aaamusic | On 01, Dec 2014

Who are you and where are you from?

We’re Dems, from South London. Dan, who I was living with in 2010, started stealing my guitar to produce songs in his bedroom, which formed a very rough, early version of the eventual Dems sound. A year later, when we were all in London, Dan asked me and Dave (his old school friend) to work with him, initially in taking the show live… and Dems was born.

What inspired you to get into music?

We all have musical backgrounds and have been in bands since we were at school, and listened to all sorts of genres growing up. So Dems has been a pretty organic extension of our musical interests, whether it’s garage, indie, soul or classical.

What have you done?

Muscle Memory, our album, is unquestionably our best achievement. It’s the culmination of years spent honing our sound and working with great people. It’s amazing to finally get it out there, particularly given the great reception it’s had.

What are you like live?

The live show is really important to us. We like to play almost everything live, and we tend to collaborate with people – choirs, orchestra, visual effects – which all makes for a fun show. In terms of tours, we had a lot of fun travelling to Texas for SXSW this year, but now we’re just really excited to play the new album live around the UK over the coming months.

What makes you different?

The breadth and depth of sound in the album is what’s most interesting. Also, we work hard to produce a coherent visual character to go with the music. Everything from the live show, to the recorded music and the visual artwork has an identity we’re really happy with and want to share with people.

Physical vs Downloading vs Streaming…How do you listen to music?

It’s a mix actually. I stream a lot, but we often send each other links on songdrop/email, or if there’s a good visual element to the music, we’ll send YouTube links etc.

Dan is slowly building a decent vinyl collection, which I must admit I’m a little jealous of.

What have you been listening to?

As I write this, I’m listening to FKA Twigs’ LP1, which I’m still enjoying, although I’m annoyed I didn’t catch her live with Dave who went recently – as I’ve been meaning to for over a year, and I understand it’s a pretty incredible show.

What are your aspirations for the future?

We’re really excited about taking the album live. Translating things for a show is a lot of fun, and it’s great to see a direct reaction to your music, rather than the silent, internal pleasure experienced between the headphones. Then writing more, recording more, exploring new sounds and collaborating with talented people.

Questions answered by: Duncan of Dems…