t touch.
Were there any songs on there that were more of a challenge to get down?
For me personally quite a few, I had literally just come out of a long relationship before recording so wasn’t in the best place, I was taking a long time to get my bass parts down, found myself going round in circles and becoming very frustrated, some parts I ended up simplifying which I wasn’t to happy with myself about.
And finally what does 2015 have in store for Let’s Talk Daggers?
The release of our album and a trilogy of music videos, I would like to see us support an established band, see some positive reviews from the press, and to tour as often as we can.
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