WHAT ARE YOUR NAMES
Atticus (that’s me doing the Q&A) (bass player & backing vox), Ash (guitar and main vox), Jack (drums).
WHAT IS THE BANDS NAME
Dig Lazarus.
HOW DID YOU COME UP WITH THE BANDS’NAME
There’s a Nick Cave song called Dig Lazarus Dig! (exclamation mark required!). When we were fooling around as teenagers, we heard that song and thought, damn that’s a cool name. So it stuck!
WHAT IS YOUR GENRE OF MUSIC
Rock! Hard rock I suppose, but we have songs that are sweeter-sounding too than that may suggest!
GIVE US A LITTLE BIO ABOUT YOU
I joined the band when I was 17 in 2011 or so. We wrote originals, did local gigs and festivals, and slowly have been working our way up the ladder ever since. In 2015 we won the Original Bands Showcase in Leicester, which was a big deal for us and really started us along the right track and meeting new people. Since then we’ve played with amazing bands, idols to us really, like SKAM, The Virginmarys, Tequila Mockinbyrd, The Brew.. the list goes on. We brought out an EP and video in 2016 called “Outlaw” which went down really well, so it’s onwards and upwards from here!
WHAT MADE YOU GO INTO MUSIC
Like many bass players (!), I started playing because someone asked me to be in their band, and I guess they couldn’t think of anyone better! So I did that when I was a teenager. Once I started playing however it became a bit of an addiction for me – though you won’t hear their influence in the band, I cut my chops learning the Red Hot Chili Peppers – as a bass player in rock, Flea really showed me how you could take the bass and put it on the frontline of a song, and that’s stuck with me over the years. By the the time I was 18 or so Ash and Jack had been playing together for a couple of years, so when they asked me to join, how could I resist.
ARE YOU SIGNED
Nope.
TELL US MORE ABOUT ‘TELL ME WHY’
Tell Me Why is about someone losing their way; straying from the right path. It’s about not really knowing where to turn, but having someone there to look out for you and ask the questions you need to be asked.
WHAT WAS THE WRITING PROCESS LIKE
Tell Me Why was the perfect storm for us: a simple catchy riff that basically fell out of our heads and with lyrics ready to boot. One of our golden rules when writing music is that if it’s taking more than 5 minutes to come up with something good, it’s never going to be right. I think Tell Me Why was finished within a week and a half of it’s inception. Sometimes we find everything is just there, ready to go, and that’s when we write our best songs.
WHAT WAS THE RECORDING PROCESS LIKE
Fun! I really like being in the studio. Pete and George (producer and engineer) are really great to be around and really helped capture the live performance feel of the song on tape. They really know their stuff and provided loads of ideas to take the track to the next level.
WHAT IS THE MESSAGE YOU WANT LISTENERS TO TAKE FROM THE SINGLE
Nothing complicated really – don’t be an idiot! It ain’t worth it in the long run.
DESCRIBE THE TRACK IN TWO WORDS
Grunge pop.
WHAT WAS THE NAMING PROCESS LIKE
Haha simple really. Tell Me Why is a repeated line throughout the verses so it seemed a natural title for the track – we try not to over complicate these things so if a title sounds good and works, we stick with it.
WHAT WAS THE INSPIRATION BEHIND THE VIDEO FOR TELL ME WHY
The main idea of us being at a car driving through the desert came from the film “Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas”; it’s a great movie. The idea of the three of us motoring across the states with the top down, listening to our favourite bands – to us that is what rock music should be all about.
WHY AN ANIMATED VIDEO
We’re very lucky to have some very talented artist friends who really jumped on the idea when we presented it to them. Before you know it they had it sketched up and we were away. The animated format adds a lot to the character of the track, and Josh (the artist) did a fantastic job capturing what we all look like – we love it.
DESCRIBE THE VIDEO IN TWO WORDS
Rock quest.
Watch the video below;
WILL WE SEE AN EP OR ALBUM SOON? AND IF SO, WHAT CAN WE EXPECT?
