DPS Re-draft

INTRO

Sprawled out on his girlfriend’s bed in Fallowfield Accommodation, Harrison Mortley’s presence doesn't go unnoticed. A perfect setting for the indie artist. The atmosphere is chilled in the prison like room. In his element, listening to the Smiths on quiet, I interview this gifted musician about; music, bondage and life as an outsider.

Interview

Red Shores started as a two piece in March with a mate from college, we were inspired by Royal Blood and Death From Above 1979 (drum & bass two pieces) so we covered their stuff and soon started to mess around with stuff I had written. Then I decided to pick up guitar and Red Shores as we know it was born.

Back in last September I decided that I would try my hand at joining a band, it seemed like the right thing to do as I had just started studying music performance at college.

I try to be as glam as possible with Red Shores. With my full goth makeup on. I try to be as interesting as possible, and people are noticing us and it's great. Bueno, that kind of amazing music lifestyle doesn't come until you're drowning in fame. But for me that's not what it's about, I like the fact that it's not glam, this is my own music and people appreciating that, even just one person acknowledging my music and enjoying it is the most rewarding feeling. 

Traveling in the car as a family, my parents always played music where ever we went; I remember Foo Fighters, The Streets, Angie Stone, Macie Grey, Massive Attack, Red Hot Chilli Peppers. A whole mix of stuff got played.

In secondary school I developed a fascination with 80’s pop music. Duran Duran, Japan; Go West’s first record was seminal to me. Naturally when the likes of Ladyhawke, La Roux and Robyn became popular on pop radio for their retro electronica sound I fell in love. However, like all angsty teenagers I soon discovered the likes of Paramore, My Chemical Romance and Fall Out Boy. With my declining mental health came increasingly emotional and depressing music until at my low point I almost exclusively listening to The Smiths, Joy Division and The Cure.

We’ve produced some songs where bondage definitely affects our sound, such as “Give something”. The lyrics are written to accompany the sound. On this track the guitar is throaty and gives a darker impression. So yeah, bondage does affect the sound of the music, but we don’t feature literal bondage sound affects such as “Master and Servant” by Depeche Mode or “Whip it” by Devo. You wouldn't be able to listen to one of our instrumental tracks and know it was about bondage. 

We’re in the throws of sorting out management and our first goal after this it to record a full length album, hopefully in March. We’re gonna spend January working on what we have and getting all the songs to a point at which we’re happy. Then February/March we will be recording. Hopefully to release in early summer.

“Give Something” is one of our most well received tracks. We played it for the first time last week and it went down really well, maybe it’s single material. There are  a couple of two parters that we’re really happy with. I personally like the bigger, more atmospheric tracks such as Mother Teresa.

Hopefully our sound is something that makes people want to close their eyes, roll their heads back and just move like animals. It can be serene and spiritual at times when we channel our emotional energy. Of course we can also sound filthy and gnarly too but it’s all about power and being heavy- both in tone and emotion. Describing what we sound like is kinda hard because we try our hardest not to sound like anyone else.

I decided that instead of doing my DPS interview as a Q&A format it'd be best to embed the questions which makes the interview flow more easily and targets a more adult audience. The Q&A format was too childish and patronising and most other magazines aimed at a more mature audience use the implied question format for interviews.