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music
Delphic
Electronic Heart
"With the amount of technology that we have on stage the main fear is that something random is going to go wrong, because when something goes wrong it could be one of 100 things." Delphic
From the depths of Manchester come Delphic. When they’re not blowing circuits in London clubs they’re playing international festivals or touring with Bloc Party. Since their appearance on Channel M Music’s “…In Session” in April 2008, Delphic have released the single Counterpoint, with second single This Momentary coming out August 31st. They’ve recently signed up to Modular Records and have an album in the works with producer Ewan Pearson for early 2010 release – all in all, not too bad for a group whose second ever gig was only 18 months ago.
Matt Cocksedge, Delphic’s guitarist, grabbed his morning coffee and opened up about nepotism, nerves and the things that go wrong.
Matt Cocksedge, Delphic’s guitarist, grabbed his morning coffee and opened up about nepotism, nerves and the things that go wrong.
Your “big break” was on Channel M Music and you’d only played one gig before that. How did that happen?
Well, it was a bit of nepotism… the producer on the show, Dan Parrot, we know, so, you know, we were together and playing around and stuff and he came down to hear us play and liked what he heard and kind of asked us to come on the show… we said, give us a month to practice and kind of get things together, and… that’s it.
When do we get to listen to the album?
Well, we’re hoping to release early next year, we’re not entirely sure. Basically about 80 per cent of the album is done, the tracking and stuff, at the moment we’re just grabbing Ewan [Pearson, producer] when we can, when we've both got time, to just kind of put the finishing touches to it, give it that extra 20 per cent. We’re still debating the title… a few ideas, but we’re keeping tight lips. I always feel bad when I say this… but it’s all part of the mystery, I guess.
You and Rick were in a band previously but Delphic is a big step away from what you were doing there… what happened?
We kind of thought the music scene was mulling and sort of getting a bit comfortable. So we wanted to kind of change things up we thought in this previous band we were kind of writing songs for other people, you know, rather than kind of writing what we enjoyed doing and what we wanted to hear, so we decided to, I don't know, cut the crap, if you like and just get through to what we wanted to do and the kind of music we wanted to make… So we basically started Delphic and we spent just about six months just kind of writing and we got done in just after that - James has been in Delphic since the beginning when Rick and I disbanded the old band we knew James and knew he had a good voice so we got him in... and began writing.
Is it anything goes when Delphic set out to write? What’s the process?
It's an incredibly hard process. One of us will come up with an idea and basically, we write the music on laptops, so the heart of it is all very electronic and laptop based, but then we take it down to the prac room and work it out there, how to play these electronic songs with more of a traditional live band set up and a few synthesisers, which is a challenge. But it's good because it allows the song to evolve... When you add the organic elements to the electronics it can produce some quite interesting, nice results and from there it's just a question of hammering it out and just spending a lot of time on the details and building it correctly.
It's a difficult thing, the three of us are all very opinionated… But it's good I think, it's kind of a quality control process, we have to go through... We know if we've got something that the three of us are happy with and we're all really into we're hopefully onto something good, because we all kind of come from slightly different musical backgrounds, you know, what we're into varies, so when the three of us sink in on something then it gets worked on.
What’s it like touring with Bloc Party?
It's great, they're really, really great guys and musically, I have a lot of respect for them. Their first album was incredible. It's always nice playing with them, standing by the side and watching them… we went on tour with BP in Europe in February so it was quite early on as far as Delphic were concerned so we were really lucky to go out. Going out there and getting our heads down and opening up for this really good, credible band and... Well, it's a bit of pressure.
Moments when we've been inspired by BP in our song writing came to the fore, I think... but it was a great experience and we're going out to Japan with them in November - we've actually just come back from Japan, we were playing the Summer Sonic Festival and had a great time… We can't wait to go back out there and with Bloc Party, it's even more exciting.
What goes on backstage before you play a gig?
We're not one of those bands that kind of, have the huddle before we go on stage or anything like that... I think we probably all have our own little individual routines. I like to listen to music... I think it's important get your head in the right frame of mind and I think the music helps with that, but generally some pacing around occurs... But we're kind of getting less nervous as we do more gigs.
