THE DRUMS interviewed by N. Bhadreshwar

RED BULL BEDROOM JAM FUTURES STAGE photos by Steve Gunn Sunday 7.25pm

Brooklyn-based band, The Drums, are notoriously one of the most blogged about groups this summer. Having released their self-titled album on June 7th, their upbeat single,’Let’s Go Surfing’ is due out on August 16th. The Raveonettes remixed a version which is quite brilliant to – quite an honour.

The band consist of Jonathan Pearce on vocals, Jacob Graham  and Adam Kessler on guitars and Connor Hanwick (Billy McKenzie lookalike) on drums. Both Jacob and Jonathan had bands based around synthesizers for several years but decided a couple of years ago to switch to guitars, having never played them. Nonetheless, ‘Best Friend’ was written and dictated the vision and feel of the band and so the birth of The Drums in central Florida was formed.

They wasted little time on arrival in New York, playing furiously and relentless live shows, garnering rapid national radio play in the UK (BBC Radio 6’s Lauren Laverne is a big fan) and college radio in the USA.

This is a band that’s all about finding the simple timeless melody and their focus and vision, rather than surrounding culture, forms their unique sound.

Jonathan: ‘We just wanted to start a band and write simple songs without any experimentation. We all just decided to get together and get serious about it. So we started writing. We started off all living in one two bedroom apartment, one kitchen. Sometimes we’d rehearse there too!’

Jacob: ‘Our sounds are a culmination of hundreds of influences, subconsciously put into our music: Orange Juice, the Shangri Las – they just emerge as part of your musical personality. They’re already burnt into our creativity so we’re not thinking about it but I guess they do come out.’

Jacob: ‘Our writing and performing are linked together. We don’t want our songs to have a lot of fuss. The poetry kind of bubbles over into our live shows. We don’t want no bunch of strobes. Just want to keep it really simple and a powerful show.  We’ve always been drawn to songs that have a mystical quality to them. We like each song to be like a great movie or photograph. In pop music, you can say a lot with simplicity. You can pick it up. We don’t try to do anything unless it feels urgent to do. A lot of thinking is involved.’
Jonathan: ‘ We try to write it down as fast as we can, not wait around for it to happen. We get our ideas down in a frantic way. It’s all a process. Every song has been written and recorded in a day.’

A simple breath of fresh air.