AÑO: 5 | NÚMERO 48
THE 13th UN A R E V IS TA IM A GINA RIA
THE DEATH NOTES WE’RE JUST NORMAL PEOPLE LIVING NORMAL LIVES
[ Interview with Jamie Laws and Martin Bradley from The Death Notes by Benjamín York ]
WE’RE JUST NORMAL PEOPLE LIVING NORMAL LIVES
3 The Death Notes is a quintet from Nottingham, England, formed a decade ago. Within the framework of Post-Punk they know how to make deep songs with that dark and beautiful climate characteristic of the bands of that side of the Atlantic. They have just released a new EP called "The Black EP" that in five songs transports us to different moods, which come together in an intense and deep work. We communicate with them to know them...
Hello and thank you for letting us ask these questions. To begin, what are the Death Notes? Jamie: A group of five people (for a short time it was four people) who just make the music they want to make and don’t have to answer to anyone.
Martin: We had so much material at one point and when I looked at the songs I had the idea of grouping them together with a colour to match the mood of the music. The Black EP is definitely a very fitting title for that set of songs.
There is not much information about the How is the name of the band born? band on the web, is this situation delibeJamie: In the early days we had a brains- rately? torm session. Everyone came up with sugJamie: Not really. I guess we are quite privagestions of names for the band and we wrote te people though. There probably isn’t much a big list of names. We crossed off the ones to tell either. We’re just normal people living that were already on myspace (thats how normal lives holding down normal jobs to pay long ago this was). Then the list was read out our bills and on evenings and weekends we one by one and we voted on which name we write and play the music we want to play. It liked best. “The Death Notes” was the winner doesn’t really hold a candle to the rock and Martin: I think it was actually Jamie’s sug- roll excesses of yesteryear that we grew up gestion to use the Death Notes, and being a reading about in the NME. big fan of the Japanese Anime and the films, I I remember in the early days when we got to thought it was a good choice. I loved the idea play Whitby Goth Weekend sitting behind the of the Death Note being a book you could wri- merchandise table and lots of people wanted te someones name into it and then they die 40 us to sign their copies of our new Album. All I minutes later as a very original concept. Plus could think was on Monday I’m going to be sat the films are very good. behind a desk doing an office job why would you want my autograph. They just released The Black EP, after Martin: None of the band are show offs or their "The White EP", what is the reason ‘big personalities’ and are all very grounded for these works? Because I imagine there people. We all love playing music and find it is a reason planned. therapeutic (well I do anyway). I would rather Jamie: Martin wanted to release a trilogy of people just love the music rather than want different coloured EPs with different colours posters of us on their walls. representing different feelings.
The Black EP has five songs and I would like if you do a track by track.
Gift Of Fear Jamie: This has been a favourite to play live for a long time. It’s great to play this long slow 7 minute dirge of a song get everyone relaxed then immediately knock the crowd over the head with something quick and loud like akuphaze. The sci-fi sound that comes in at the end of the track (aka the Doctor Who effect) is the sound of a Korg Monotron Delay being turned on with the delay knobs set high so it starts feeding back without any notes being played. Martin: The lyrics are also a rage against the multinational drug companies who make billions from additive medication that is supposed to help people with mental health conditions but cannot allow the user to function without it. Although this medication may be ‘helpful’, the long term dependency on it can have a huge impact on the user’s life
without any support from the drug companies other than to keep the drug supply. Evolver Jamie: The short sharp track from the EP. This was the first track we recorded with Mike. He also played on Syncretise. We already had versions of both of the tracks recorded but I pushed to have them both re-recorded live as a band to try and capture the bands new live sound. I think both tracks turned out great. Closer to Truth Jamie: This is one of the songs we recorded a while ago when we were between bass players. Mark plays bass on it. He’s a man of many talents. It’s a track that we’ve only every played in the studio and never played live. Martin: Love how this track ended up. In my opinion this has one of Mark’s best vocal
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performances.
definitely a treat for the ears.
Syncretize Jamie: This is probably my favourite track from the EP. We took a different approach to recording this EP. We did live recordings as a band at Psyrex Soundlab (Martin did guitar overdubs there as well), Mark has a set up at his house where he did all his vocal overdubs and I recorded additional synth tracks in my home studio as well. Then we sent everything off to Adam Whittaker In Romania who mixed the tracks for us. Syncretize was the track we gave Adam to do a test mix for us (to see if everyone wanted to use him for the whole project) and when I heard it I was blown away by the results. Martin: This is also my favourite track on the EP. A lot of time was spent in getting that guitar sound right so that when it kicks in for the crescendo that you need to feel it. Is
Theme Jamie: This was taken from an old recording from years ago. The drum track is me finger drumming on a little Korg Kaossilator run through a string of cheap guitar pedals. I played that live along with Martins guitar part. We practice in a little recording studio in Nottingham called Psyrex Soundlab and we got Mark P who owns the studio to record this for us before one of our practice sessions. The other synthesisers were added recently to make the track sound even more gloomy. Martin: We were hoping to have a guest vocal on the track with our good friend Justin from Feeding Fingers, but he was not able to spare the time due to the promotion work for their last album. However, I think it still works as a good instrumental track so we left it like that.
Now that you have edited the EP, there are new songs? Jamie: No new songs with The Death Notes. While we were working on the EP we seemed to have had a string of bad luck away from the band. My partner was diagnosed with a brain tumour. Other people had family problems & personal issues. So we aren’t working on new material at the moment. The Death Notes is on hold. Martin: it has been a difficult few years for various members of the band and we are now just having a break until things can get back to normal. What plans do you have for this 2018? Jamie: I’m in a new band called Hurtsfall with Mike. It’s got similar post punk influences to The Death Notes but more electronic and its a touch more poppy. New Order to The Death Notes Joy Division. We’ve just started gigging and we’ve been getting a great response. I’d imagine well probably have a single or possibly an EP ready to share with the world by the end of the year. We are on Facebook as well. Martin: I have a new project called After Daylight which is exploring more ‘shoegazy/dream pop’ avenues that is hinted upon in Syncretize. I have a few demos online on Bandcamp and YouTube if you want to check them out. I hope to have an album out either later this year or early 2019. There is also a Facebook page to check out for further details. Finally, there is something that you have not asked us to tell us? Jamie: I originally joined the band because Martin (who I’d been friends with for years) was having trouble finding a bass player for his band. He knew I had played keyboards growing up “You can play bass notes on a keyboard can’t you?”. For me that was the beginning. Martin: We have always designed our own record covers. Thank you so much guys!!!
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The13th U NA R EVISTA IMA GINA RIA