Let’s Talk Daggers [Interview]
If you love mad-as-a-lorry mathcore that makes as much sense as eating soup with a knife and fork, Let’s Talk Daggers are the band for you. Located somewhere between the Dillinger Escape Plan and Animals As Leaders side-project T.R.A.M., these guys have exactly what it takes to tantalise your neural connections – and they’re currently crowdfunding new album A Beautiful Life through PledgeMusic. TMMP caught up with LTD drummist Steven Berwick to chat about crowdfunding, creativity, football pits, and bucket lists…
Your new album A Beautiful Life is the subject of a PledgeMusic campaign. What motivated you to take the crowdfunding route for this release?
We decided to use PledgeMusic to help fund the album because we’d heard from various sources that it was not only a great way to introduce new and old listeners to what we had to offer, but it also meant that we were able to reach our audience in a way that we hadn’t before.
It’s been going really well and I think our fans are excited about what they’re going to hear.
What can the curious expect from the new album?
A Beautiful Life is a much more forward-thinking, mature version of our previous releases and we feel, of course, that it’s our strongest sounding music to date.
There’s more variety and a lot more that listeners can relate to.
An inebriated stranger staggers up to you in a bar and demands to know “What yer bandy thing shoundsh like”. How do you respond?
We get compared to a lot of different bands that we don’t necessarily listen to, so it’s quite hard to give someone a good impression just by telling them. I’d probably say that we’re a blend of all the good bits in heavier music and that our sound is unique. Then I’d say “It’s basically like really futuristic and you’d be forgiven for assuming we were all brought up in individual isolation.”
What’s your origin story? How did Let’s Talk Daggers get together?
We all grew up with music in one way or another, and we ended up all meeting in secondary school at various times throughout our time there. Me and Will were in the same year and we’d played together a little, then Jim found us a bit later and we played in different versions of bands for a few years. We’d only been together as a three-piece for a couple of years before properly trying to go somewhere with our music. We then met Andrej from Tangled Talk and the rest is his story.
You have a bit of a reputation on the live circuit. What’s the craziest thing that’s ever happened at a LTD show?
Thank you for that first of all. I like to think we give our all at every show. We played a show in Canterbury once and a bunch of our mates came and brought a football with them and it was the most sport-based pit I’ve witnessed personally. It smashed about 20 glasses and about 20 pairs of glasses.
What makes a good live show?
Energy.
What’s your creative process like? How does a Let’s Talk Daggers track go from idea to reality?
We almost never write a song starting with lyrics. Will or Jim will come to practice with an idea, a riff or something else and we’ll just jam. Kind of like how I imagine most people playing in a band like us do. It’d be difficult for one of us to finish a song and have the other two be completely happy with how it went. We are all with such creative minds and it makes it a little tricky to set something in stone but at the same time, it means we’re all pushing the best of our ideas into the same track.
How has your sound evolved over the course of writing and recording the new album?
To be honest it hasn’t really changed all too much. It’s become a little more mature like I said before, but the fundamental sounds and ideas are still there as we’re all putting everything we can into each song. In a way, I suppose our growing tastes in music are adding or changing to the way we play and hear things so I guess there are those aspects to it.
Music is a tough world. What’s the most difficult thing about being in a band? What keeps you motivated?
It’s easy to say that the money doesn’t matter, but working a full-time job and trying to keep the band alive takes its toll. As long as we’re passionate about the live show and our individual instruments, we’re happy. Knowing that people are excited about we do and want to hear what we have to offer next is just an added bonus.
Beyond the album campaign, what does the future hold?
We’ll pretty much just see what happens. We want to tour in Europe again, and we’re doing really well with writing for another release already. We also want to sign with Sony and have Bentleys bought for us. Also, to be given loads of Taco Bell vouchers.
What items remain on your bucket list?
Private Jet.
Private Helicopter.
Play at Download Festival.
Play at Reading Festival.
Personalised dog-tags.
Play at the Playboy Mansion.
Swim/play with dolphins/The Dolphins.
World peace.
Weird piece.
Wild plaice.
Embroidery lessons.
Links / Video
A Beautiful Life can be pre-ordered via PledgeMusic here.
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