With the amount of technology that we have on stage the main fear is that something random is going to go wrong because when something goes wrong it could be one of like, 100 things so, our back line tech Ben, I always feel quite sorry for him because if something goes down, he's running around on stage kind of, trying to fix it while we're kind of trying to play and keep cool about it so that's mainly where the nerves come from - but we enjoy playing.
I mean, we love the writing element of it all but when you go out and play to people - especially if we did manage to get over to Australia - we've have some really good experiences playing, we played a really good festival in Portugal... It's amazing when you go to these foreign countries and you've got kids singing back words at your from songs of yours... it's quite a surreal thing, but it's nice.
So has anything ever gone seriously wrong?
Well, we had a couple of power cuts the other day - we were playing at a gig in London and we were using with this new light set-up, because we're really into lights and trying to time it all in time with the music and stuff like that, and a friend of ours had this midi light box, which meant we could control 6 and 7 and strip lights and turn it on and off…
Basically we'd programmed it all up and plugged it all in and we're using it at this gig for the first time and we started playing the set and about 30 seconds in the whole thing just went "poof" and blackness all around, and it was just like, oh dear, um... so the venue people, them running around for like 20 minutes trying to find the circuit breakers and things like that... eventually they turned it back on, we went back on stage and started playing again and ten seconds into it, "poof" it just all went down again, which was a bit awkward.
We basically just unplugged the lights and started again and it was ok, but from that moment on we try to run the lights off a separate power. I mean, it's always just one of those things you've just got to hope it's all set up right and a lead doesn't randomly go, but it's tricky because we're not one of those bands where if it all goes down we can just whip out a few acoustic guitars and have a sing-along, we're kind of about electronic in that way.
You’ve got a few short film clips on your Youtube page, do you do them yourself?
Apart from the official videos for the singles, we do them ourselves... It's just something we've always been into doing, you know? The artists we respect are people like Bjork, Bowie and Kraftwerk who really encompass the whole word of being an artist rather than just a musician, per say.
I think in this day and age, when people are logging on to your website and stuff like that, it's something that we have fun doing and we kind of bought a video camera and thought, why not? It's all three of us really, we're just equally involved in everything that we do and those little films are just a way of getting more out, but I mean some of them we just do because they're a laugh... it's all well and good having your arty, pretentious stuff, but we like to mix it up every now and again.
This Momentary will be released August 31st. Pre-order your copy at delphic.cc
Back
Well, it was a bit of nepotism… the producer on the show, Dan Parrot, we know, so, you know, we were together and playing around and stuff and he came down to hear us play and liked what he heard and kind of asked us to come on the show… we said, give us a month to practice and kind of get things together, and… that’s it.
When do we get to listen to the album?
Well, we’re hoping to release early next year, we’re not entirely sure. Basically about 80 per cent of the album is done, the tracking and stuff, at the moment we’re just grabbing Ewan [Pearson, producer] when we can, when we've both got time, to just kind of put the finishing touches to it, give it that extra 20 per cent. We’re still debating the title… a few ideas, but we’re keeping tight lips. I always feel bad when I say this… but it’s all part of the mystery, I guess.
You and Rick were in a band previously but Delphic is a big step away from what you were doing there… what happened?
We kind of thought the music scene was mulling and sort of getting a bit comfortable. So we wanted to kind of change things up we thought in this previous band we were kind of writing songs for other people, you know, rather than kind of writing what we enjoyed doing and what we wanted to hear, so we decided to, I don't know, cut the crap, if you like and just get through to what we wanted to do and the kind of music we wanted to make… So we basically started Delphic and we spent just about six months just kind of writing and we got done in just after that - James has been in Delphic since the beginning when Rick and I disbanded the old band we knew James and knew he had a good voice so we got him in... and began writing.
Is it anything goes when Delphic set out to write? What’s the process?
