What have you been filling the time with in 2020?
“Basically looking in the mirror and watching my hair grow in real time. I’ve been doing DIY – painting walls and all that shit. Playing a lot of video games, writing. It’s a weird time to be writing music, because it’s really hard to be inspired right now. You haven’t really got much driving you on. And we’ve just made a record! But during first lockdown everyone was like, ‘We have to use this time to be creative!’ But I find being in a pandemic is one of the most uninspiring things ever, and I wouldn’t want to write lockdown songs. Everyone’s going to be doing that and eventually they’ll all come out and it’ll be like, ‘Yeah, we get it.’ We have been writing here and there to keep flexing our muscle, but not a lot.”
You did your Halloween stream as well. How was it getting back “onstage”?
“It was fun. It was nice to feel kind of like we were back in the swing of things, if only for a brief moment, and in very different circumstances. It went down well, and it was fun doing something like that. It lifted the spirits a bit and we had a laugh, so it was definitely cool. I think getting back to playing shows is going to be physically tough, but the adrenaline will just push through that.”
Has this given you an opportunity for reflection and to learn anything?
“It fluctuates, really. On the one hand you feel like there’s so much time and so much to do, but on the other it throws a big spotlight on everything. So much of what we love about being in a band are things we can’t do at the minute. So it has allowed us to sit back and take stock a bit of what’s going on, and we’ve all done a lot of soul searching and thinking how we can be better and what this all means. Sometimes in a good way, sometimes not so good. But this hasn’t been an overwhelmingly positive experience for anyone – nobody’s gonna say, ‘This lockdown’s been amazing.’ But we’ve all had to practice some resilience and do some soul searching, and it’s tested everyone. It’s been… interesting. Being in a band is very yin-yang, and to have half of that taken away is strange.
“If I’m gonna be really honest, if you want to know if there’s been any benefit – absolutely not. It’s been absolute shit! It’s been the worst fucking year of our lives. I don’t actually think it has made us better people for the experience, just made us much more fucked for it. I just want it over.”
We appreciate your honesty!
“Well, I caught myself bullshitting there! I realised it was just waffle and bullshit. It fucking sucks. I appreciated what I have anyway, and now I can’t do that and it fucking sucks. The vaccine looks promising, but at this point I’m like, ‘Pump me full of whatever fucking microchip you’re going to put in it and let me get on with my life.’”