We plan to keep recording tracks over the next year or so as we work towards our first album. Hopefully that’ll be done sometime late next year, but we don’t want to rush it – it’ll be done when it’s done!
ANY SHOWS OR A TOUR IN PLANNING? IF SO WHERE?
Yes! We have a couple of big gigs this month: we’re at the Station in Cannock on 23rd November with Idlewar, and at the Flapper in Birmingham on November 29th with Smokin’ Martha, a great Australian band. After that in the new year we’re at the Giants of Rock festival 25th-27th January.
WHAT ELSE CAN WE EXPECT FROM YOU THIS YEAR?
The rest of this year is dedicated to promoting Tell Me Why! We’re really enjoying getting to play the song to new crowds and meeting new people.
ANY COLLABORATIONS COMING UP WITH OTHER ARTISTS, OR ARE YOU UP FOR IT? WHO WOULD THEY CONTACT?
No collaborations in the pipeline but it’s something we’d definitely be up for! We’d really like to experiment with other genres a bit, to see what we could learn both ways. Post Malone would be an awesome guy to work with! If anyone fancies it they can contact our email at dig_lazarus@live.co.uk.
DO YOU PLAY ANY INSTRUMENTS
Yes! I play bass guitar in the band.
WHO ARE YOUR INFLUENCES
Queens of the Stone Age, Kyuss, Clutch, Muse to name a few.
HOW DO YOU GET INSPIRATION TO WRITE SONGS
Usually it turns out we’ve all been listening to the same band for a little while, or we’ve all shared a song between us that we love. When we go to practice and start fooling around writing the basics, the influences of that song will be there in the music we write – it’s fun. The Probot song “I Am the Warlock” for instance massively shaped our song “The Joker”.
WHERE DO YOU SEE YOURSELF IN 5 YEARS
Playing a gig somewhere to anyone who will listen! Our hope is over the next five years to keep increasing our fan base, playing live in more places with more bands, writing new songs, and making new friends – for us, that’s really what it’s all about.
WHAT’S THE BEST ADVICE YOU’VE EVER BEEN GIVEN
Play to a click track! Our producer often says this and believe me, nothing makes you play better and tighter as a band than slaving away trying to play to a click track. Saves you a boat load of money too when it comes to recording!
WHAT SONG INFLUENCED YOU THE MOST TO DO MORE WITH MUSIC
“By the Way” by the Red Hot Chili Peppers – I heard that and thought, wow, a bass can sound like that?! I knew then that I wanted to play, learn, and then play some more.
IF YOU’RE NOT DOING MUSIC, WHAT DO YOU DO
I’m a post graduate student at the University of Birmingham! So that’s my day job.
WHAT ADVICE WOULD YOU GIVE ASPIRING MUSICIANS
Be smart with the money you earn! Invest what you get from playing back into the band and that way when it’s time to pay for things (recording, travel, or practice rooms) you won’t need to be personally shelling out each time. This is a big deal when you’re a cash strapped teenager, and in doing this we have never come up against the money woes I know many bands who have been playing as long as we have have had.
WHAT QUOTE OR SAYING DO YOU ALWAYS STICK BY
Gene Kranz has a good one: “Failure is not on option”. Keeps me focused anyway!
WHERE IN YOUR HOMETOWN IS A MUST VISIT
Pff now that is a hard one – I love my home town of Hinckley but it’s hardly the most happening place. If you had to go to one place… The Baron – a pub where all your dreams can come true, haha. A great venue for a few drinks!
YOU’RE COMING OFF TOUR: WHERE DO YOU GO FIRST? WHO DO YOU SEE FIRST? WHAT DO YOU EAT FIRST?
I go home! And collapse on bed, touring is the most exciting, energizing but completely exhausting thing you can do!
First person I see is probably my lovely girlfriend who’s great. As for food… something hearty like a Sunday roast usually hits the spot.
WHAT ARE 5 THINGS YOU CANNOT FORGET AT A GIG?
Guitar, leads, extension cables (you never know when you might need one), towel (things can get sweaty), and most importantly, duct tape!
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