It's an incredibly hard process. One of us will come up with an idea and basically, we write the music on laptops, so the heart of it is all very electronic and laptop based, but then we take it down to the prac room and work it out there, how to play these electronic songs with more of a traditional live band set up and a few synthesisers, which is a challenge. But it's good because it allows the song to evolve... When you add the organic elements to the electronics it can produce some quite interesting, nice results and from there it's just a question of hammering it out and just spending a lot of time on the details and building it correctly.
It's a difficult thing, the three of us are all very opinionated… But it's good I think, it's kind of a quality control process, we have to go through... We know if we've got something that the three of us are happy with and we're all really into we're hopefully onto something good, because we all kind of come from slightly different musical backgrounds, you know, what we're into varies, so when the three of us sink in on something then it gets worked on.
What’s it like touring with Bloc Party?
It's great, they're really, really great guys and musically, I have a lot of respect for them. Their first album was incredible. It's always nice playing with them, standing by the side and watching them… we went on tour with BP in Europe in February so it was quite early on as far as Delphic were concerned so we were really lucky to go out. Going out there and getting our heads down and opening up for this really good, credible band and... Well, it's a bit of pressure.
Moments when we've been inspired by BP in our song writing came to the fore, I think... but it was a great experience and we're going out to Japan with them in November - we've actually just come back from Japan, we were playing the Summer Sonic Festival and had a great time… We can't wait to go back out there and with Bloc Party, it's even more exciting.
What goes on backstage before you play a gig?
We're not one of those bands that kind of, have the huddle before we go on stage or anything like that... I think we probably all have our own little individual routines. I like to listen to music... I think it's important get your head in the right frame of mind and I think the music helps with that, but generally some pacing around occurs... But we're kind of getting less nervous as we do more gigs.
With the amount of technology that we have on stage the main fear is that something random is going to go wrong because when something goes wrong it could be one of like, 100 things so, our back line tech Ben, I always feel quite sorry for him because if something goes down, he's running around on stage kind of, trying to fix it while we're kind of trying to play and keep cool about it so that's mainly where the nerves come from - but we enjoy playing.
I mean, we love the writing element of it all but when you go out and play to people - especially if we did manage to get over to Australia - we've have some really good experiences playing, we played a really good festival in Portugal... It's amazing when you go to these foreign countries and you've got kids singing back words at your from songs of yours... it's quite a surreal thing, but it's nice.
So has anything ever gone seriously wrong?
Well, we had a couple of power cuts the other day - we were playing at a gig in London and we were using with this new light set-up, because we're really into lights and trying to time it all in time with the music and stuff like that, and a friend of ours had this midi light box, which meant we could control 6 and 7 and strip lights and turn it on and off…
Basically we'd programmed it all up and plugged it all in and we're using it at this gig for the first time and we started playing the set and about 30 seconds in the whole thing just went "poof" and blackness all around, and it was just like, oh dear, um... so the venue people, them running around for like 20 minutes trying to find the circuit breakers and things like that... eventually they turned it back on, we went back on stage and started playing again and ten seconds into it, "poof" it just all went down again, which was a bit awkward.
We basically just unplugged the lights and started again and it was ok, but from that moment on we try to run the lights off a separate power. I mean, it's always just one of those things you've just got to hope it's all set up right and a lead doesn't randomly go, but it's tricky because we're not one of those bands where if it all goes down we can just whip out a few acoustic guitars and have a sing-along, we're kind of about electronic in that way.
You’ve got a few short film clips on your Youtube page, do you do them yourself?
Apart from the official videos for the singles, we do them ourselves... It's just something we've always been into doing, you know? The artists we respect are people like Bjork, Bowie and Kraftwerk who really encompass the whole word of being an artist rather than just a musician, per say.
I think in this day and age, when people are logging on to your website and stuff like that, it's something that we have fun doing and we kind of bought a video camera and thought, why not? It's all three of us really, we're just equally involved in everything that we do and those little films are just a way of getting more out, but I mean some of them we just do because they're a laugh... it's all well and good having your arty, pretentious stuff, but we like to mix it up every now and again.
This Momentary will be released August 31st. Pre-order your copy at delphic.cc
Back
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